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MillimeterBlended Video Displays Benefit from ”Show Me” Strategy
Feb 28, 2006 11:23 AM, John McKeon
Jeff Studley, president of CPR Multimedia Solutions (www.cprmms.com) in Gaithersburg, MD, has faced a vexing marketing dilemma lately that he thinks is increasingly commonplace among high end event staging and AV rental companies.
One of the most impressive and effective tools in the company’s arsenal -- super-wide, bright, high resolution projected images created by multiple projectors supported by edge-blending technology -- was frustratingly difficult to sell to clients.
“We would try to explain it, send the client two or three static pictures of other jobs, and talk about it on the phone,” Studley says. “If we could once get them up here, they’d be sold,” he adds, referring to getting clients into the company’s headquarters for a demo.
In fact, actually showing clients the impact and possibilities of edge-blended video displays was so important CPR turned part of its facility into a demo center, built out to look like a trade show exhibit hall. The results have been impressive, Studley reports. “I yet to do a demo where the client hasn’t signed on,” he says.
What CPR and other staging specialists are selling is an increasingly popular projection strategy in which two, three or more high brightness projectors are arrayed side by side to cover a rear projection screen that can be as much as 60 or 70 feet wide.
The images projected on these huge screens appear seamless, even though their width far exceeds what any single projector can create. The secret is edge blending, a technology that began to appear on the market several years ago in third-party signal processing systems designed to work with one or more of the leading large-venue projector lines, including Barco, Christie and Digital Projection.
Mike Levi, president of Digital Projection, Inc. (www.digitalprojection.com) notes there are two kinds of edge blending. In “hard edge matching,” the last column or row of pixels from one projector is precisely aligned with the first column or row of pixels from the second. This technique has been the norm for video-wall cubes, for example.
Hard edge matching makes some daunting demands of projectors, though, including perfect color uniformity, flat luminance, and perfect optical performance.
A soft edge blend, on the other hand, is achieved by overlapping the images and allowing a more gradual transition from one projector to the next. This technique is more forgiving and, Levi says, can deliver a really “immersive” video experience.
For corporate sales meetings, conventions, annual meetings and similar events, soft edge blending allows creation of some video environments that are not only impressive but also practical.
For one thing, a blended multi-projector display lends itself to almost limitless varieties of aspect ratios, windows, and other subdivisions of the pixel real estate. Levi points out clients may particularly benefit from edge blended displays if their creative strategies call for “screen aspect ratios or shapes that cannot be effectively created with a single projector, or screen size or brightness requirements that cannot be met by a single projector.”
Moreover, Levi adds, the blended image allows “creativity to lead the design of a display system, rather than allowing the native aspect ratio of the projection system to dictate design boundaries.”
Although the additional projectors and processors create some added up-front costs, Studley notes that “you can handle all kinds of setups with one array of projectors.” For example, the same stage setup can make an easy transition from supporting IMAG and Powerpoints at a plenary session to projecting atmospheric images for an evening social event -- “without stage hands, without carpenters,” Studley says.
“We’re not selling snake oil,” he adds. “This is a really cool thing that can save them money and really add to their show. They need to consider not just the video budget but the lighting budget, the labor budget, and so on.”
All of this arithmetic can quickly overcome a client’s resistance to added hardware costs, Studley says, but first the client needs to see the possibilities created by the new techniques. But most clients still have to experience the image first hand. “People need to be able to ask questions, and see how easy it can be,” he says.
Levi agrees, observing that if the display proposal is thoughtfully matched to the client’s needs, “customers tend to sell themselves on it. We find the acceptance and preference for a blended array is very high.”
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.