Focus on Canada immigration, focus on Canada technology development: Canadian audiovisual and information technology integrator Advanced has developed a new type of mobile digital signage wall solution that can easily handle the new show "The Social" on Canadian television station (CTV). This television program needs a digital signage wall to interact directly with the audience, but the entire setup needs to be mobile because other programs are filmed in the same studio within the same day.
"The Social" uses social media to make the audience part of the program, allowing people at home to tweet messages to the show to be displayed in real-time, and to participate in discussions and questions.
Advanced designed, built, and installed a custom chassis and displays, taking only two working weeks from order to completion. According to Omar Prashad, General Manager of Advanced, a system integration company headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, such systems typically require a lead time of 4-6 months, meaning the team had to work 24 hours a day for the last two days to finish on time for the program's debut on Monday, September 2nd.
"We had never built a mobile digital signage wall before," he said, "so there was a lot of brainstorming at the beginning to decide the best way to build and install it, and to place all nine 46-inch displays. This is not something every AV company can do, but we developed a custom mobile installation solution and custom welding that can be moved by a single person, even though it weighs nearly 800 pounds."
"We also couldn't be in the studio during the day because it was used for various programming, so we built an offline interface, and then worked continuously for 24 hours in the last two days to integrate it perfectly with the switchboard, just for its debut on Monday."
The digital signage wall consists of nine 46-inch ultra-thin NEC X463UN displays, creating a nearly seamless 138-inch display, giving the audience a high-definition view of graphics, which may include photos, videos, text, and live feeds from Twitter and other social networks. Video transmission comes directly from the master control, and Kramer scalers optimize the input signals before sending them to the digital signage wall.
Prashad added: "Designing, delivering, coloring, calibrating, and ensuring it could be finished in such a short construction period was really stressful, but it was very exciting to see the results of every step."