2 USSC Competition Winners p.18 ISA Sign Expo Preview p.94 SIGNS OF THE TIMES FEBRUARY 2008 The World Leader In Sign Information Since 1906 www.signweb.com 08 EQUIPMENT SURVEY Handtools ABC LED SuperScreen Extreme Makeover: LED Edition WrapQuest ABC’s LED ISA Sign Expo Preview SuperScreen p.84 Also The Wire: The scoop on shop equipment p.84 Tips from the Tool Guys p.90 FEBRUARY 2008 FEBRUARY Pimping Rides p.92 Good Morning, Times Square The ABC Times Square icon is reborn. Louis M. Brill As a media façade, the ABC world that’s integrally involved A precursor to media facades Times Square Studios’ LED display with a major-TV-network program, Originally created in 1999 by its is a sight to behold. Nine, curvi- is trailblazing the future of media- corporate parent, the Walt Disney linear, horizontal, LED video façade-based “performance Co., the ABC Times Square ribbons undulate around the signage.” Studios’ LED spectacular is one facade’s front. Home to ABC’s Easily seen throughout Times of the area’s oldest such displays. Good Morning America, the Square, the display broke ground Having beamed more than 70,000 building presents what seems to as a media façade, a term that hours of news and entertainment be a gigantic TV screen that describes an LED video display that for eight years, the screen has displays network news and completely covers a building’s front recently been updated by D3 upcoming program and entertain- cladding. Media facades now prolif- (Rancho Cordova, CA), a full- ment previews. Actually, the erate on Times Square to capitalize service LED video-display firm that display, the only LED sign in the on the area’s advertising clout. designs and fabricates high-defini- 76 SIGNS OF THE TIMES / FEBRUARY 2008 Photo credit: Ida Astute, ABC Inc. Photo credit: Jason Barak, D3 A Times Square tradition. Each morning, as Good Morning America begins its live broad- cast, early-birds gather around the streetside studio windows to watch the program as millions watch on television. Photo credit: Ida Astute, ABC Inc. The Rockettes were featured on Good Morning America as they performed their tap- dance routines in front of the ABC TV studio building. tion LED video displays. grated LED display was divided Below that, the text-feature band D3 LED screens also appeared into nine, separate, horizontal, LED briefly summarized the story recently in several other Times ribbons, each approximately 133 ft. behind the video image. The Square sites, such as a display long, that extended lengthwise lowest ribbon broadcast sports replacement for the Armed Forces across the building. The first seven, news, and the one above that Recruiting station, the exterior full-color ribbons boasted a 50mm broadcast news headlines. displays on M&Ms® Retail World pixel pitch and formed a video- To facilitate the ribbon’s unique (see ST, October 2007, page 90) ribbon screen across the front of shape, NYC-based Landmark Signs and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not the building. built a curved, steel, interlocking Odditorium (see ST, August 2007, To enhance the display’s visual frame that connected it to the page 90). appeal, a SONY JumboTron LED building façade. Landmark built it Initially built by Multimedia LED videoscreen was embedded within in New Jersey, disassembled it and (Rancho Cordova, CA), the inte- the bigger Multimedia LED screen. re-assembled it in Times Square. SIGNS OF THE TIMES / FEBRUARY 2008 77 Photo credit: Jason Barak, D3 Landmark Signs placed an impact-proof tarp over the studio windows to protect them as it installed each LED ribbon’s new D3 modules. the Disney Co. decided to upgrade the original ABC Times Square LED display. During the summer of 2007, to prepare the ABC building for the new LED display, the original LED Photo credit: Quinn Meadows, D3 sign was stripped, one ribbon at a time, to its bare, steel frame. Having removed the original LED segments, Landmark retrofitted the new D3 LED modules (WS-10 units) onto the existing steel frame, from the bottom up, using the same LED-module connection points that held the first LED display in place. At least 3,551 D3 LED modules, each 3.5 in. (8 pixels) wide x 3.25 ft. (100 pixels) tall, replaced the original LED screen modules. In a rare look from behind the LED facade, the individual LED modules, and their steel- frame modules, can be seen. An icon is re-installed The unique sign design encom- “Once the full marketing value of operations and manufacturing, passes huge glass studio of the ABC LED display was under- and a former project manager of windows that separate the seven stood by the Times Square adver- the original Multimedia project. ribbons above and the two tising community, it became a Having witnessed the upgrading below. Tony Calvano, Landmark