New television station Bulgaria On Air commissions a major Christie MicroTiles installation at its renovated facility near Sofia Airport.

This first use of MicroTiles in Bulgaria will help deliver business and financial information to local audiences and international investors. Advising on business opportunities in Bulgaria, their own business development strategy depends upon generating leads from their TV audience.

Five separate stages will host the different shows.The feature backdrop is a curved display, measuring 5.71 x 2.45 meters and containing 112 MicroTiles. In addition there are two displays with 30 MicroTiles each (2.45 x 1.53 meters), one display with 18 Micro Tiles (measuring 2.45 x 0.92 meters) and an angled display formed by 2 x 30 MicroTiles each (2.45 x 1.53 meters). All are built into the TV design set and all screens are connected to HDSDI video switcher via HDSDI/HDMI converters.

The integration was carried out by UVT SC Computer, broadcast and professional system integrators and distributor, after they presented MicroTiles to the customer along with configuration suggestions and a technical proposal.

UTV Director of Sales, Alexander Kitanov says, “The original intention of the customer was to use plasma screens on all sets, but after a detailed presentation and explanation of the technical and operational benefits of MicroTiles he was convinced by the benefits of this technology. Thanks to the close cooperation with Christie we were able to match their target price and to win the project.”

He says the client was particularly impressed with the narrow gaps between the screens. “This was very important for their big curved screen. The uniformity of the colour reproduction and automatic operation were also very highly regarded but in all respects, against the other competing technologies, MicroTiles gave a stronger performance: colour reproduction and consistency across screen, image stability, maintenance, ease of set up and infinite resolution.”

Part of the evaluation process during the installation and set-up also included camera tests, performed in different light conditions to assess colour temperatures of the screens.

These MicroTiles sets can look forward to daily usage since all live shows and station news will use the displays, which feature both live and recorded content generated by the graphics department of Bulgaria On Air.

Go Christie MicroTiles

Samsung announces a breakthrough in LED technology-- one allowing the development and eventual production of ultra-large display panels on ordinary sheets of glass in the future, the Korea Times reports.

Researchers say “in ten years, window panes will double as lighting and display screens, giving personality to buildings.”

The breakthrough is the production of “nearly single crystalline Gallium Nitride (GaN) on amorphous glass substrates”—that leads towards the creating larger products (400x larger than the current GaN LED size of 2-inches) while lowering production costs.

The technology will first go into large commercial screens (sports displays, advertising boards) but Samsung may also leverage it into consumer devices and residential installations.

The only drawback? Samsung says it still needs up to 10 years to develop the technology into commercial production.

Go Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology

Go Samsung Reports LED Breakthrough

The Laser Illuminated Projector Association (LIPA) promotes the benefits of laser illuminated projectors, advocating for a positive regulatory environment, and developing appropriate training guidelines.

LIPA says its members are showing progress: Kodak already demonstrated an 11K-lumen digital laser projector. Barco will demonstrate its laser light engine on a giant screen at the 2nd Annual Moody Digital Cinema Symposium in January 2012.

The founding member companies of LIPA met and elected a Governing Board which includes

• Peter Gerets, Barco
• Michael Esch, Christie Digital
• David Schnuelle, Dolby
• Steve Read, IMAX
• William Beck, Laser Light Engines
• Richard McPherson, NEC Displays
• Greg Niven, Ushio/NECSEL

Peter Ludé, Senior VP Solutions Engineering at Sony, was elected board chairman. Peter Ludé has more than 25 years of experience in the broadcast industry and is currently president of the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE).

The LIPA board met again last August and elected Zhihua Gong of Phoebus Vision to the Governing Board.

At that meeting Corning Specialty Materials, Delta (Display Solutions Business Unit), Harkness Screens, Mitsubishi Electric, Philips, Projection Design, RealD Inc., Schneider Kreuznach, and Texas Instruments joined at other membership levels. This rapid growth in membership, says LIPA, signifies the interest of the projector industry in moving forward with laser illumination light sources in digital projectors.

Industry-led committees were formed by the board to drive internal and external communications, regulatory technology and business issues, member recruitment, and finances.

A membership workshop was held to help identify next steps in defining specific regulatory requirements from several U.S. states and from other countries; interaction with governing institutions and the approval process; critical issues of installation for theatre owners/operators; and potential LIPA liaisons with groups in the theatre industry.

Go Laser Illuminated Projector Association (LIPA)

Developed exclusively for Christie MicroTiles, Christie demonstrated its "Touch Environment" solution at IBC to show how interactive multi-touch can be used to bring a new dimension to sports commentary in a broadcast studio set concept. The Interactivity Kit differs from other gesture and touch based systems currently on the market by offering much faster responses times and up to 16 gestures pointing across the canvas at any one time.

The solution combines MicroTiles reconfigurable seamless display technology using true multi-touch 2D and 3D position-sensing developed exclusively for use with Christie MicroTiles by Baanto International.

The user interface developed by Nytric using Action Script 3 and authored in Adobe AIR runtime, is an icon-based touch and gesture controlled interface allows access to many applications or layers of media.

Able to take advantage of the reconfigurable and scalable nature of MicroTiles, the Touch Environment accommodates many different applications and styles for large screen interactivity in both broadcast and corporate applications.

The system showed how a scrollable video tool illustrates football highlights and plays, on demand, as the match is in play. Player and match stats will be displayed on demand, with on-the-fly annotation at any time.

Go Christie, The Interactivity Kit