Japanese company time-travels back to 2004 for project

June 30, 2009 by Dave Haynes

From Japan comes extensive word about a project that sticks 12 42 inch LCDs sorta together and hopes buyers don’t notice it is wildly over-priced and doesn’t look so hot. Nonetheless, the proponents think they’ll be selling them pretty much as fast as they can be made.

Dai Nippon Printing Co Ltd (DNP) will release the “Tall Vision,” digital signage equipment that uses 12 42-inch LCD panels to show advertisements and other information, in August 2009.

DNP will set up the equipment at JR Sendai Station in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, and conduct a verification test from July 17, 2009.

The Tall Vision consists of six units of displays, each of which is composed of two 42-inch LCD panels. Its total width is 360cm, and its height is 198cm including the tip-resistant pedestal (6cm).

The 12 panels can be used as either one large display, two vertically-arranged displays or six horizontally-arranged displays. According to DNP, the Tall Vision is less expensive than a single-screen display of the same size.

If the signage equipment is purchased, the initial cost is about ¥8 million (approx US$84,000) excluding contents to display. Also, DNP is considering leasing the equipment. The company expects sales of ¥1 billion from the Tall Vision and related products in fiscal 2010. 

So that means the 42-inch units cost about $7,000 US each, which last time I checked was just a wee bit high, particularly when the things don’t have to travel a very big ocean to get to buyers. I can get a pretty nice one up here in my socialist paradise for about $1,300. These ones are also big, fat-bezeled things that aren’t even stuck all that close together. This in a business that has Samsung screens out there with micro-thin bezels and some plasmas with pretty much none.

It’s like someone did up this press story in 2004 and forgot to hand it in until now. I think we all get so accustomed to cool stuff coming from Japan and forget there are knuckleheads pretty much everywhere.