Barco’s coolest LED video wall wins red dot award for outstanding design
Kortrijk, Belgium, 6 April 2011 - Visualization specialist Barco is the proud winner of the prestigious 'red dot award: product design 2011' for its OL-521 LED display cube. Barco convinced an international jury with the OL's space-saving cube design and small footprint, while providing the brightest and warmest colors on the display thanks to novel technologies such as liquid cooling. The official red dot award ceremony will take place on 4 July 2011.
A jury of 36 renowned experts meticulously examined as many as 4,443 products from about 1,700 companies worldwide before granting the red dot award 2011. The red dot honors high design quality and is only granted to products that stand out from comparable products due to their outstanding design. All entries are evaluated according to the highest standards and strict criteria based on functionality, innovation level, quality, ergonomics and durability. Barco's OL-521 won the red dot award for best product design and will be on display in the red dot design museum as of 5 July 2011.Barco's OL-521 is a LED-lit, rear-projection display cube designed for fixed video wall installations in command centers and control rooms. The OL-521 is part of Barco's LED video wall series launched in 2010, which tackles some of the biggest issues (e.g. screen size restrictions, color imbalances…) in video wall design today. These LED video walls integrate cutting-edge DLP™ technology and a Barco designed projection engine for use in 24/7 mission-critical applications.
Compact design
The OL-521 is the most space-saving display cube in Barco's LED video wall offering. With a depth of less than 45 cm (1.5 ft) and a weight of less than 44 kg (97 lbs), the OL boasts significant fuel and cost savings during transport and installation. Barco's OL is also available with front accessibility, which removes the need for a rear maintenance access, allowing a highly compact control room design. Furthermore, the OL display cubes can be stacked to a video wall of practically any size without sacrificing image quality or detail.
Cool engineering
Featuring a LED lifetime of more than 80,000 hours, Barco's OL boasts exceptional long-term performance because of its novel liquid cooling technology. This advanced heat management system reduces the LED temperature by ten degrees, doubling the lifetime of the LED light sources. Moreover, thanks to liquid cooling, the OL needs a limited amount of heat fans, resulting in less noise and hence a stressless and operator-friendly environment.
To even further enhance its LED-lit display cubes, Barco applied the same liquid cooling technique to create an increase of brightness. As higher brightness leads to higher power consumption and thus to higher temperatures, high-bright LED systems usually have a shorter lifetime. Because of liquid cooling, Barco's OL is the brightest display cube on the market without shortening the system's lifetime. Additionally, by using mercury-free and energy-efficient LEDs, the OL produces less waste and allows recycling for future use as it comprises recyclable materials only.
Clever software
Another proprietary Barco technology, Sense6, also tackles the changes in brightness and color characteristics of LEDs due to aging, changing temperature or higher drive current by constantly measuring brightness and color output and correcting changes in real time. Barco performs these color adjustments by reducing the power on the LED drivers, which means that an adjusted video wall can save up to 30% power. Besides energy efficiency, Barco's automated calibration technology also ensures uniform brightness, colors and contrast from center to edge, as well as in the corners within a single display cube, minimizing eye fatigue and maximizing operator comfort.
Guy Van Wijmeersch, Director Design Services Barco, adds: “This red dot award represents the culmination of over a year's hard work. An excellent team of product, hardware and software designers developed a number of highly innovative and efficient features. Besides savings in transport and installation costs, the OL boasts an overall net cost decrease of more than 15% compared to traditional display cubes. Combined with its long-term performance and ease of use, the OL sets completely new standards in video wall design today.”
About red dot
The red dot design competition is aimed at businesses that want to distinguish their activities through design. Excellent design is selected by an expert jury in the areas of product design, communication design and design concepts. The red dot label is an internationally recognized quality label and stands for belonging to the best in design and business.
Barco at Hannover Messe 2011
Barco's award-winning OL will be on display at the Hannover Messe at the booths of PSI (hall 13, stand C30) and RWTH Aachen (hall 17, stand C66) in Hannover, Germany, from 4 to 8 April 2011.
About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3,500 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of 897 million euro in 2010.
© Copyright 2011 by Barco
