It’s interesting that Leyard and Planar was motivated to improve its Clarity Matrix video wall line and launch Leyard and Planar Clarity Matrix G3 at ISE 2018.
The display and video wall maker is coming out of a year that was sluggish for narrow-bezel LCD sales in which it managed to sell its most Clarity Matrix, according to Steve Seminario, VP of product marketing, Leyard and Planar.
“When you look at the market data on narrow bezel LCD it’s kind of flattish,” he says. “We grew more than 20 percent [in 2017]. Growing considerably faster than the category is a great thing, and that was with our G2 product. And here we are announcing Generation 3 which is head and shoulders above not only G2 but I think everything else out there.”
The new Clarity Matrix G3 LCD Video Wall System advances nearly every aspect of the unique Clarity Matrix architecture, according to Leyard and Planar.
Developing the Clarity Matrix G3 was “a huge project internally,” Seminario says. “It was really well conceived. The product manager did a great job of really understanding our customers and spending a lot of time with our top integrators.”
The results, according to a Planar press release:
- New, off-board video controller that offers unrivaled video processing capabilities built into the product
- Includes new Leyard WallDirector Software to further simplify video wall installation, monitoring and management
- Offers unsurpassed fault tolerance and energy efficiency through an improved off-board electronics and power supply architecture
For Seminaro the most significant step up features from G2 to G3 boil down to three areas:
- Updated remote power supply
- Added this software control user interface that’s really a platform
- Complete new video controller
That video controller is “kind of a big deal,” Seminario says.
It’s not just that Leyard and Planar updated it with the most current standards, he says.
“The really big deal is we added windowing capabilities. For the first time you’re not restricted by the boundaries of a panel. You can do picture-in-picture or overlay the images and cross the boundaries of panels,” Seminario says.
“Beyond that the really big deal is we added windowing capabilities. For the first time you’re not restricted by the boundaries of a panel. You can do picture-in-picture or overlay the images and cross the boundaries of panels.
“We can also sort of downscale images so you can have one 55-inch panel [and] four sources in a quad-view in one of those 1080p panels — whether those are 4K sources or 1080 sources downscaled into that 2×2. That’s something we weren’t able to do before either.
“These are capabilities that lots of our customers did but they had to do it through an external processor. This video controller does not eliminate the need for processors but for a lot of the use cases we see, out of the box this new video controller is going to provide the flexibility in windowing that a lot of customers need.”
More on Clarity Matrix G3 Built-In Advanced Video Wall Processing from Press Release:
[related]Clarity Matrix G3 takes built-in video wall processing to a new level with the off-board Clarity Matrix G3 Video Controller, becoming the first LCD video wall solution on the market to embed advanced video processing directly into the product.The new Video Controller offers built-in video wall scaling for a single source input beyond 6K resolution (5760×3240) with Planar® Big Picture Plus™ video wall processing, providing unsurpassed flexibility without the need for an external video processor or audio/video switch.
Customers can take multiple 4K @ 60Hz signals and scale them across an entire video wall or separate sections within a video wall.
They can also display content from a higher number of independent sources, superimpose a smaller image over a larger one with Picture-in-Picture (PiP) and incorporate up to four different image sources within a single display with 4K quadview.
Clarity Matrix G3 supports the latest 4K connectivity standards, including both HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2, offering customers flexibility as they build their video infrastructure.
More on Clarity Matrix G3 Simplified Video Wall Installation and Monitoring from Press Release:
Clarity Matrix G3 also comes standard with intuitive, touch-friendly Leyard WallDirector software that simplifies video wall set-up, configuration, operation and monitoring.
The powerful, web-based interface automatically identifies video wall components such as the display configuration, power supply quantities and source inputs, significantly reducing the time it takes to configure a complex video wall. It offers the ability to drag-and-drop sources onto the video wall canvas and easily manipulate their size and position.
Presets can recall video wall windowing layouts, making it easy to quickly configure content on a video wall.
Leyard WallDirector also makes it possible to monitor the health status of all video wall components from a central, local or remote location—allowing customers the ability to proactively troubleshoot their video walls by automatically identifying non-functioning displays, power supplies and electronics in real time.
More on Fault Tolerance and Energy Efficiency from Press Release:
Clarity Matrix G3 comes with a new Clarity Matrix G3 Remote Power Supply that moves heat, noise, weight and service points away from the video wall and into a convenient, well-ventilated rack room. The advanced Remote Power Supply offers three times the power density per rack unit of previous versions, minimizing rack unit requirements.
It offers fault tolerance features unparalleled in the industry, including n+1 redundancy, hot-swappable power modules and circuit-level redundancy. With the Remote Power Supply, less than three watts of power are required in standby mode for the entire video wall, making the Clarity Matrix G3 one of the most energy-efficient LCD video wall solutions on the market.
“The new Clarity Matrix G3 LCD Video Wall System incorporates what we value with the unique architecture of Clarity Matrix, while adding great new capabilities,” said Mike Hancock, VP at integration firm Mechdyne. “With these improvements, Mechdyne will be able to deliver LCD video wall systems that meet our clients’ needs while reducing the cost and complexity of their content delivery systems.”
The Clarity Matrix G3 LCD Video Wall System will begin shipping in early 2018.
