Christie helps IBM make right impression

14 June 2011

Italy - IBM Software Executive Briefing Centre in Rome has been designed to achieve a perfect space where visitors can experience the company's technology first hand thanks to an innovative video wall powered by Christie projectors.

This is not just a simple video wall, it is interactive, it can display Picture in Picture or be used as a white board. It gives IBM executives a platform to showcase IBM's software technologies and systems, with a broad application context helping visitors realise the capabilities of innovative technologies and systems.

Peter Dardarananda, manager at IBM Software Executive Briefing Programme in Rome, and mastermind of the project explains, "When customers come to visit us, we have to make sure they get the right impression about IBM. We want to provide an experience that is on par or better in what they would expect of IBM. We sell software solutions and innovations, and these things are intangible. To overcome this we have designed a space where visitors can get the whole picture - literally."

On entering the software lab, visitors are welcomed by a modern space, with interesting LED colour lighting, curved walls and white furniture. Within the software lab there are four briefing rooms. The largest room, with capacity for 40 people, boosts the amazing floor to ceiling glass video screen, which uses three Christie M series projectors, one Christie WU12K-M and two Christie DS+10K-M. When no image is displayed, the screen is nearly black, coming alive with the projections.

"This solution essentially creates what I call a video canvas," says Dardarananda "On this large video canvas, of 5x2.5m, I can 'paint' the video display I want without any interference or interruptions - there is one screen with no joints. Conceptually the max is to use multiple projectors to create displays that occupy the entire canvas. In practice I have one centered 1920x1200 display. The dimension of the image can vary depending on specific needs of the day. I can go anywhere between 130" to beyond 160". Optionally I can do simultaneous side by side at 1400x1050 each."

The three M series projectors from Christie work in unison complementing each other to cover the whole of the 160-inch of the rear projection glass screen. The projectors offer high efficiency and low cost of ownership by drawing a maximum power of 1320W giving you full brightness while using less power.

The projectors are about 230cm away from the screen and they use Christie on-axis short throw fixed length lenses to allow better zooming. The main projector, the Christie WU12K-M is in the centre and has a 1920x1200 resolution and the two Christie DS+10K-M on the sides have 1400x1250. These projectors have WUXGA resolution, which perfectly fit the resolution of the source PC.

The project was installed by AV specialist and Christie partner Meeting Project. Fulvio Giovanelli, Meeting Project director comments: "The briefing centre is a very interesting space. We had several structural constraints. On the one had we needed to be able to organise the screen in a manner that everyone present in the room would have a good view of it and on the other hand, Dardarananda wanted to create a seamless and impressive screen that would occupy a whole wall."

He continues, "This is one of the largest glass screens we have ever installed," says Giovanelli "As we had no way to bring the screen into the fifth floor theatre within the building, we had to do it through the wall. We used a monster crane that lifted it from the street. We only had a couple of centimetres to spare it was a delicate job. The crane had to be 25 metres away from the building and had a 50 metres lift."

The video wall is used as a whole or split in sections, depending what the presentation is about. It also acts as a flip-chart or white board using a Nintendo Wii and an infrared pen.

(Jim Evans)