Barco helps put Chinese Spring Festival Gala 2009 in the OX Year spotlight
Beijing, CHINA, 2 February 2009 — Barco, a world leader in visualization and display solutions, once again deploys its advanced technology in bringing excitement to CCTV Chinese Spring Festival Gala.
The spectacular gala event is broadcast annually on the eve of Chinese New Year from 8pm till midnight by state-run China Central Television (CCTV). A genuine family event, it is estimated that this year’s show, held on January 25, was watched by some 95% of all Chinese families on the mainland and by more than 700 million viewers worldwide.
Chief Director of the show’s visualization component was Sha Xiaolan. Sha is a renowned lighting design director in China, serving as the director of lighting for a number of celebrated events, including last summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing. With the Barco-branded LED screens and digital lighting (DML 1200), Sha was able to work his magic in bringing this year’s Chinese Spring Festival Gala to life for CCTV. Barco products in play for the event included 640 ILite 6 BK LED display tiles — totaling 128 square meters — and 8 DML-1200 moving digital luminaire units.
The DML-1200 is not only the brightest digital light on the market today, but it also offers unlimited image selection along with the ability to seamlessly switch between video projection and light mode, opening the door to unlimited creativity. Its deployment in CCTV’s Chinese Spring Festival Gala represents its first large-scale application in Greater China. The ILite 6BK is the industry standard in the rental and staging marketplace. A 6mm black LED display based on the established ILite technology, it provides a contrast ratio of 3000:1 while offering 2000 Nit brightness.
Sha Xiaolan, Chief Director of the gala show’s visualization component selected Barco products for their advanced technology and versatility. “The gala stage at CCTV’s No. 1 studio in Beijing featured a complicated, tridimensional setting. The DML-1200 features a small footspace and is very flexible in its deployment; it was relatively easy to install on the steeves, giving us the unique ability to project video or images on the second and third screens. This year’s Gala Evening perfectly combined both projection and LED solutions,” says Sha Xiaolan. “The result was the creation of a great visual feast, for millions of people to enjoy.”
“While Barco is proud of all its product achievements across a wide range of industries in China, providing our world-class visualization solutions for the CCTV Chinese Spring Festival Gala event is something extra special,” says Frank Christiaens, President of Barco China. “This represents our fifth straight year in a row where Barco products played a role in the CCTV production. Needless to say, it’s exciting for us to witness Barco’s technological advantages in action on such large productions; it’s something we’ve really come to take pride in here in China.”
About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3600 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of euro 747 million in 2007.
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