Planar Mosaic Video Wall Makes a Towering Statement in Stunning Lobby of South Florida Hotel

With the Planar® Mosaic™ Architectural Video Wall, Planar has again broken new ground in the application of digital signage. In the lobby of one of Florida's newest hotels, a four-story tower of Planar Mosaic video tiles – the tallest Planar Mosaic video wall in use today – provides a breathtaking digital statement, defining the hotel as ultra-high tech, super-stylish and unique in almost every way.

"In this part of Florida, the hotel landscape is extremely crowded, so property owners know they have to take bold steps to stand out and compete," says Cesar Cifuentes, founder and president of CMA, the Miami based digital signage company which selected Planar Mosaic for this one-of-a-kind installation. "Planar Mosaic gave us the ability to create a hotel lobby experience like no other, where digital signage really attracts attention and makes a powerful statement about the hotel."

Cifuentes and his team took into account, the hotel's desire for a truly unique video wall as well as the space in which it would be installed. The space is tall and makes extensive use of glass— for interior architectural purposes and also to allow visibility from the outside. Planar Mosaic was chosen because, as Cifuentes says, it has an architectural aesthetic, accommodates virtually any design concept and provides exceptional image quality regardless of the lighting conditions.

Breathtaking installation design, support for stunning 4K content

The end result for this hotel is a tower of 55-inch Planar Mosaic panels (AD55-Vincent) in a herringbone pattern created by installing the video tiles vertically at 90-degree angles to each other. On this canvas, CMA designed and executed a content strategy that features HD content (1920 by 1080 resolution) on every single display, driven by BrightSign XD230 media players providing pixel-perfect synchronization. "The content, which actually measures 5,000 pixels in width by 15,000 pixels in height, is razor-sharp across the entire digital canvass. No video wall other than Planar Mosaic could be implemented in this unusual configuration and also deliver this image quality on every display in the video wall," Cifuentes says.

Further, Planar Mosaic delivers 800 nits of brightness on every display which makes the video wall stand out even in bright, sunlit conditions common in South Florida. And an automatic adjustment feature ensures that the right level of brightness is achieved in night time or low light conditions as well.

Remotely located component approach significantly reduces potential for failure

While CMA did research and consider other video wall solutions for this project, Planar Mosaic won out for another key reason: its low potential for failure. "Planar continued its proven off -board power supply design with Planar Mosaic, whereby power supplies are located away from the video wall in a remote rack room. The most important benefit of this design is that possible points of failure are not within each display, thus nearly eliminating the necessity for service that would require scaffolding. If we encounter a problem with a power supply, for example, we can easily deal with it on the ground, in the rack room, rather than from 40 feet in the air."

System designed with integrator in mind

However, as Cifuentes allows, display problems or failures can occur. "But here again, Planar mitigates this possibility with the Mosaic Mount™, which enables a display to be accessed individually and removed and replaced using simple push in-pull-out attachment points. It's the simplest and quickest maintenance and service solution in the industry, hands down."

He gives Planar additional kudos for the manner in which it supports the systems integrator. In particular, he cites Planar's total solution approach under which Mosaic Ensemble™ includes all the components for an all-in-one video wall solution including Mosaic Mount, Mosaic Power Supply Modules and Mosaic Project Designer™ Software. "This is so much better than with other products which don't come with all the components we need. In those cases, time needs to be spent obtaining these from other sources. That's extra time that slows a project down and adds unnecessary costs. With Planar Mosaic, we avoid this hassle altogether."