Architectural Acoustics
Architectural acoustics encompasses the fields of building acoustics and room acoustics. Building acoustics focuses on sound transmission through walls, doors and floors. Room acoustics focuses on the behaviour of sound inside a room. For many buildings, such as classrooms, offices, theatres, and concert halls, their acoustic properties are critical to their ability to perform their primary function.
Building acoustics: To prevent noise from entering into a room or to understand the degree to which it penetrates, you can evaluate the building’s acoustics. Building acoustics focuses on sound transmission through walls and entrances, such as footfalls from people walking above or vehicles driving below. For these, you need to measure the sound both inside and out, and to correct the difference for reverberation and background noise in the receiving room. With information about the noise, such as frequency content, mitigation can be effectively targeted – such as with insulation and shielding.
Room acoustics : In a room, good acoustics require a design that is fit for purpose, such as easy communication and a high degree of intelligibility in office spaces or long reverberation times in concert halls. Issues with acoustics are normally caused by sound being reflected too much, too little or in the wrong direction. To assess this, you can analyze the room’s acoustic properties, such as reverberation time – the length of time that sound echoes for – or its impulse response, which enables the acoustic characteristics of a space to be captured. With a better picture of the sound’s behavior in the room, you can improve it with redesigns or absorptive materials.
Video walls
A video wall (also known as display wall) is a large visualization surface consisting of multiple displays. Originally, they consisted of multiple televisions or monitors that were put closely together. The objective was to make it seem as one large display surface. The problem however was the large frame (or bezel) that surrounded the useful display surface of each television. This completely tore down the effect of a single canvas and ruined the visual performance. Therefore, new technologies were introduced to minimize the ‘dead pixel space’ between the different displays. Today’s display wall solutions are generally using tiled LCD panels, rear-projection cubes, or direct LED tiles.
LCD video walls: An LCD video wall consists of multiple specifically designed LCD displays. Contrary to the panels used in television sets, these LCD displays have a very narrow bezel. This minimizes the gap between the panels, making it look like one big canvas. Over the years, this gap has gradually decreased. Today, Barco UniSee has the smallest gap in the industry.LCD video walls are designed for long term use. Specific measures to prevent burn-in effects are applied to allow them to play for many years, in optimal conditions. Many times, they continuously play in a 24/7 mode, which means they are rarely switched off.The traditional benefits of LCD video wall solutions include the high brightness, good image quality, and relatively low cost. Also the limited real estate space needed is a plus. The disadvantages are the risk for burn-in and the lower lifetime. Recent models however have successfully reduced these drawbacks.Typical markets for LCD display walls include meeting and crisis rooms, lobbies, and experience centers. You can also find them in the control rooms of traffic and security center.Rear-projection video walls
Rear Projection Wall :Using projection instead of LCD technology, rear-projection video walls target different applications. They are mainly used in control rooms that operate in a 24/7 mode. Utilities providers, for example, generally rely on rear-projection technology to monitor their network.A rear-projection video wall consists of multiple cubes, which feature a projector and a screen. The projectors are positioned upwards. A mirror under a 45° angle then reflects the image and casts it onto the projection screen. In this way, the required depth is cut dramatically. For example, Barco’s OverView ODLF series only requires a depth of 60 cm/23.6”. This advanced video wall can also be serviced from the front, so there is no need for a rear maintenance area. The benefits of this technology include the very high lifetime, the absence of burn-in effects, and the narrow gap between cubes. Traditional drawbacks are the limited brightness and the real estate space used. Barco has solved many of these issues by introducing the laser video walls.
LED video walls :Direct view LED technology is used to create the most impressive video walls. They are very bright and are mainly used to wow audiences. For example in retail & advertisement settings, during spectacles or live performances, LED video walls are used. The LED display tiles consist of many individual color LEDs. The pixel pitch can be quite large when they are watched from afar (for live performances for example), or very small. The high brightness, absence of inter-tile gaps and impressive colors are the main benefits of Direct view LED technology. Also the limited depth and weight can be important in certain settings. Disadvantages are the high cost and power consumption.
Digital Signage
Digital signage are digital displays showing ads or messages for targeted audience. It is a new age signages which offers ease in changing content and expand the content capabilities beyond static posters to videos, live feed and animated content. Digital signage eco-system consists of digital displays/ panel which are powered by back-end digital signage software also called as content management software (CMS), and a back-end operating computer which is connected through a media player. Digital signage provides an opportunity to brands to create a centralized network of digital signages, it brings uniformity and ease in communications.