Projects: The Big Picture 664-Panel Video Wall In Singapore

November 9, 2014 by Dave Haynes

A video post via Andrew Neale at DailyDOOH led me to a Dataton news release from a year ago about what is billed as the largest HD video wall on the planet.

It’s been my experience that there’s always something else, somewhere, that’s bigger, faster or whatever … but this is certainly one big-ass video wall.

The Suntec Exhibition and Convention Centre in Singapore 664 5mm-bezel LG LED flat panel displays in one big wall. The beast is controlled by Dataton’s Watchout videowall software.

Says the news release:

The Big Picture, as the wall has been dubbed, is designed to support a resolution of 32,051 pixels wide by 7,941 pixels high, which is 84 times the resolution of HD (1 UHD = 4HD).

The Big Picture acts as a standalone exhibit allowing a combination of multiple media such as still images, animations and video clips to be shown at the same time, or a single media image in native format to be displayed over the entire wall. 

Interactive features are integrated with RFID tracking systems and sensors on the escalators located just in front of The Big Picture. With these integrated sensory systems, The Big Picture can be adapted to display welcome messages, or show specialised content alongside riders on the escalator from levels 1 to 3. 

Sangheon Oh, Chief Research Engineer, LGE Commercial Display Marketing explains: “LG worked on the design of the visual display system and it evolved to be the largest HD LED screen in the world. Early in the design phase, we discussed with Dataton the possibility of the project being the largest HD LED screen and on finding out that it could, we selected WATCHOUT as the main multi-image display and presentation system.

“The Big Picture is controlled and operated by three major subsystems which are the video wall, playback, integration and control. Playback manages content and the principle of the design is to support ultra-high definition (UHD) media including 4K video clips and still images being managed by 21 WATCHOUT display servers, serving 84 full HD outputs.

“The integration and control system acts to control The Big Picture and servers, turning them on or off as required and scheduled. It also manages playback where a part of a show at a specific time can be selected or it can be used to manage interactive content.”

“The initial plan,” the release continues, “was not to build the largest HD LED screen in the world. The Level 1 of our building was initially designed as the lobby entrance to our venue and following a major modernisation programme, the idea of having a HD LED screen was realised in the form of The Big Picture. The size of The Big Picture was in accordance to our overall design of venue entrance. We are very delighted that an unexpected design step turned into the largest HD LED screens in the world,” says Arun Madhok, CEO of Suntec Singapore.

Suntec Singapore measures the success of The Big Picture from its reception on multiple social media platforms tagging Suntec Singapore as their check-in location, newspaper and media coverage featuring The Big Picture as well as filmography interests. Operationally there are benefits such as reduced costs and increased advertising revenue that assist the centre in being profitable and sustainable.

“It is great to see our organizers and delegates posing in front of The Big Picture with big smiles. One more reason why Suntec Singapore is the Preferred Place to Meet,” says Madhok.