Recently I had the chance to traipse downtown and check out the NEC New York Showcase at the Affinia Manhattan Hotel. The first thing I noticed as I entered the ballroom was the growth of other manufacturer participants from last year. This year featured Crestron, Display Devices, KBZ, Kramer Electronics, Libery Wire & Cable, Peerless Mounts, Polycom, Revolabs, and Stewart Filmscreen were all present with many recently introduced products to compliment the spread NEC provided.
And it was a quite interesting spread, a mix of recently announced and not quite ready products were scattered around the ballroom. Although the biggest new offering was playing sentry at the doorway, NEC’s huge new 82-inch Multisync LCD 8205. This monolith can be installed in either portrait or landscape orientation and even tiled together for a video wall up to four displays high and four displays wide, to create a massive video canvas of 328-inches diagonal viewable area. Automatic ambient light sensors also monitor changing light conditions to subtly optimize the brightness level to the environment.
Speaking of displays, NEC’s new family of commercial-grade digital signage displays, the MultiSync 15 Series, has a new mechanical design, comprehensive input panels, and robust functionality. These babies are designed for organizations that are deploying large-screen panels on a modest budget. The displays come with 1366 x 768 resolution, 500 cd/m² brightness and 800:1 contrast ratio. They also include DVI with HDCP, advanced multi-level thermal control with high temperature protection and up to 4x4 TileMatrix capabilities.
If you’re looking to play an awesome game of battleship or perhaps looking to monitor a real one, NEC’s CRVD-42DWX+ curved 42-inch display is quite a sight when two are set side by side to give you the full 180 experience. This product features a native resolution of 2880 x 900, and a contract ratio of >10,000:1. While CEOs will want this for their personal desk, it seems more appropriate in a control room somewhere.
- Finally, I found myself a bit transfixed by an item that NEC was showing a test model of called E-Ink. Stuck on a wall with two small displays vertically stacked, this device displays newspaper items blown up for reading in a signage format. The amazing thing about it is that it only uses energy when it transitions to another item. You could essentially power this with a solar panel and put it anywhere. And NEC is working to make it Bluetooth compatible, meaning you can upload your content from your phone or computer wirelessly. While NEC says it’s about a year from completion, the test model looked fantastic and this might be a move toward more green displays overall.
