Barco wins manufacturer of the year Award at annual AV awards

Fighting off stiff competition, Barco was awarded Manufacturer of the Year at the ceremony held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel, London. Jonathan Cooper, Managing Director of Barco UK, collected this very prestigious award for the manufacturer who has shown the most marketing, technological and applicational innovation. MiSPHERE was custom designed, manufactured and developed for the U2 tour, in conjunction with U2 Lighting designers and XL Video.

The judges stated that Barco’s technological innovation and the way it worked with the U2 tour designers to develop MiSPHERE was a good example of a manufacturer working with its clients to develop the market as well as an engineering feat. And it did so at a time when it continued to increase revenues and maintain market share.

Lee Spencer from XL Video commented: “The experience of working with Barco on this project was refreshing, as their professionalism, dedication and commitment to every aspect of the MiSPHERE 's production was inspiring”.

Stephan Paridaen, President of Barco's Media and Entertainment division explains: “Driven by the motto “market driven, technology enabled”, Barco involves customers in the design and development of products. In this way, we have changed over the past decade from product supplier to industry collaborator. For the U2 Vertigo Tour, we have worked directly with XL Video (Rental Partner), Innovative Designs (which specializes in the design and production of custom-made video displays for special projects) as well as with leading show, lighting and video designers. Willie Williams and Mark Fisher were directly involved in the design and creation of the MiSPHERE product. By becoming involved in the early ‘fuzzy’ stage of a project’s origins, we offer creatives the opportunity to dream their wildest dreams, and then we turn them into technical reality. The MiSPHERE used on U2’s Vertigo tour is the perfect example.”

While they formed a very significant part of the visualization, the MiSPHERE modules were only one of the Barco solutions on tour with U2. XL Video also provided over 540 square meters of LED video wall (OLite 510), 4 DLPTM projectors and 6 LCD projection systems, which together made the tour an absolutely thunderous event.

MiSPHERE opens up the door to new and innovative LED display solutions. A single MiSPHERE consists of 4 full color high performance LEDs that reside inside an opaque, light-defusing capsule. With 360-degree viewing angles, and the ability to play both full video and data, MiSPHERE bridges the gap between existing video and lighting products. Individual MiSPHEREs are daisy-chained into a string, with several strings in turn forming a 3-D visualization curtain.

Each MiSPHERE acts as a pixel within the curtain, making it possible to display images and simulate lighting effects across the entire curtain, while also achieving a “Look-Trough” effect and “Multiple Angle” viewing-effect for the audience all around the scene.

MiSPHERE will be available for shipment beginning of 2006.

About Barco
Barco, an international company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, provides visualization and display solutions for professional markets. Barco designs and develops solutions for large screen visualization, display solutions for life-critical applications, and systems for visual inspection. Barco is active worldwide and has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco is quoted on Euronext Brussels and is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company (Euronext: BAR; Reuters: BARBt.BR; Bloomberg: BAR BB).

© Copyright 2005 by Barco - May be reproduced by professional press only

For more information, please contact

Inge Govaerts
Public Relations Manager
Barco - Media & Entertainment

Telephone +32 56 36 8052
inge.govaerts@barco.com