NEC had a number of displays of its own, although the emphasis at the show was clearly on partners, rather than on its own technology. (Click on the images for higher resolution.)
On the way into the event, NEC had set up a “CAVE” environment using 27 X464UN video wall modules on three sides, nine X401S displays beneath a false glass floor and a PX602UL laser projector for the ceiling (and using a Pro Display rear projection screen). The mounts were assembled by Unicol and Green Hippo provided the server to drive the displays.There was an interesting comparison of five of the six 55″ to 58″ displays that the company has (the sixth was damaged in transit, sadly!). This allowed NEC staff to position the different displays in the various ranges to end users and resellers.
A new display is the X651UHD 65″ UltraHD monitor. We had reported on the display when it was announced in the US last month (NEC Expands Large-Format Display Range) and we managed to find one in the “Transport” area, but unfortunately it was not showing UltraHD content. NEC told us that the monitor has started shipping in Europe already.
NEC’s architectural LEDs are very bright, but very lightOne of the most visually impressive areas was the LED room. NEC started to get into this technology a couple of years ago and was demonstrating how much the range has broadened. The NEC proposition for LED is based on offering “easy purchase” (as we heard it described by one of NEC’s channel parters), high quality, reliability and a good warranty. NEC is working with a number of technical partners to develop products and solutions based on LED and there were demonstrations of 2mm, 4mm, 6mm indoor LEDs. The 2mm has been shown before at ISE and was in a 2.4m x 1.4m 1200 x 720 pixel array with 1,200 cd/m². Pricing for the array was quoted at “around £100,000” ($155,000) and it weighs around 300Kg. The display was put together by SQuadrat of Germany and is based on EverLight LEDs.
Completely new to us was an “architectural” 50mm LED mesh system. This has been designed for a particular installation in the “Middle East” (no more details currently being released). Brightness has been specified as 9,000 cd/m² as the client needed assurance that the display would still have a brightness of 7,000 cd/m² after seven years of life. Starting with 9,000 is expected to allow this. The area of the final display is a huge 3,000m2 and there was a strict weight limit of 30 tonnes, so the design had to be very light.
A custom design based on a polycarbonate tube was created for the project. It certainly seemed very light to us.
Turning to projection, we had a demonstration of an installation of three NEC UM351Wi UST projectors that had been set up to form a single interactive display using infrared pen/laser curtain technology. The three displays were being run from a single PC running Windows 8. The images were blended to look seamless but an impressive feature was that the system was treating the input side of the system as a single surface. As well as education, collaboration and some “command and control” applications are the target market for this kind of application.
There were some new desktop monitors in the corporate zone. Unfortunately a brand new 34″ curved 21:9 monitor was due to be shown on the day after our visit, so we didn’t get to see it. We’ll bring more details as we get them. There were a number of multi-display set ups including one based on three 27″ IPS UltraHD monitors. The EA275UHD will be available in the EA series at an expected price of €999 and will support sRGB rather than the wide colour gamut of the firm’s 24″ and 32″ UltraHD products. More details will be available later.We had a chat to NEC’s own video production contractor which uses NEC displays for colour grading and adjusting monitors. It showed how smaller screens would be used for the editing and colour control, while a large display would be used for client review.
In the large “Retail” area (which had 17 demonstrations), there was a side by side demonstration of the new 75″ X754HB high brightness model and the P703, which is a professional level product. Unfortunately we were unable to get more details on this model at the event. The monitors were supported on Peerless dual pole mounts. Peerless told us that this model has been very popular in retail applications in particular.The X841SST is a new 84″ LCD with ShadowSense technology. NEC was talking about the advantages of the technology. For example, we heard that the technology can distinguish by the size of a finger. On that basis, you could design a system that either ignored very small fingers, or that did something different depending on finger size. That could be handy in a QSR or retail application. Also new at the event were the E705SST (which we didn’t spot) and E805SST which are 70″ and 80″ touch displays for meeting room applications and are bundled with a five user DisplayNote licence.
