Spain - XL Video supplied a substantial projection system and control together with HD cameras / PPU, HD LED screen, several hundred monitors, networking and fibre infrastructure plus audio systems for two high profile Microsoft events staged back-to-back at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via convention centre in Barcelona, Spain.

TechEd is Microsoft's premier event for IT professionals and enterprise developers, and this was followed immediately by Convergence, the Microsoft community's chance to network with other users, share and expand their experience and realise their potential.

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USA - Agricultural technology manufacturer and educator Precision Planting updated the user experience for their Planter Technology Institute, a mobile educational and promotional 53ft trailer that travels to growers nationwide, with the high definition PixelFLEX LED FLEXTiles.

After utilizing high-maintenance short throw projectors and televisions, Precision Planting engaged AV partner AVSC to improve the visual impact of the mobile display. PixelFLEX was chosen to create a dynamic and mobile visual environment.

"We thought this would be the best solution for our trailer movin

UK - Continuing their work on a number of recent high profile productions at the National Theatre London, UK, XL Video is supplying digital LED scenery for Man and Superman at the National's Lyttelton Theatre.

The highly-acclaimed production of George Bernard Shaw's play, which stars BAFTA award-winner Ralph Fiennes in the lead role of Jack Tanner, is directed by Simon Godwin, with a video design by Luke Halls.

The production uses over 1800 modules of XL Video's Barco MiTrix LED to form digital scenery - upstage and for both side walls of the set.

The semi-transparent MiTri

UAE - Peerless-AV has opened a new warehouse location in the Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone (JAFZA), Dubai, to improve response times to customers throughout the Middle East, Africa and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

"This is another strategic step in Peerless-AV's growth plan for EMEA. We are seeing rising demand for our mounts and Emerging Technology solutions from the region and the time is right for us to invest in high quality and efficient local support for customers in the region," said Adam Dent, director of international sales, Peerless-AV Europe.

The Jebel

Europe - Electro pioneers, Kraftwerk, are currently touring the world with probably their most spectacular and innovative live show of their 45-year career - 3D concerts of their The Catalogue 12345678. Having received rave reviews across North America last year, Kraftwerk are now touring throughout Europe.

Production manager Winfried Blank made the decision in early 2014 to put DirectOut Andiamo 2.XT AES/MADI AD/DA converters on the tour. He asked for extended routing functionality to be included in the software for even greater flexibility. "We are working with digital a

UK - XL Video UK has announced a large investment in d3's Pro range of media servers, adding 12 units to its inventory.

The addition of the units to its existing fleet now makes XL Video the largest rental stockist of d3 media servers worldwide.

The company has made the investment as a result of growing demand for d3 from all sectors of the rental market including concert touring, and events agencies.

To ensure XL Video is able to provide the highest levels of support for the new d3 machines, XL's media server and control systems manager, Christian Dickens, has become a d3 certifi

Belgium - Barco has added two new indoor LED displays to its display portfolio for retail and advertising. Designed for fixed indoor installation in fashion retail, automotive retail, banking or transit advertising applications, the V4i and V6i feature 4mm and 6mm pixel pitch, respectively, and combine the renowned Barco image quality with excellent contrast.

"We offer an extensive portfolio of both indoor and outdoor LED displays with low, medium, and high resolution for all types of applications in the retail and advertising market," comments Carl Rijsbrack, vice president

UK - On 28 February the Odyssey Arena in Belfast played host to the boxing match relayed on live TV in the UK, featuring super bantamweight champion Carl Frampton defending his title against American Chris Avalos. Boxing in his home city, Frampton, also known as 'The Jackal', defeated Avalos inside five rounds and continued his winning streak.

Creative Technology's (CT) services were engaged to supply the IMAG screens rigged above the ring. Four 18sqm displays were flown from truss using CT's new ROE MC7 LED tiles and fed with the live footage also broadcast on ITV.

Paul Seeger, CT

USA - Verizon Wireless is turning up the wow factor in stores and malls around the United States, from their two-story flagship store in Chicago to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, to Houston, Santa Monica, and Boston.

Smaller "Smart Store Plus" locations that include some, but not all, of the new design features of the flagship stores are also making appearances around the United States starting in Seattle.

One of the first video features customers see when entering the stores is the Brand Focal, a video column consisting of over 100 Christie MicroTiles. The feature si

USA - XL Video US has announced the addition of German Perl as technical director media application and projection. After 10 years of developing leading edge technologies with XL Video in Dusseldorf, Perl joins the US operation to position the subsidiary for expansion into complete turnkey video and presentation solutions for its clients.

XL Video is an industry leading, global provider of high-end video display systems delivering quality LED technology, projectors, and media servers as well as experienced technical support. Perl's role is to develop emerging video solutions for innov

Germany - With hundreds of Hippotizer V4 units joining the herd of award winning Hippotizer V3's, Green Hippo and B&K Braun get ready to showcase the latest innovations in media server technology.

Says the company, "After an incredible February with a single Hippotizer Taiga unit driving the 87th Academy Awards, we're bringing Taiga to Prolight and Sound where it will be driving the entire stand along with its smaller brothers used for private demos on the B&K stand Hall 11 stand B15-D14.

The impressive stand will also feature Boreal which recently set sail on the largest cruis

Canada - Winnipeg's striking new Canadian Museum for Human Rights explores the universal concept of human rights with a special emphasis on Canada.

Electrosonic was contracted to do the audio-visual design of the museum's 11 galleries, and subsequently the company directed the AV equipment installation working with local partner Advance Pro. The museum features theatres, interactive touchscreen stations, projections on a digital canvas and hundreds of video clips.

