Article

SCREEN MEDIA EXPO: Day Two: Samsung, Sony square off

Video walls from some of the biggest names in LCD screens go head-to-head at London's digital signage show.

April 7, 2009

LONDON — The highlights of Screen Media Expo were the video walls dead center of the floor at the Samsung and Sony booths.

Samsung's wall was made up of the company's recently announced UT screens. UT stands for ultra-thin, as the screens' bezels are only 7.3mm screen to screen. The result is what Samsung is calling a "near seamless" video wall.

The video wall is built on the Samsung ID, a hardware device that allows walls to be built by stacking and locking the screens on top of each other. With the ID, users can build video walls in a matter of minutes, not hours. The system also allows video walls to be angled concave or convex, or placed in three- or four-sided totems. Content is run by Samsung's MagicInfo Pro digital signage software.

Sony's video wall was in a non-conventional shape — a nine screen "football" arrangement that was concave. All screens were running content powered by Sony's Ziris Canvas digital signage software. Most interestingly, the players used to power the screens were based on hardware from the PlayStation 3 gaming console. The players, which feature firmware from the console, also have very similar casing.