springboard for many other LED of other displays, such as Coca- Signs’ principal, said replacing video spectaculars [HSBC, Pontiac, Cola (in 2005) and Budweiser (in them entailed careful planning. Wrigley’s, LG, Samsung, etc.],” said 2007) and the addition of new, full- “During our swap out and George Pappas, a D3 founding color, high-definition screens replacement of the ABC LED partner who’s currently in charge (Chevrolet, Pontiac and Prudential), modules, we started at the 78 SIGNS OF THE TIMES / FEBRUARY 2008 Reporting Live from Times Square Photo credit: ABC Inc. Images that stream across the curvilinear ribbons of live imagery to be placed on the ribbon surfaces, we the ABC LED display will distort unless software needed real-time morphing capability. Show & Tell’s compensates for the curves. NYC-based Show & Tell control system implemented this for ABC. Now, in the Productions developed a state-of-the-art software front-end system, all image content, live or pre-created, system that controls image shape and acuity as it can be morphed in real time to create properly streams past each radius curve. The process continually aligned, distortion-free imagery for everyone who sees morphs pixel spacing as the image passes through the the sign throughout Times Square.” curves. Essentially, the software accelerates or slows The building facade regularly serves as a bumper down the image flow, and stretches or tucks the shot, as well as a backdrop for show and weather content to accommodate the screen’s radius curve. segments in the outdoor area in front of the studio. The D3’s Meric Adriansen said, “In the original system, ABC building facade has also been used as a back- the imagery was ‘pre-morphed’ with a plug-in Adobe ground for ABC News and ESPN Sports shows. In 2007, filter, which allowed the creation of properly aligned the ABC display featured World Cup soccer matches, images on its ribbon face. When we specified how the which attracted so many fans that they covered every new sign would operate, we noted that, in order for inch of Times Square as they watched the soccer match. bottom and worked our way where they were replacing each tight, curving, 3.5-ft.-radius corner upwards. By the third ribbon tier, ribbon of the modules. Daily, the of each ribbon: “The LED modules we were above the studio crew set the tarp under the work- on the inside radius curve had to windows, which meant we had space in the morning and removed fit seamlessly. Then, by working to protect each studio window it at the end of the day. from the radius outwards, we segment as we worked above it,” Because of its iconic presence, installed the rest of the ribbon, Calvano said. the original ABC sign operated going north to the ribbon’s edge To protect the windows from while it was retrofitted. Selectively, and then south to the other edge welding sparks and dropped each old LED ribbon was turned off of the display. As we moved from debris, Landmark draped and as its new module was installed. section to section, the tarp below rigged a fireproof, impact-resistant Calvano said the project began followed us, covering that section tarp across the windows, below with the most difficult part, the of studio glass. Once we perfected SIGNS OF THE TIMES / FEBRUARY 2008 79 The new ABC Times Square “SuperSign” offers a 10mm pitch with a 25-times-greater image resolution over its predecessor sign. Photo credit: Ida Astute, ABC Inc. the radius-curve insertion tech- dual processor to run the same development of the front-end nique, we did this with the other data signal twice in a parallel content-management system, eight ribbons. All together, we mode, as a backup feature; and which included the software that replaced the entire display in about • Hot-swappable backup power controlled the graphics, video, two and a half months.” supplies also run in parallel, animation and image morphing. which allows the backup power The original software for the first The new facade supply to immediately replace a ABC LED screen ultimately became The new ABC LED display offers failed, primary, power supply. a patchwork of fixes that adapted 25 times greater resolution than the screen to new software the original display. D3’s replace- The new, high-resolution LED upgrades and imagery techniques. ment display also includes: display required new software, In the new D3 version of the ABC • 10mm-pitch, LED-screen noted Meric Adriansen, a D3 LED display, additional control of resolution; managing partner who helped the video image allows the ribbon • Brighter color and better color develop the original sign’s opera- screen to display a complete image uniformity throughout the entire tion procedures (see sidebar on on all nine ribbons, not just the screen; page 79).