The company originally purchased six projectors but have now doubled that quantity - principally to service a corporate awards spectacular for another household name, Co-operative Retail. Nine of the Christie units formed a pivotal part of the production, which took place in an unusual format at Manchester's G-MEX Centre in late October, and at the same time A to V debuted the new Spyder X20 processor from Vista Systems (a Christie company).
The client's event organiser had wanted an 'in-the-round' presentation rather than traditional style and had already looked at placing screens around the periphery. They also wanted to create an extra 'wow' factor, so in conjunction with lighting company DBN, A to V conceived a circular screen and stage idea. The concept was approved and a set company was tasked with custom building the rig, which was supplied in segments and seamed, covered and finished on site before being flown.
Using the Co-operative's slogan Good with Food as the theme for the event, six of the M Series projectors were directed onto a 360° screen, measuring 10m in diameter and 3.5m high (9500 x 1080 pixels). This featured a single image, with blending carried out in the new X20. The screen was custom made in rigid canvas material to optimise the computer, DVD and media server feeds.
The main screen projectors were flown from the middle of three concentric circles, which formed a 38m diameter quad-rig truss, via Unicol poles with spigots enabling the devices to be inverted.
In total, A to V fielded nearly 2000sq.ft of screen - since in addition, three 21ft x 12ft repeater displays, set at 120° intervals, distributed an identical image around the auditorium on the outer walls.
A to V drove the X20 to its limits, using all eight outputs and seven inputs (with up to 14 layers at one point, pushing it to near capacity).
Allan Hindley envisages a bright future for the new processor. "It drastically reduces the number of processors required - in fact to have achieved what we did for the Co-op with other processors would have required eight 4U rack-space devices - so a single X20 represents an eighth of the real estate. The provision of an inbuilt router makes the system even more compact while there are also some useful features in terms of the transition and keying processes," he notes.
Christie's compact 3-chip DLP M projectors displayed a similar degree of flexibility, with their dual mercury lamps providing optimum performance, efficiency and cost of ownership. A further advantage of the M Series is that it includes four resolutions, WXGA, SX+, HD and WUXGA and compatibility with a broad range of high-quality lenses - all with true Intelligent Lens System (ILSTM) capabilities.
Summing up, Allan Hindley says the show was an unqualified success: "The Roadster HD10K-M's performed magnificently, and combined with lasers and pyrotechnics, contributed to a memorable show."
(Jim Evans)
