 Lightvision’s 30ft wide x 20ft high screen at downtown Vancouver’s BC Place Stadium is the largest outdoor LED in western Canada. |
Lightvision now owns and operates 10 outdoor, full motion video billboards in several western Canadian provinces. Placed in high traffic areas, the billboards deliver more than 20 million impressions monthly to passing motorists and pedestrians. Advertisers typically purchase a 10-second ad that airs as part of a 90-second continuous loop, with each ad appearing at least 760 times each day.
Like all the screens in Lightvision’s network, the BC Place screens are operated from Lightvision’s head office in Vancouver. There, an FTP server is regularly updated with information, schedules and video spots specific for each location. Throughout the day, at regular intervals, the networked video player at each screen location automatically logs into the server and downloads the most current content and schedule information. Automated monitoring and remote login capability also allows Lightvision employees working at the head office to check the status of any player or actively modify its playback schedule over high-speed Internet connections.
Many of Lightvision’s screens are located on highways, so the video players need to be mounted directly behind the screens, in a less-than-ideal environment, according to Mark Spevakow, Lightvision’s vice president of technology and founder. However, the BC Place screens’ video players are located 500ft away inside an air-conditioned control room in the stadium. Communications Specialties’ Pure Digital Fiberlink system transmits high-resolution video over a 500ft span of multimode fiber, linking the video player to the screen. The video processor feeding Lightvision’s outdoor network operates at a 640 x 480, non-interlaced resolution.
Lightvision has a seven-year contract to own and operate two LED Screens outside BC Place, whose football and hockey stadiums will be the official 2010 Olympic venues. Lightvision’s screens will be used to broadcast live feed from the events in addition to other related Olympic uses.
For more information, visit www.commspecial.com and www.lightvisionmedia.com.