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BrightSign, DigiComm create digital shark experience

September 6, 2016

BrightSign LLC, a provider of digital signage media players, and Dubai-based system integrator DigiComm, recently completed of the "Discovery Channel Shark Week" exhibit at the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo.

Using nearly 91 screens driven by 42 BrightSign players, DigiComm combined digital technology with a living aquarium to create for visitors the experience of swimming among great white sharks and other large and dangerous fish without the actual fish being present, according to a press release from BrightSign. The experience was created by Emaar Entertainment, the leisure and entertainment subsidiary of Emaar Properties, and Discovery Consumer Products, in association with pay-TV network OSN.

"At Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo, we're passionate about educating the public on these incredible and often misunderstood creatures. The 'Discovery Channel Shark Week' exhibit invites visitors into the incredible world of sharks in a truly innovative way that both educates and entertains. The new exhibition is a key facet of our commitment to shark conservation along with our other initiatives such as the shark artificial insemination program that we inaugurated in 2015," said Paul Hamilton, general manager and curator of Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo.

At the front of the exhibit, 28 massive 55-inch LG screens driven by seven BrightSign 4K players with tiled outputs featuring a scene of great white sharks circling a cage of divers. There are also three LG 86-inch stretch 4K displays with a resolution of 3840 x 600 pixels on entry and exit, the release said.

Entering the exhibit, visitors walk into an interactive digital shark cage with great whites swimming around them.

"The visitor becomes the diver — they experience the excitement of diving with real sharks in a cage," said Abdul Bakhrani, CEO of DigiComm, who created the exhibit.

The "cage" consists of forty-eight 55-inch LG screens driven by tiled BrightSign 4K players. Situated under the hull of a research ship protruding from the wall of the aquarium, the digital cage was designed exclusively by DigiComm for the exhibit, the release said. One of the sharks will occasionally leap toward the cage, and appears to crack the screen. This sequence is accompanied by blood and a realistic sound effect, according to the release. Synchronization of the video and the effects is handled by the BrightSign players.

Technology allows guests to 'interact' with the sharks while simultaneously learning about their biology. DigiComm used the luma key masking feature offered by BrightSign players, allowing graphics and other videos to display through transparencies in the video window. Visitors in the cage can use buttons to select additional video, which plays on top of the main looping presentation. These videos explain, for example, how a shark's senses work. The buttons control the players directly using the UDP inputs. The roof of the cage is a translucent material, on which projectors powered by BrightSign display images of shark bellies to complete the visitor's experience, the release said

Visitors are also offered a 20-meter aquarium demi-tunnel, with the back wall of the tank formed of LG LED screens. The real fish swimming in front are apparently of one piece with the graphical images of sharks on the screen behind. Using touch screens interfacing directly to the BrightSign players driving the screens, guests can select which shark species they would like to see swimming on the LED screens in the background. The tunnel is based on two 7-meter x 3-meter and one 3-meter x 3-meter 4-mm pixel pitch LG LED displays driven by three BrightSign XD232 players.

Younger visitors are offered five portrait screens with fun shark facts. Each one is a two-minute clip delivered by BrightSign players, controlled by a motion sensor driven by the young visitor, the release said.

The entire exhibit features 42 BrightSign players. There are 22 4K models at the front of the cage. The output of many of these are tiled to drive a 4K video on four LG 55-inch HD screens each. Eight BrightSign HD players are used in four kiosks with buttons to drive the four overhead projectors in the shark cage ceiling, the release said. Three BrightSign XD1132 players are used in touch kiosks, and BrightSign LS422 players with a motion sensor drive five LG 22-inch displays in portrait orientation for the children's shark facts.

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