Guiness World Records – more readily associated with hotdog eating contests, and very large pumpkins – has recognised something quite remarkable in the world of professional AV: the ‘Largest High Definition Video Wall’.
Standing over 15 metres tall and 60 metres wide (a whopping 556.1sqm in all), ‘The Big Picture’ is located inside the main lobby and entrance to Singapore’s Suntec Exhibition and Convention Centre and is fast becoming a major attraction in an of itself. Combining 664 55-inch full HD LED screens from LG Electronics, The Big Picture boasts 84 times the resolution of full HD, or, if you like, 21 times that of Ultra High Definition resolution. Wrangling the content and managing the millions of pixels (32,051 pixels wide by 7941 pixels high!) for 16 hours each day, are 21 Watchout display servers from Dataton.
The Big Picture acts as a standalone exhibit allowing a combination of multiple media such as still images, animations and video clips to be shown simultaneously or a single media image in native format to be displayed over the entire wall.
Interactive features are integrated, with RFID tracking systems and sensors on the escalators located just in front of The Big Picture. With these integrated sensory systems, The Big Picture can be adapted to display welcome messages, or show specialised content alongside riders on the escalator from Levels 1 to 3.
Mr Oh, Technical Manager, LGE Singapore explains: “The Big Picture is controlled and operated by three major subsystems which are the video wall, playback, integration and control. Playback manages content and the principle of the design is to support multi-display and 4K images from 21 Watchout display servers, serving 84 full HD outputs. The integration and control system acts to control The Big Picture and servers, turning them on or off as required. It also manages playback where a part of a show at a specific time can be selected or it can be used to manage interactive content.”
Content for the system can be updated according to the exhibition taking place. It also uses a variety of ultra-high resolution content from Suntec Singapore and its advertisers. Lasanthi Bandara, manager, audio-visual technology and content at Suntec Singapore explains: “Watchout is being used to primarily display content on all 664 screens seamlessly. Content is also designed, animated, and produced within the Watchout system itself. There was no other feasible and scalable technology available in the market that could enable us to create such high definition display. Watchout was selected because of its primary capability to display synchronised content on multiple screens.”
Bernard Ng, digital creative curator at Suntec Singapore elaborates: “Audio, video and graphic content are used together to create spectacular showcases and presentations on The Big Picture. The design challenge here is simply the immense size of our entire screen. Producing and rendering videos and animations at this scale is incredible but potentially time consuming. However, production time is greatly reduced by maximising Watchout’s ability in allowing us to create amazing content directly within the system itself. For content management, Watchout allows content to be stored and managed in media containers with auxiliary timelines. This allows my team to manually organise and manage content according to scheduling and requirements.”
Operationally there are benefits to Suntec, such as reduced costs and increased advertising revenue that assist the centre’s bottom line. But let’s not kid ourselves, The Big Picture is all about the ‘wow’. Indeed, Suntec Singapore is delighted with its reception on multiple social media platforms (tagging Suntec Singapore as their check-in location), along with the newspaper and media coverage, as well as interest from filmmakers.
Interactive Controls (Dataton): (02) 9436 3022 or www.interactivecontrols.com.au
LG Electronics: (02) 8805 4409 or www.lg.com.au/commercial
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