LumenAd, a Seville-based advertising company, recently acquired two Christie Crimson laser projectors to use in its projects with digital out-of-home (DOOH) media.

Under the name Big Brand (aimed at major brands that wish to reinforce their image by identifying with values like respect for the environment, quality and innovation), LumenAd now offers video projection for outdoor advertising as an alternative to conventional platforms (paper, vinyl, canvas and LED).

Alfonso Callejas, CEO at LumenAd, explains: “In addition to the size, image quality and versatility, the video projection ensures impeccable visualization in DOOH projects, and also affords other major benefits in terms of environmental sustainability and its non-aggressive integration in the urban landscape.”

The company uses the two Christie Crimson projectors in a DOOH installation on the facade of Galia Nervión, a well-known building located in the heart of Seville’s main shopping district.

The screen is strategically placed at the crossroads of two of the city’s main avenues, which is a high traffic area frequented by vehicles and pedestrians.

From a technical viewpoint, LumenAd says the installation is an international milestone given its complexity and novelty. There are three buildings involved: two of them host the projectors on their rooftops while the third (Galia Nervión) acts as a screen. The equipment is not visible and does not occupy the public space.

The result is a “full motion” screen covering 460 square meters (40 meters wide by 11.5 meters high) with a resolution of 3840 x 1080 pixels, which covers part of the building’s east and south façades. Together, the two Crimson projectors with WUXGA resolution (1920 x 1200) produce 50,000 lumens.

Besides the actual projector itself, one of the two “projector buildings” also houses the equipment for content playback and the monitoring and control systems, all of which are automated and remotely controlled. To synchronize the two screens, the video signal is relayed wirelessly to the second projector, producing one single screen split down the middle by 90 degrees at the corner of the building.

To protect the projectors outdoors, LumenAd designed a special casing that accounts for factors including humidity, ventilation and waterproofing. The throw distance of the two projectors to the screen is approximately 50 meters, and the distance between the projectors is 90 meters. The screen can be visualized from 10 to 300 meters.

Some of the brands which have already used the support are Telepizza, Motorola, Vodafone, McDonalds, and Beefeater.

The LumenAd CEO explained why they decided to opt for Christie Crimson 3DLP technology laser projectors: “I would say that the main reason is the lamp consumption. Calculator in hand, if you bear in mind that the installation is operating an average of five hours a day, 365 days a year, you would need 4.5 lamps (400 hours, without taking them to their limit). The Crimson’s 20,000 hours of operation, even reducing it by half, means a big saving on running costs, and if you multiply that by two, as is our case, then the savings are even greater.”

He added: “Apart from the issue of the lamps, we also looked at the requirements for power consumption and ventilation, which are less in the Crimson as compared with the Roadster; this was very important for us, considering that we are operating outdoors, inside our own self-designed casing, and it allows us to better control issues like humidity. I was also swayed by the precision of the electronics, the built-in Christie Twist, and the much more complete information on the projector like temperatures, and the preview screen.”

Go Seville’s LumenAd Goes for Christie Projectors for DOOH

Go Christie Crimson 3DLP

It was the deal that was supposed to set an example.

Now that example is a “how-not-to” instead of a how-to.

LinkNYC is a first-of-its-kind communications network replacing New York City pay phones with state-of-the-art kiosks called “Links.” Each Link provides free services like high-speed Wi-Fi, phone calls, a tablet for maps and city services, and device charging.

Link’s services are free to the public and come at no cost to taxpayers because it funds the deployment and maintenance by selling advertising on the kiosks' 55" displays. The company behind LinkNYC is CityBridge (under a franchise agreement granted by the City of New York).

But CityBridge stopped installing Links in the autumn of 2018, says New York City’s new commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

That left New York City with just 1800 Link kiosks, not the 4500 originally projected to be installed by mid-2019. And many of the Links that haven’t been installed were meant to service low-income neighborhoods, where residents are in greater need of free internet access.

And NYC is angry. “New Yorkers who'd benefit most from this service are not getting it, including thousands of people who live in districts that many of you represent, because CityBridge is delinquent,” the department’s commissioner, Jessica Tisch, told the City Council.

