STATION MASTER

Sydney-Central_[Print]

Central Station’s monster video wall

Story: Christopher Holder

“I’ll meet you under the big screen at Central.”

Not sure if it’s the ultimate compliment, but Sydney Trains will take it — its new video wall in the Central Station concourse is fast becoming the preferred rendezvous point for commuters.

The new board comprises a 2 x 10 video wall of 80-inch NEC Professional displays topped by a 3mm pixel-pitch LED panel that displays time of day, branding, and messaging. The photo doesn’t quite do this monolith justice, it’s an 11m x 5m monster.

We caught up with Sydney Trains project manager, Simon McCully, for more: “Central station is our flagship location and this video wall is a one-off bespoke job. The new video wall replaces the old scrolling screens that were confusing and required the customer to be within 5m to see them.

“Initially we were looking at a full LED board but it was prohibitively expensive and quite possibly would have dated quite quickly, the way LED is progressing and improving at the moment.

“EO Design made a pitch for the installation and NEC’s P801 80-inch offering came across my table around the same time. EO Design didn’t have a lot of runs on the board but Deryck Nagy-Horty and his team did a great job — they didn’t miss a deadline.

“To test drive the displays we asked Deryck to set up a couple of test displays and we invited a cross section of commuters in to provide their feedback – the visually impaired, people in wheelchairs, the old, the young. It informed the final design and got us 95% of the way there in the final iteration.”

The video is stored on a Coolux media server (custom player pro machine) in a new comms room in the bowels of Central. The video is fed the 40m to the screens via Crestron digital media transmitters with Crestron Fusion taking care of the control — providing full reporting on the system.

Despite all the hi-def media and screen technology, Deryck Nagy-Horty is most proud of something far more (seemingly) prosaic: “The brackets are the crowning glory. The original client spec envisaged a slim blade-like structure, which was impossibly given the weight of the video wall. But we worked with the Jands staging and theatrical division on the steelwork bracket and the Alucabond surrounds which all sits on a heritage structure, and it really is quite beautiful. It’s a beast — but a beautiful beast. Jands also worked with us on the power regulation and conditioning.”

EO Design: (02) 9653 9969 or www.eodesign.net.au

Show Technology (Coolux):(02) 9748 1122 or www.showtech.com.au

NEC: 131 632 or www.nec.com.au

Crestron: www.crestron.com.au

Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au