A quick chat with Rishubh Nayar, Director at Christie Digital Systems (India) on what they showcased at InfoComm India this year.
RB (Raunuq Benjamin): What is Christie Digital Showcasing today?
RN (Rishubh Nayar): Christie has been in the business for 90 years today into visual solutions, and we always try to take a leap ahead when it comes to technology advancements when it comes to anything related to video and processing. We have some exciting launches like every year at InfoComm, for broadcast one of our products doing very well getting adapted very fast are the direct view LED range. So we have two categories of LED, one is completely made in North America – Microtiles LED product which is the only cabinet free product line today in the world that has electronics and power supply completely off board. It is available, we did a tech preview for it at infoComm for 0.7 and 0.9 as well and this one which is a 1.2000 product, got DCI colour space. Again something which can be adapted and is used in broadcast is our blend of projectors. A very cost effective replacement to our Directview LED but communicates a good message so you could use it effectively.
RB: How different is the cost? (between the LED and the projectors)
RN: Huge, this would be easily about 1/10th cost.
RB: So this is more user friendly and cost effective!
RN: Absolutely, this is more cost effective, it gives it more flexibility, you can cover whatever size and stage-up from there. Then you have the showcase products which our RGB projectors which includes 34,000 lumens, 40,000 lumens, again, what we have taken the leap ahead in the space is that these are the only projection solutions that produce Pure RGB without the process of a chiller.
RB: Without the use of a chiller?
RN: Yes, without the use of one, these are the only projections solutions that is based on pure RGB technology which is not requiring any chillers. Coming back to what we have brought here – we have our budget friendly Directview LED line as well which comes with a lot of add on features like depth of less than 35mm, on-board power supply as well, this costs around a crore, and then are our standalone displays. Another message I would wanna pass is that Christie is one of the very few OEMs which is got complete visual portfolio so, talk about projectors, LED, and flatpanels we have a full bouquet of video products and to backend everything is run on our pandora’s box which is our playback system.
RB: So you supply the Pandora’s box as well?
RN: Christie had acquired Pandora’s box many years ago and is part of our organisation.
RB: In terms of your microtiles LED, how big can you go?
RN: Any size, so size in anything and everything you seeing here could go anysize, you just need to add projectors and increase the size, there is no size limitations so to say.
RB: What about live events? stadiums?
RN: These are more so fixed installed products, in live events and stadiums, this is a bit too premium for that, I would politely say that, as there are many other OEMs that are known to supply for that.
RB: How many newsrooms would install something like this? can I get a couple of names?
RN: A lot of them now, a lot. So now we are doing a very large studio for which we have just got an order from Bangladesh and is doing about 8 to 9 of such LED walls, install is yet to begin. We did a similar install for News Now in Chennai, which is using Christie Microtile, but the former generation from many years ago. A few more would be CNN IBN, uses our Microtile, but the former generation one. This is yet to be adopted and that (pointing at the budget-friendly one) is going in a lot of studios as well.
RB: How about the premium option, how many have you sold, can that part be used in production? OTT production, Production houses?
RN: You could use it as a production as a production wall, but in production people normally go in for projection, as it is easier to adapt and budget friendly as LED is majorly to be adopted, but we have sold about 150 of those in India alone.
RB: How many pixels can that support?
RN: So that’s what I was saying, as long as you add to its size it can support any number of pixels.
RB: 4k, 6k, 12k?
RN: No issues, absolutely, no issues, you just keep on increasing the size and its resolution increases.
RB: Can the LED wall be curved?
RN: Yes absolutely, concave and convex, one block of the LED is just about the size of the palm, and it is modular to the extent that you can create a complete 360-degree.
