Freedom Park, an important heritage destination in South Africa, boasts a brand new Lighthouse SkyRoll VideoBlades LED screen.
Located in Pretoria, Freedom Park is a memorial that narrates the story of South Africa’s pre-colonial, colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid history and heritage, spanning a period of 3.6 billion years of humanity. It acknowledges those who contributed to the freedom of the country.
AV installer specialist Systems Solutions was in charge of providing and installing the impressive roll-up LED screen.

Roger Feldmann, Systems Solutions’ general manager explains: “Freedom Park requested a solution to provide an outdoor LED screen at the Sanctuary. This is an outdoor amphitheatre, with an eternal flame located in the middle of the fountain. The eternal flame pays tribute to the unknown and unsung heroes and heroines. The flame is under cover under a bridge-like structure and is flanked on the left by rectangular ribbon stone

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“This amphitheatre has been used many times before for outdoor events. Typically for these events the fountain was drained and an outdoor LED screen with a PA system was erected temporarily in the drained fountain area. Due to the popularity of using this venue for events, the park called for proposals to install a permanent solution.’

Since the space under the bridge structure varies in height depending on whether there is water or not, the solution needed a screen that could expand and retract easily. It also needed to be light enough not to damage the supporting building.
The Sky Roll VideoBlades LED screen has a 12.5 mm pixel pitch definition and a density of 6 400 pixels per square meter, producing a brightness of 6 500 nits, ideal for bright outdoor light. The screen deploys down from overhead with a smooth motor on the edge.

As it comes pre-configured from the factory only a minimal number of electrical and mechanical connections are required to operate the system. The blades are supported by an integrated truss sub-structure, which minimises the time of the truck packing with minimum wear and tear.
The screen is 6m wide by 3.37m high (16:9 aspect ratio). Each video blade measures 1m wide by 0.7m high. The screen image is processed using a proprietary LED screen processor called a blade runner.

Feldmann says: “We have installed an FSR Indie 400 high performance video scalar. This is an HD, high performance video scaler, scan converter, switcher and transcoder in one. The INDIE is the ideal solution for converting any video signal, such as RGB, HDTV, component, s-video, composite and HD/SDI; into a user-selectable video format. The INDIE supports a wide variety of analogue and digital output formats including broadcast and VESA standards along with many native plasma formats and outputs DVI to the blade runner.’

The screen is operated remotely using a handheld remote control device. But visitors to Freedom Park are not only delighted with the bright images on the screen; their ears are also tended for thanks to a weatherproof JBL AMX 6315 /95 PA system. There is one on each side of the screen linked to a Crown XTI 6002 amplifier.

“The PA system was cleverly incorporated into the installation by extending the truss to the left and right of the screen,’ recalls Feldmann, “the loudspeakers are concealed in these extensions.

“The screen linked with the PA is used primarily for displaying feeds from outside broadcast vans during live events, however now that the client has seen the versatility they are even thinking about using it as a fanpark for upcoming sporting events,’ concludes Feldmann.

This outdoor screen can be used at public events, which contributes to social cohesion by underpinning Freedom Park’s commitment to its values of tolerance of diversity, inclusivity, trust, transparency and accountability.

By Geny Caloisi