A 4 x 3 Planar video wall provides a playful centrepiece to the new Harbord Diggers redeveloped club.

Increasingly corporate foyers and atriums are turning to creative digital signage to provide a dash of elan in an environment that can otherwise suffer from being sterile.

Harbord Diggers has taken creative digital signage a step further: a digital interactive aquarium that relies on robust Planar touchenabled displays.

The new Harbord Diggers is a huge $160m redevelopment on Sydney’s North Shore, that’s taking the primo NSW clubs concept to a whole new level: accommodation, restaurants, bars, entertainment, childcare, a gym, gaming, and an old people’s home… It’s huge, impressive, and fast becoming a one-stop destination for Harbord, Manly and beyond.

The 12-panel video wall is quite dazzling. Harbord Diggers has partnered with Prendi, a digital signage solutions provider which specialises in delivering interactive solutions such as this.

“When Harbord Diggers approached us, they had plans for a 12-screen video wall.” says James Ingram, Prendi’s Managing Director. “We instantly knew this would be sure to catch the attention of any visitor walking into the space.”

The Harbord Diggers Interactive Wall is a multifaceted solution, bringing together much more than just an underwater aquarium scene: it automatically display social media feeds, allows visitors to call up historical footage, and even ‘feed fish’ – unlocking a suite of maritime animations.

THE TECH: GO FISH

The video wall system was integrated and installed by Fredon. Selecting a seamless touch-enabled video wall was a crucial decision. A touch-enabled single display is relatively easy to come by, but as soon as you go larger — in this case, a 4x3 video wall — the options are restricted to specialised vendors. Arguably, the biggest name in large-format touch is Planar.

Planar’s Clarity Matrix G3 LCD Video Wall System combines an ultra-narrow bezel with powerful video processing, management and associated electronics.

Harbord Diggers uses a 46-inch high brightness (800 nits) MX version of the product. There’s only 1.7mm bezel-to-bezel, providing that nearly-seamless look you want in a video wall. Installers appreciate the integrated EasyAxis mounting system. The result is a video wall that protrudes less than 10cm from the surface behind. Unlike other manufacturers, Planar provides the video wall processing as part of the system, which takes care of any scaling duties, and can handle multiple sources for multi views and/or picture-inpicture.

In this case, Prendi provided and installed a beefy, Intel i9-based, custom-built PC to serve the content.

The Windows box runs 3x Quadro video cards with a Sync II card outputting at an eyewatering 7680x5760/60p.

Planar is accustomed to dealing with customers with unique and exacting demands and its products are designed to always be up. There’s plenty of redundancy so you can hot swap components and never miss a beat.