LinkNYC was also supposed to share ad revenue (an expected half a billion US dollars for New York City).

Uh, that didn’t exactly happen either.

“CityBridge owes the City tens of millions of dollars, going back to [fiscal year] 19,” Tisch testified to City Council. “All of this is against the backdrop of millions of dollars in advertising revenue that CityBridge has reported they received over the same time period.”

It’s all the worse because CityBridge is a group of companies that includes Intersection, Qualcomm and CIVIQ Smartscapes. Even Google is an investor (via Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs).

Link has supposedly invested $250 million to build out the kiosk network and provided more than $225 million in free wireless data to New Yorkers and its visitors.

In 2018, New York City had to agree to give the consortium more time to build out the network and share revenue with the city. In return, CityBridge promised it would be “on sound financial footing and fully capable of performing all remaining obligations under the agreement.”

But for the past year CityBridge has been trying to amend its agreement with City Hall-- again.

"CityBridge is working with the City of New York on a plan to address the financial viability of LinkNYC,” a CityBridge spokesperson said in a statement.

That means no money until a new agreement is negotiated or the existing one is enforced legally.

In fairness to CityBridge, there were some unexpected problem in setting up this smart city service. Soon after the kiosks began appearing on city sidewalks, in 2016, the city administration requested to unplug internet access-- in response to the volume of pornography being viewed on city sidewalks. And the large advertising screens have been repeatedly vandalized while some critics questioned the privacy issues around the data collected from passersby.

It seems the dream of city administrators for a smart city may be require smarter, more responsible citizens (and tourists).

Yet the public kiosk business has years of experience dealing with a wide range of citizen abuse and CityBridge should have been aware of this.

Maybe that’s why deputy commissioner Tisch says NYC would consider suing to enforce its contract with the firm.

"Our patience," she was quoted as saying, "is up."

Go LinkNYC: Smart City Signage Gone Wrong

At the start of the currently paused Bundesliga season 2019/2020, Vestel has equipped the stadium of the first division soccer team VfL Wolfsburg with around 400 professional displays.

The modern displays were installed in the VIP areas and lounges of the Volkswagen Arena in order to offer guests more comfort.

This includes a special solution for signal distribution to reduce the delay when watching the live games.

In the lounge and VIP area of the VfL Volkswagen Arena, mainly 49 ″ displays from Vestel, but also some 55, 65 and 75 inch models were installed (Photo: Vestel)

Vestel equipped the VIP areas of the Volkswagen Arena predominantly with the display model PD49U with a screen size of 49″. The aim was to offer the VIP guests the convenience of being able to follow the football game, retrospectives and press conferences from all tables and seats with only a minimal delay. Larger display sizes such as 55″, 65″ and 75″ are also used in special lounges.

The displays score particularly well in conjunction with a solution for signal distribution developed by system integrator GHMedia: The signal is processed into a LAN multicast stream and sent to the entire stadium in a dedicated, separately switched media network using a glass fiber ring.

The SoC does the conversion back to the picture on the display mainboard, so that no additional hardware is required. This solution not only offers a quick way to transmit the signal to all screens, but also ensures a quality gain compared to the old coaxial cables. After digitization into multicast packets, there is no loss of quality regardless of the cable length. "This type of signal distribution and the integrated central control of the devices is unique and the future for the entire multimedia industry," explains Dieter Rehberger, Managing Director of GHMedia GmbH.

Go Vestel Equips VfL Wolfsburg Stadium

Visix wins the Gold AVA Digital Award for digital excellence for its wayfinding design for Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort and Casino in New Mexico.

Their winning design includes interactive maps, directories, promotions, videos, image galleries, and more for guests of the resort.

The AVA Digital Awards is an international competition that recognizes excellence by creative professionals responsible for the planning, concept, direction, design and production of digital communication.

Work ranges from digital engagement campaigns to audio and video production to website development to social media interaction to mobile marketing. A full list of winners is available at https://avaawards.com/.

Visix’s creative services team has received more than 80 awards for their digital signage designs.

AVA Digital Awards is sponsored and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP).

Go Visix

Go AVA Digital Awards