These days, it’s more enticing than ever for consumers to “go big or go home,” as the saying goes, when it comes to their home entertainment systems. With its combination of high-performance video solutions and a heritage virtually unmatched in consumer technology, Barco makes it easy for integrators to help customers go big and stay home.
“Barco has a very long history – as a matter of fact, we’re celebrating our 90th anniversary this year, which makes us one of the oldest consumer electronics companies in the world. Barco actually stands for Belgian American Radio Company,” explains Jeff Marks, business development manager for Eastern Region and Canada.
The company brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the luxury-performance consumer video category thanks to its high standing in the commercial video world. According to Marks, Barco represents about 63% of all the digital cinemas in the world.
“If you’re watching a digital cinema that’s using a laser projector, chances are it’s a Barco cinema projector now,” he points out, and that includes IMAX theaters.
The company’s engineering team has taken what it’s learned in producing digital cinema and applied it into projectors developed to appeal to high-end residential videophiles.
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“Digital cinema requires brightness. It doesn’t necessarily require the wide color gamut that we do in residential, it doesn’t necessarily have to have all the contrast and so forth,” Marks comments.
“So, while the platform is very similar there, the feature set is extremely different. It’s purpose-built for fine residential home theaters. These projectors have evolved since Barco started Barco Residential about 10 years ago.”
The residential team has also changed a bit. Daniel Nilsson, who headed up that venture, is now global director of sales for Barco Residential, leading the charge to gain more traction in the custom integration market
Toward that end, Barco Residential’s two newest solutions ought to make integration customers’ jaws drop: the Heimdall and Heimdall+ projectors and the NT Series Direct View (DV) LEDs.
On the projector side, the company’s Heimdall and Heimdall+ serve up 4,500 and 6,000 lumens, respectively, and incorporate Barco’s cinemascope auto detection feature.
Eight lens options make Barco Residential’s Heimdall and Heimdall+ suitable for any type of room condition. (Courtesy of Barco)
“It’s pretty much a game-changer when it comes to the ability to put a high-lumen projector in the same room that’s going to offer you the widest color gamut possible,” Marks adds.
Besides the impactful brightness, the latest projectors offer installer-friendly aspects for media room designs. Barco provides eight different lenses depending upon the application and the throw distance. The screen size is going to predicate what lens is purchased with the projector, Marks adds.
“We can range from a .3:1 way up to well over 4.0: throw ratios, so there’s a lot of flexibility here,” he says. “And when Barco’s used it’s going to be for screen sizes that are larger. We compete in an arena that has some very serious players when it comes to image quality.”
Also fit for large-format video installations, DV-LED has become a very big technology, Marks notes. At trade shows in recent years, DV-LED, microLED, and miniLED have been increasing in presence.
“One of the biggest problems with projection in general and in video entertainment is the amount of brightness is required to have in a a room with ambient light, and this is where DV-LED comes into play,” Marks says.
On this front, the Barco Residential NT Series packs in video performance and features to envy. It’s another market in which Barco has extensive, proven prowess as it has been manufacturing LED solutions for 25+ years.
Barco Residential’s NT Series DV-LED video wall is available in 1.2, 1.5, and 1.8 mm pixel pitch. (Courtesy of Barco Residential)
“We’ve got the oldest active screen still in Time Square [in Manhattan] that’s still working,” Marks adds. “We no longer make anything outdoor, but it’s all indoor for either high-end residential or control rooms.”
The NT Series DV-LED solution comes in three sizes – Vali 1.2, Vali 1.5, and Vali 1.8 mm pixel pitches. It also has what the company calls exclusive Barco Residential white glove service, providing full installation by trained Barco engineers.
“You bought [the house] because it had a view of something … you bought it for a reason,” Marks says. “Chances are you want to share that view not only with your family, but your friends and your associates when you entertain and you want to see that as much as possible, you don’t necessarily want to have to put something over the windows to dim it down and this is where DV-LED really, truly shines. Pun intended.”
The new series enables integrators to cast a wider net when it comes to prospective customers, Marks says. While Barco provides luxury residential video products that can run well into the six figures, the NT Series starts at a more modest $75K for a 1.2 pitch 137-inch DV-LED wall.
“Every wall that’s ever been purchased has been by extremely high-value net-worth clients, but when you get down to $75,000 that goes into a different class of millionaires,” he points out.
The NT Series provides customers with a more budget-friendly alternative to Barco’s existing Truepix line, which offers .9, 1.2, and 1.5 mm pixel pitches.
Meanwhile, he suggests integrators entering the DV-LED category to shy away from talk of image resolution. The size of the wall and seamlessness of the picture will directly tie into how big of a video wall is requested and how far away viewers will sit from it – so installers don’t need to worry too much about potentially intimidating pixel pitch talk.
“It’s predicated on the distance that you’re going to sit. If you don’t see the difference, why spend the money,” he asks rhetorically.
The bottom line is that when custom integrators collaborate with their vendors, they can figure out multiple methods to create movie magic for clients.
“Explore the possibility with your clients to offer them larger installations. They don’t know what they don’t know. None of us do, but it’s our job as integrators, it’s our job as manufacturers to offer solutions to clients that just want to be entertained,” Marks asserts.
“They want to have fun, they want to see the biggest picture they can and with Barco, we can do that in many different ways, whether it’s projection, whether it’s DV-LED, brightness, color gamut. What’s important to you?”
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