Barco's video control system turns Vegas blue

Sacramento, CA, November 21, 2005 — Barco announces that the innovative Blue Man Group’s new show at The Venetian in Las Vegas is using the Encore Presentation System exclusively for all video control. For the Blue Man Group production, Encore control encompasses switching and routing for cameras, background graphics, front and rear projectors, LED walls and digital disk playback systems.

Scharff Weisberg Inc., the Blue Man Group’s Systems Integrator, selected Encore because of its high-resolution scaling, and the ability to simultaneously manage RGB, SDI, HD and analog video inputs in a single console environment. Equally important was the system’s ability to independently address multiple destinations in both RGB and DVI formats.

Four Encore processors are used for the Blue Man event, each providing a single high-resolution RGB destination. On stage, destination targets include three LED walls plus front and rear projection screens, and each can be switched independently from Encore.

For event control, Scharff Weisberg selected Barco Events Manager, a software application designed for frame accurate device synchronization and the ability to create custom GUIs. With a single button press on a custom GUI, one operator can trigger entire sequences of Encore events (or “presets”) within the various Blue Man production numbers.

Jon Kiphart, the Blue Man Group’s video programmer, used over 150 Encore presets to create the show. “Encore was an elegant solution,” noted Kiphart. “In one unit, it provided the switching, the scaling and the ability to move images across the screen easily. What also surprised me the most about Encore was its ease of use.”

Steve Scorse, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Barco's Media and Entertainment division, North America, commented on the importance of redundancy for this installation. “Working with Scharff Weisberg, we knew that a primary concern was equipment redundancy, particularly when dealing with a permanent concert environment such as this. In this configuration, even projectors and playback devices have backups,” said Scorse. “As an economical solution, and because of Encore’s modularity, we were able to provide a single Encore processor as a hot-swappable backup, instead of an entire second system.”

About Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is a creative organization dedicated to creating exciting and innovative work in a wide variety of media. They are perhaps best known for their successful theatrical productions that combine comedy, music and multi-media artistry to create a form of entertainment that is totally unique. Blue Man Group has also recorded two albums; the Grammy nominated Audio, and The Complex, which became the musical basis for The Complex Rock Tour and Blue Man Group’s live concert DVD. Recently Blue Man Group has branched out into musical scoring with their work on Barry Levinson’s “The Jury” and on the animated film, Robots.

About Scharff Weisberg
Scharff Weisberg Systems Integration Inc. and Electrosonic operate a joint venture known as Electrosonic New York. Located in Long Island City, New York, this group provides architects, designers, consultants and builders with unsurpassed A/V system design and integration for applications that require complex design, installation and documentation. Melding Scharff's creative expertise and Electrosonic's global experience, Electrosonic NY manages design-only, design/build and build-only projects, plus long-term service, maintenance and custom electronics design.

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).

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