Projector manufacturer Digital Projection is getting into the direct-view LED video wall business.
In a sponsor video played during NSCA’s Business & Leadership Conference last week, Digital Projection VP of sales Chuck Collins teased that the longtime projector maker will enter a non-projector product category in 2017.
The video featured Richard Hill, national LED display solutions manager, predicting a “milestone year” for Digital Projection. He described Radiance LED by Digital Projection, a line that focuses “on high resolution pixel pitch displays,” providing dealers with an LED video wall option in “applications where projectors might not always be suitable.”
Radiance LED provides dealers with an LED video wall option in “applications where projectors might not always be suitable.” – Richard Hill, Digital Projection
Speaking subsequently with Commercial Integrator, Hill calls Radiance LED “the next logical step in the evolution of products” that Digital Projection brings to the market.
Digital Projection is expected to announce in the coming weeks products with 1.58mm, 1.9mm and 2.53mm pixel pitch solutions. “We have others on the road map as we expand and those will be the first three,” says Hill.
Digital Projection engineers have long focused on the LED video wall category, he says.
“We wanted this initial product launch to be relevant to what the marketplace is asking for and we want it to be competitive in performance and price point. We think we’re competitive in all,” says Hill.
The cabinet sizes for all three of the Radiance LED products are the same, as well as the hardware for connectivity and the software. “So there is a lot of congruency between those models,” Hill says.
“All cabinets are 16:9 aspect ratio so they’re nice building blocks and work well for standard video application designs and non-standard layouts as well. They’re relatively thin in terms of their depth.”
Entering a New Category
Hill is enthusiastic about bringing Digital Projection’s service and support approaches to the LED video wall category.
“We’ve really hung our hat on that over the past 20 years, wrapping our arms around customers and systems integrators to make sure they’re achieving their goals and fully backed by our support,” he says. “We’re applying that same philosophy to these LED systems even at a higher level. We have already assigned dedicated personnel on both the sales and technical support sides, so we plan to have field engineers on site on every project.”
Digital Projection has been a staunch supporter of projection technology, emphasizing its benefits even as low-cost flat panel and [related]video wall alternatives chip away at projection’s market share.
However, Digital Projection has been seeing the same thing that its dealers have been seeing.
“We’re involved with our systems integrators in situations where a projector might not be the right fit for a particular application due to ambient light, challenging throw distances or circumstances where the viewer/presenter needs to be directly in front of the screen,” Hill says.
“Our dealer base was asking us if we might come to market with something complementary to what we do with projectors.”
For Hill’s part, he’s been at Digital Projection for 12 years in marketing communication roles and then heading up Southeast sales. On Jan. 1, he stepped into his role leading Digital Projection’s development and entry into the LED market place.
Although 300-plus NSCA BLC attendees saw the video and Hill has tipped off his Southeast dealers, Digital Projection is expected to make a broad, more detailed announcement of Radiance LED in the coming weeks.
Then Digital Projection expects to make a big splash with Radiance LED at InfoComm 2017.
That will “really be the time where everybody gets a chance to see this new product up-close and personal,” Hill says, adding that Digital Projection is also in the process of setting up a Radiance LED demo room at its headquarters in Kennesaw, Ga.
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