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ABC Times Square Studios: Good Morning in Times Square
By Louis M. Brill
As far as building LED displays goes, the ABC Times Square Studios building facade is a sight to behold. In a distinct melding of architecture and sculpture, the LED video screen is presented as nine curvilinear horizontal video strips that undulate around the front of the ABC Times Square building facade. It may be home to ABC's Good Morning America, but to Times Square passersby it is the building with the curvy front wall that is a gigantic television screen displaying current news and ABC TV previews all day long.
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ABC Times Square Studios Creates Media Façade The LED facade was initially built by Multimedia LED (Rancho Cordova, CA) as an integrated display featuring several disparate screen formats that merged into a single viewing system. First, the total LED display was divided into nine separate horizontal LED ribbons, with each ribbon approximately 133-feet long, extending from one side of the front of the building to the other side. Seven of the nine ribbons were full color, each with a pitch of 50 mm.
To make the ABC display more visually interesting, a second LED video screen (at that time, it was a SONY JumboTron) was embedded within the bigger Multimedia LED screen. Below the LED six ribbon screen was a "feature band" that gave a brief text summary of its above video image. At the bottom of the display were two text message ribbons, with the lower ribbon a sports 'zipper.' and the upper one a news headline zipper. Nothing about the ABC TV Studio LED sign was conventional; a curved steel interconnecting frame was built and connected to the entire front of the ABC TV Studio building. Unique with one of the tightest radius ever built, (a 3.5 foot curved sign face), its curvilinear sign face was exceptionally challenging in getting matching LED modules to seamlessly fit on the steel frame. The original LED frame was built in New Jersey by Landmark Signs, disassembled and reassembled in Times Square. Finally, getting the visual content to properly stream across the ribbons in an easy-to-view format turned out to be quite a challenge as well.
Architecturally it was advanced enough that it was a precursor to what are now known as media facades where a building cladding is completely covered with an LED video display. Now the ABC TV Studio's LED display look has become timeless as many more contemporary media facades have tried to incorporate some aspect of its design into their display. As soon as the ABC Times Square LED display was up, it became the 'shot heard 'round the advertising world. From a viewing point its impact was enormous as it was easily seen by just about everyone passing through the north end of Times Square. "Once the full marketing value of the ABC LED display was understood by the Times Square advertising community," said George Pappas, a founding partner of D3 (currently in charge of operations and manufacturing), and a former project manager of the original Multimedia ABC LED project, "it became a springboard for many other LED video spectaculars (HSBC, Pontiac, Wrigley's, LG, Samsung, etc) that began to populate Times Square."
Currently the 1999 ABC SuperSign (as it is also known) has become one of the senior Times Square LED video displays. After eight years of evolving LED technology, LED lighting and sign technology has made significant improvements with tighter pitches, brighter LEDs and a richer, more dimensional spectral range of full color imagery. With many other original LED displays having been converted into their modern counterparts, such as Coca-Cola (2005) and Budweiser (2007) and new ones (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Prudential), all beginning to appear with a full color, high resolution look, the Disney Company decided that it was time to evolve the original ABC Times Square LED display (Version I). To prepare the ABC building for its new LED display (Version II) during the summer of 2007, the original LED sign, ribbon-by-ribbon was completely stripped to its bare steel frame. Then from the bottom up, once each original LED segment was removed, the new D3 LED modules (WS-10 units) were retro-fitted and placed onto the existing steel frame, using the same LED module connection points that held the first LED display in place. Each D3 LED module is 3 1/2 inches wide (8 pixels wide) and 3 1/4 feet tall (100 pixels tall), with at least 3,551 LED modules used to completely replace the original (VERSION I) Led screen.
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Landmark signs reinstalls icon "To create the proper window protection, we used a fireproof impact resistant tarp (which protected the window from welding sparks, dropped debris, etc) that we draped and rigged directly across the windows below where we were replacing each ribbon of the modules. This was a daily occurrence as we set up the tarp under the workspace where the windows were and took it down at the end of that workday"
One of the more unusual factoids about the ABC LED display was the Version I LED display was replaced in an unusual way. Because of the significance of ABC's LED display iconic presence to its television programming, the original ABC sign was left in operation during its retrofitting phase. As the new modules were put in place, one-by-one the old LED ribbons were turned off and replaced with their more modern Version II counterpart. As for the actual LED module insertions, Calvano remarked how he began with the most difficult part of the project which was installing the LED modules by starting with the inside radius. "We needed to have the LED modules on the inside radius curve fit in a seamless configuration. Then by working from the radius outwards, we installed the rest of the ribbon, going north to the ribbon's edge and then south to the other edge of the display. And of course, as we moved from section to section, the below tarp followed us covering that section of studio glass. Once we perfected the radius curve insertion technique, we did this with the other eight ribbons. All together we replaced the entire display in about two and half months."
New ABC TV building facade
As the new high resolution LED display was being put in place, so was the new software implemented as described by Meric Adriansen (a D3 Managing Partner) who has been associated with the ABC LED display since its inception at the tail-end of the 20th century. "I initially acted as a software project manager and was responsible for developing the front-end system of managing the content for the LED screen. This included all the software that controlled the graphics, video, animation and morphing of all the imagery that was essential in getting it to 'look right' on the ABC LED screen. The original software for the first ABC LED screen ultimately became a patchwork of fixes to adopt the screen as new software processes and imagery techniques became available. This in turn, all became integrated into the new features of how the ABC LED video display would operate."
Show & Tell ABC LED playbook With the new LED sign in place, Adriansen noted some of the display's more stunning capabilities, "for starters with its new 10mm, high resolution large format counterpart, the new LED screen has a richer and more dynamic presence in Times square. Furthermore, the ribbon screen isn't just limited to the upper six ribbon tiers to show a complete image. A t the discretion of the display operator, it can now provide all nine ribbons (including the bottom feature band and text ribbons) to show an even larger screen image on the front of the building. The display operation is now more compatible with more current graphic software such as Flash applications. Finally, the display's operation is now more flexible to where it can easily present live interviews from a Man-In-The-Street format which could come from special events such as New Year's Eve, parades and historic moments from personal reactions to world class sport telecasts." As Andriansen pointed out, in many respects in the original set up with Version I, the building's main outdoor visual presence was its SONY JumboTron (now a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision screen). Here the older ribbon screen acted as a 'sideshow' to the smaller, but easier to view insert screen. Now with its new LED screen in place, these positions have flipped-flopped and the bigger LED screen has the place of pride as the main visual impact of that part of Times Square.
Speculation about future spectaculars The presence of the ABC TV Studio LED display is historic on many levels, it is one of the first media facades ever built in Times Square, its unique sign architecture is a one-of-a-kind curvilinear screen that has redefined the form and function of how a sign "works" for its client sponsor. It's the only LED sign in the world that is integrally involved with a major network television program. And finally in no small measure, it's setting a standard for the future of media facade-based "performance-signage" as an integration of a new medium, i.e. 'sign casting' (verses broadcasting) that is integrated between urban space and outdoor public visual communications. It's a definite integration of the message, the medium, and the public who gets it. What will happen? Stay tuned.
Louis M. Brill is a journalist and consultant for high-tech entertainment and media communications. He can be reached at (415) 664-0694 or louisbrill@sbcglobal.net
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