French live-events specialist pushes back the barriers of uncompressed video playback
One of France’s most experienced and creative live-events companies, Video Lumière Son (VLS), has invested in its offering to end customers by adding five Delta™ media servers from 7thSense Design to its inventory.
VLS boasts over 25 years’ experience in providing video, lighting and sound systems, developing and implementing complex technological solutions for events all over the world. In the past decade, the company has developed a particular competency in the projection of very large, uncompressed HD images, and this is where Delta comes in, as Cyril Toussaint of VLS explains:
“There are plenty of video playback systems out there, but most of them compress the image in some way,” says Cyril Toussaint. “This compression inevitably leads to the creation of artefacts such as banding effects when displaying shaded tones, for example.
“Out of respect for the artists’ work, we prefer to use uncompressed video wherever possible. However, until Delta came along, none of the uncompressed playback systems had enough flexibility for the events we were being asked to support.”
After hearing about Delta, Cyril Toussaint visited 7thSense Design’s UK headquarters and found “a very friendly team of passionate developers and engineers with a unique product that is as reliable as it is flexible”.
“Delta gives us edge-blending, multiple warping features, real-time 3D object mapping and, last but not least, fast timeline encoding,” Cyril Toussaint continues. “Furthermore, the fact that 7thSense Design uses high-end hardware such as SSD hard drives and multiple-output graphics cards guarantees our investment, because it means the product will not be rendered obsolete by time.
“We are very happy to have decided on Delta because we can be sure that what we see during production is the same quality we will get during playback. What you see is what you get!”
Recent VLS projects to have featured Delta include the opening ceremony of the ‘Festival des arts nègres’ in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where three quad-output servers were used to supply ten stacked pairs of projectors showing a 120m x 40m image, and the launch of the new Lexus CT200h hybrid car, which featured architectural projection-mapping onto the façade of France’s Saint-Germain castle.
Ian Macpherson, Director, 7thSense Design, concludes: “Working with companies such as VLS is truly inspiring. Their team is constantly pushing back the barriers of what can be done with uncompressed video playback across very large surfaces, and as well as the technical sophistication, the mission-critical nature of these projects really brings the ruggedness of our Delta servers to the fore.
“We are very proud of our relationship with VLS and look forward to working with them on many exciting live-events projects in the future.”
www.vls.fr
www.7thsensedesign.com
