Conventional wisdom (and maybe your parents or grandparents) tells us to “invest in real estate.” While this is an adage about acquiring financial wealth, the same tenets hold true for pixel count on monitors. More pixels offer flexibility in numerous ways. Recently the read more
Why I’m happy my outside TV died during Football Season
I couldn’t wait for my TV to die. Crazy, right? Read on and I’ll explain.
More than half the TVs installed in outdoor spaces are engineered for indoor use. And I was like most people. Why would I spend more on an outdoor rated display when I could get something for less than half the price? If it dies I can run out and pick up a newer model and throw it up on the wall without much down time. And when my first display died I did just that. I found an old plasma in the house and hung it up outside. Eventually, as expected, its performance began to decline.
What’s the black box in the corner of my screen?
“Die, you imperfect plasma, just DIE!” I muttered to myself in the fall. Here’s a snapshot of its demise, notice the upper right hand corner image fade. It was only a matter of time!
(Full disclosure, Brian Rhatigan, my coworker and display expert tells me this isn’t a typical symptom of aging displays, and probably has more to do with the source. But that doesn’t work with my story. Read his blog here.)
Living in paradise has its perks
Cut to earlier this month. A recent Polar Vortex had 75% of the country experiencing below freezing temperatures. I was in chilly, snowy Chicago (my hat is off to those of you who can handle that!) and I couldn’t wait to get home to my beloved South Florida, the 85°+ December weather and watching the Miami Dolphins claw and fight their way to their first winning season since 2008 in my outdoor football paradise.
Flag on the Play!
It’s a Saturday night prime-time Dolphins v. Jets showdown in New York. December football in-conference rivalry at its finest! The bevvies were ice cold, the sausage dip was made, and the propane tank was full. I was ready! But I was unprepared for a dead display. It was a football fail, to put it mildly. Yes, I’d wished ill-will upon my clunky old plasma, but the timing was terrible! I’d wanted to brag to my northern neighbors! (Karma much?) We watched the Dolphins trounce the Jets, 34-13 in the living room on the couch. Booooo!
Can this be corrected in the second half?
Earlier this fall SunBrite TV introduced their new Veranda Series 4K UHD outdoor displays for full-shade outdoor spaces. These beauties are up to 30% brighter than typical indoor TVs, and they’re weather proof! And while that was always a major selling point for buying an outdoor display for outside, now… NOW they’re affordable!
My Spirit Reptile
If there’s such a thing as a spirit animal, mine is an iguana. (OK, spirit reptile). Not glamorous, cuddly or even cute. What we have in common, according to Wikipedia is that we thrive only in temperatures between 79-95°F. This makes South Florida the perfect place for me to live. And ideal for outdoor winter TV watching.
You can’t keep a true Dolphins fan down for long. My Veranda is on a truck headed to South Florida. Just in time for college bowl games and the NFL playoffs… I’m holding out hope that my Dolphins are still standing by mid-January! Stay tuned for Part II, as I turn my Football Fail into Veranda Victory!
Do you have an outdoor setup you LOVE? Share a picture in the comments, I’d love to see what you’ve got!
Seeing NEC Solutions within a Forest of Products
At Almo Pro AV we just wrapped up our 2016 E-4 AV Tour with stops in Boston and then Dallas. Like our previous E-4s, these events offered our customers, large end-users and consultants multiple CTS-certified lectures (with RU Credits!), hands-on experience rooms and an impressive exhibit floor populated with over 50 manufacturer partners displaying the latest in technology.
Due to space constraints and other outside factors, exhibit halls in general often restrict what manufacturers showcase to individual components and not an entire working solution. Attendees then must visualize the solution, usually by associating it with a recent or current application need. But what if they could see an entire solution, made up of components from multiple manufacturers in a single exhibit? This is a concept I’ve been at work on for the past few E-4 events, and the reception and feedback I’ve received is motivating.
Representatives from well-regarded display and projector manufacturer NEC have worked with me on this concept from the beginning. Our goal is to display NEC’s superior commercial panel designs and demonstrate their functionality in a working model, such as a video wall or unique projector application. To accomplish this we started with a video wall configuration and called on another partner, Peerless-AV to supply their specialized video wall cart. The cart is an actual Peerless-AV sku providing video wall mounting with mobility. Perfect for our exhibit hall floor. Now we can easily demonstrate the features of this video wall solution and mount combination to show attendees.
In Dallas we took the partial solution even further. TVOne joined our configuration to display their low-cost and feature-rich 4k video processing unit that utilizes NEC’s Tile Matrix feature. We then insured electrical noise-free power by employing a Tripp-Lite double-conversion UPS. The end result was a working, fully mobile 4k video wall solution.
Peerless Kiosk (left) and Peerless-AV Video Cart (right)
Next, we wanted to demonstrate a single-panel application with a 65″ UHD Panel, mounted in portrait orientation. Once again we called on Peerless-AV to provide a video cart capable of portrait orientation, enabling us to demonstrate the panel’s ability to change screen orientation. One dealer group actually came by the booth that day ans offered to purchase the solution right then and there and take it back to their office!
Also popular these days are indoor kiosks, and Almo and NEC were able to bring such a solution to our E4 attendees as well. This time we created a kiosk solution featuring a 46″ NEC panel displaying content from a BrightSign media player, all secured and ventilated within the Peerless-AV kiosk and once again powered by Tripp-Lite.
Almo is already hard at work with our partners for our March E-4 AV Tour stop in the Windy City, Chicago, IL. Our solutions exhibits will no doubt continue to evolve and grow. Perhaps we’ll employ a unique NEC SSL laser projector based digital signage application with portrait orientation using content provided by Almo’s Content Creation Services. Rest assured, we’ll come up with something – and our attendees will be able to see a true solution through the forest of products on the exhibit floor.
Working together and great partnerships make events like the E4s come to life. Thanks, NEC!
NEC’s 27″ 4K Monitor: Huge Workspace with High-Quality Graphics
Hi! I’m Diana.
I started working at Almo a few months ago as a Graphic Designer. Naturally, I am in front of monitors all day, every day and depending on the project/s sometimes I need to have more than two screens open at the same time. Not too long ago I had three monitors, with real “classy” stands, taking up a lot of space on my desktop. I’m in a bit of a minimalist phase, so I wasn’t really feeling it.
A few months ago, when Almo Acquired IAVI , my entire setup changed. I was given a brand new Apple laptop and I decided to only keep one of my old monitors. Although it was a really nice monitor with a good resolution for a visual artist, it was a bit too small for the type of workspace I actually needed. I was going to be forced to bring in another monitor and I was not happy about it.
Luckily for me, and in perfect timing, Almo offered me an NEC 27” 4K Monitor (MultiSync EA275UHD). First of all, you don’t have to be a genius to set it up. Just take it out of the box, plug it in and adjust the height. Second, it’s big enough to serve as two monitors without taking up so much space on my desk, which I LOVE! Lastly but definitely not least, the resolution on this monitor is insane! The color accuracy is terrific and the quality is just beautiful.
Look at me setup now!
Overall, I would definitely recommend this monitor to any Graphic Designer or Digital Artist out there looking to move from 1080p to 4K with a bigger workspace. It’s a keeper!