Eleven media partners were involved in the build-out requiring considerable technical coordination by Electrosonic. The

Spain - With 85,000 people attending over the course of the four days, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the world's largest exhibition for the mobile phone industry. Held annually in Barcelona within the purpose-built arena Fira Gran Via, the MWC is renowned as the industry's forum for launching major technological breakthroughs.

Creative Technology (CT) has supplied various exhibitors at this event over the last nine years with the London office providing most of the equipment used. As CT Spain has heavily invested in new equipment, the 2015 event involved a much larger contributio

Europe - Continuing their long-term working relationship, XL Video have supplied a compact and versatile projection package for DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist's Renegades of Rhythm European tour.

XL Video project manager, Jay Mobbs-Beal worked with manager & production manager, Jamal Chalabi, to create the video specification for the tour.

The shows, which spanned across Europe from the UK over to Estonia and Lithuania, featured a projection backdrop flown behind the DJ booth. With varying venue sizes, XL Video supplied two different screen types for the tour - one 4.8m wide by 2.7m high

Germany - The Sinus - Systems Integration Award is presented this year for completion of the new ARD (Consortium of German Regional Public Broadcasters) 'Tagesschau' studio. This new production environment incorporates state-of-the-art technology and is innovative in terms of its optical design. It has been home to Germany's most successful news programme since April last year. The Sinus is awarded for the creative application of AV media technology and systems integration. The awards ceremony will take place on 16 April as part of Prolight+Sound and this pre-eminent industry award will

USA - For the seventh year running, Hippotizer by Green Hippo was again the media server of choice at this year's Academy Awards, broadcast from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on 22 February.

This year however, marked a major step forward: The new Hippotizer V4 hardware and software system was put to work. One V4 Taiga, the flagship model of the new V4 range, performing a task that would have previously required at least three Hippotizer HDs, drove six video outputs, feeding all projection and LED screen content on the main stage - executing the show's artistic vision with perfectly execut

Italy - XL Video returned to the gleaming modernity of the MiCo Milano Congressi conference centre in downtown Milan to provide various video solutions including projection and control, cameras / multiple PPU and crew, together with general AV support for the Cisco Live! 2015 event, working for global experience marketing agency, George P. Johnson.

Cisco Live! is the industry's premier education and training event for IT, networking and communications professionals, and XL Video's team was project managed by Nick Askew and Chris Ellis. Their brief included the provision of a diverse s

Europe - Panasonic has launched a new high brightness, 1-chip DLP projector series which is "the quietest in its class". Aimed at continuous 24-hour operation in public display and signage, as well as rental and staging applications, the DZ780 projectors feature a liquid-cooling system that reduces operating noise to just 30 dB when projecting at full lamp output power.

The dual-lamp projector outputs 7,000 lumens at WUXGA resolution and introduces a host of premium features, normally reserved for flagship large-venue projectors.

Hartmut Kulessa, marketing manager projecto

USA - After dominating the country music charts with 35 number ones, more than 60 career singles and a dedicated fan base, Alan Jackson has chosen Nashville-based Elite Multimedia Productions (EMP) to handle all lighting, video and LED for his 25th anniversary, Keepin' It Country tour, which is sponsored by Kubota Tractor Corporation.

The tour, which kicked off in early January in Fort Myers, Fla. and continues through the summer, has production needs that vary with the many different types of venues it plays. Lighting and video play a major role in the country icon's productio

Germany - Avolites is powering up its latest consoles, dimmers and media servers for possibly the company's biggest ever presence at Prolight + Sound Frankfurt, on stand D40, Level 0, Hall 11.

On stand, visitors can experience the capabilities of Avolites Titan V9, new networking functionality, and display of the revolutionary Autoblend feature of Ai.

Autoblend allows blending of large projection surfaces using multiple projectors. In addition, there is a new Surface Modelling page for the creation of editable 3D sets, and performance is hugely improved, with render engine optimisat

Germany - Current HD picture signals are demanding and require a high data rate. Transmission distances beyond 10m are therefore often fraught with problems.

With the new HDMI-over-Fibre system from German manufacturer Cardinal, DVM signals with a maximum resolution of 4K x 2K - including RS232 and infrared data - can be transmitted hassle free over distances of up to 300 m via an OM3 multimode line.

The robust and compact housing (known from the DVM- 120 active series) is available in two versions: as stand-alone housing with the dimensions of 68 x 36 x 145 mm, as installation hous

USA - Working with lighting and set designer, Will Potts, XL Video supplied a package of scenic LED, LED IMAG screens and accompanying camera system for multi-Grammy award winner Sam Smith's US Arena tour.

The sold-out shows, in support of Smith's 'In The Lonely Hour' album, visited venues across the US and Canada during January and February 2015 including The Forum in Los Angeles, and Madison Square Garden in New York.

Will Potts' show design called for a subtle, classy video setup with Sam Smith's band all situated on varying height risers at the rear of the stage. These risers we

UK - National tourism agency VisitBritain recently held two distinct trade events in North and Southwest England, both aimed at helping local businesses develop international tourism. The agency turned to event production supplier White Light to provide lighting and projection mapping for both events, using cutting edge technology to complement two unique historic venues in Plymouth and Yorkshire.

Ahead of its Southwest showcase, VisitBritain chose the historic Royal William Yard in Plymouth as the canvas for a special lighting and projection display. The event, held the next day at

UK - Pixel Projects provided immersive retail solutions for the new Google shop within Currys PC World on Tottenham Court Road, London.

The Google shop-in-shop (SIS) officially launched Thursday 12 March and is selling Android phones, Chromebook laptops, and Chromecast TV service whilst offering visitors the opportunity to try out various interactive AV installations.

To provide a key focal point for the shop, AV integrator Pixel Projects installed a Portal (formally Liquid Galaxy) with software development partners End Point. The large scale panoramic display provides users with a

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