Melbourne Airport Unveils an 85 Meter Statement LED for Digital Art

May 22, 2019

Melbourne Airport in Australia has unveiled a statement LED display from SiliconCore Technology to the public, after completing an expansion to its Terminal 2 International Baggage Reclaim Hall.

Deployed by EngieAV via John Holland Group for MelAir, the “Carousel” project consists of over 85 meters of 2.5mm pixel pitch SiliconCore LED panels, which run continuously around the airport’s Terminal 2 baggage carousel. EngieAV also worked closely with Architects, Grimshaw, to ensure the delivery of a baggage reclaim that focused on creating a memorable arrival experience for long-haul passengers while addressing the primary objective of accommodating the immediate demand of Terminal 2.

Simon Gandy, Melbourne Airport Chief of Aviation, comments:

“The new carousel is a necessary piece of infrastructure, which will enable the airport to process more international travelers, especially during the peak morning and evening periods. The reality is we are growing at a rapid rate, handling on average 96,000 travelers each day and we need to upgrade our assets across all areas of the airport in order to meet the demands of our passengers.”

The LED ribbon is a platform for immersive art installations – an opportunity to offer passengers a positive and engaging experience, as well as provide a sense of depth to the space.

The SiliconCore 2.5mm display offers a complete canvas of 33600 x 405 pixels at an impressive brightness of 1700 nits, and 160 degree vertical and horizontal viewing angles. The display features SiliconCore’s patented Common Cathode technology, which enables incredible high resolution, color and brightness uniformity, as well as market leading low power consumption of up to 40 percent less than other displays.

A standout feature of the display is its 90 degree angles. Existing architecture had to have cut outs around the screen to accommodate fire doors and chutes. SiliconCore assisted with the entire process, partnering with Engie AV Technologies to deliver the design and frame of the LED ribbon.  

16x9 cabinets provide pixel perfect content displayed on the screen. Each length section consists of eight cabinets providing an exact pixel length of 1920, resulting in the complete display configuration made up of 18 sections of 1920 pixels. Each section was within the half height of HD1080 allowing two section strips per 1920x1080P of content. Custom V shaped cabinets were deployed for providing the smooth curves and included use of half cabinets to provide neat and tidy cutout positioning of the LED display around the doorways and bag chutes.

Content is controlled via a 7th Sense Design media player, and all graphics scaling and processing is managed natively via SiliconCore Technology. State-of-the-art audio is reinforced by Bose Corporation FreeSpace professional speakers. Materials and finishes to the walls and ceiling have been selected to provide a robust and contemporary design, while the black and white colour palette gives prominence to the LED ribbon.

Glenn Bailey, VP APAC, Siliconcore Technology, comments:

“It was very pleasing to be involved in such a professional project process from design, construction and installation through to a smooth go-live. With the project based on providing an engaging digital art platform, it was the perfect installation for utilizing our latest Z.A.C.H technology with HDR for improved grey scale and vivid imagery throughout the display. The higher processing clock speeds of the Z.A.C.H driver technology also permit much improved video performance for the digital art.”

Melbourne; a city with a celebrated art precinct and an emergence of digital art, now provides visitors arriving via the international terminal with an impressive canvas on which to display the city’s many attractions and diverse culture. Rather than using a LED videowall for the usual churn of advertising dollars, Melbourne Airport has deployed this screen to provide travelers with a totally immersive and inviting experience.