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InfoComm12: Planar intros Mosaic Project Designer and new UltraLux series

June 14, 2012

At this year's InfoComm AV show in Las Vegas, display manufacturer Planar Systems Inc. rolled out a newly designed lineup of displays and designer software for its architectural digital signage display system, Mosaic.

Planar's new UltraLux series is the company's family of 60-, 70- and 80-inch LCD displays that feature a new and sleek industrial design, and Planar Mosaic Project Designer is a free, online application that lets users create individualized designs for the recently introduced architectural video wall system.

Planar Senior Director of Product Marketing Steve Seminario talked to DST about the new products, starting with the new UltraLux series.

"What's kind of different is, they're designed specifically to fit into the most popular environments for digital signageand branding, and to really create maximum visual impact and deliver low-cost of ownership," Seminario said.

The typical installation requirements for most public signage are generally wall-mounted in either portrait or landscape inclination, or freestanding portrait and freestanding portrait in back-to-back mode, Seminario said. The new series includes the wall mounts with the display, and Planar also can provide matching pedestals in either single or back-to-back configurations. The wall mounts also extend the displays less than 3 inches from the wall, in order to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, he said.

Each Planar UltraLux display also comes standard with Planar's proprietary Extended Ruggedness and Optics, or ERO, optically-bonded protection glass for enhanced durability in public spaces, while providing improved view ability in bright ambient environments. The glass goes from edge to edge, and the displays come with either a white or a black border, and with silver or black trim.

All of the displays also come with optional six-point multitouch capabilities, and incorporate a media storage compartment, which Seminario said will fit most leading media players with power and connectivity.

"So we've really tried to design them for the environments that they're getting deployed in and just making it easier for integrators who are doing large-format displays in public venues," he said.

The displays also were engineered to reduce the total cost of ownership, with a built-in UltraLux Mounting System that allows for simplified installations with no additional hardware required. The UltraLux Mounting System incorporates a kickstand feature that tilts the display away from the wall for easy access to the electronics. Eliminating the need to remove the display for servicing reduces complexity, cost, and service time by up to 70 percent, Planar said.

The displays also feature edge-lit LED technology, which delivers reduced power consumption by up to 60 percent compared to CCFL technology, saving operating costs over the lifetime of the display. For further reliability, the Planar UltraLux Series also features a redundant power supply design, helping to ensure uninterrupted operation.

The Planar Mosaic Project Designer was developed in conjunction with the Planar Mosaic video wall system, and creates a virtual environment to place and rotate Planar Mosaic video tiles and preview images or video on thetiles. The result is a custom rendering of a video wall layout, which users can share design via email or social media from the browser-based platform.

Introduced in February, the Planar Mosaic architectural video wall system lets designers and installers integrate LCD tiles of three sizes and shapes, including a true-square LCD tile, measuring 21.6 inches diagonally, into a room environment. Utilizing proprietary Mosaic Ensemble software and hardware, the tiles can be rotated at virtually any angle and mounted in any position. Video or images can be displayed across the entire tile array, encouraging designers to experiment with negative space while extending project budgets, the company said.

"With all that design flexibility, there's literally an infinite number of designs you can come up with, and what we've found is that people are really getting creative and coming up with some beautiful designs ... and what this application does is really provide a kind of virtual design studio," Seminario said. "You really get a sense for what it's going to look like."

Planar's new UltraLux series, and Mosaic and Mosaic Project Designer are at InfoComm booth C7536.

Read more about digital signage display technology.