Christie MicroTiles LED transforms Ushio’s lobby

The saying, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression," holds true the moment visitors walk through your lobby's revolving doors. Experts say first impressions are established within 5-15 seconds, which means visitors form an opinion about your businesses' character and culture quickly, perhaps too quickly. Is your corporate lobby living up to visitors' expectations?

Ushio Inc., with a lighting facility based in Harima, Japan, understands the importance of making a good first impression, and the idea of visitors staring at a blank wall isn't the lasting impression it wants visitors to leave with. The Harima facility, with nearly 1000 employees, manufactures cinema lamps and lasers, as well as light sources for electronics, optical measuring instruments, life science and printing modules. This location serves as R&D and the production network. Its model and methods are shared by all Ushio locations and subsidiaries globally.

Every week, Ushio receives close to 100 visitors at the Harima location. According to Yasuichi Inoue, general manager, Ushio Lighting, "The reception area needed an upgrade, a really welcoming space for visitors. We knew we wanted to embrace the latest and greatest technology to help tell the Ushio story. With the right technology we could create a spectacular video wall, with high quality 4K content that showcases Ushio's history, products, employees and community."

Technical solution

To transform the blank wall using modern technology, the company turned to Christie, a subsidiary of Ushio, and selected Christie MicroTiles^® LED.

• Working with Christie and integrator Xebex, who designed and installed the frame structure and mounting sheets for the 98-tile, 14-foot wide MicroTiles wall, several design elements were considered, including: Purpose and size of the video wall
• Effects and impact of both artificial and ambient lighting on the content
• Shape of the sitting area in relation to the entrance way and guests' viewing distance from the wall
• Processing that will drive the content to the video wall

The stunning Christie​ MicroTiles LED wall is made up of ninety-eight 1.25mm tiles (14 tiles wide and 7 tiles high).

Mr. Inoue adds, "We decided on the 1.25mm pixel pitch Christie MicroTiles LED, and Christie Link E1000 video wall controller to power the content on the screen, for many reasons. The technology is modern, efficient and extremely easy to install and maintain." Each MicroTile displays bright, high-contrast visuals, and includes patented real-time IR Neighbor Detection^™ and AutoMatch^™ brightness and color-matching to ensure automatic image uniformity across the entire display during its lifetime.

Xebex's sales manager Mitsuaki Mitama notes, "The MicroTiles were unbelievably easy to install – about one week from start to finish. The picture quality is superb, and the features such as AutoMatch brightness adjustment are incredible. It's very easy to swap any LED module and watch it calibrate itself."

More about Christie MicroTiles LED

The new Christie MicroTiles LED platform continues the legacy of innovation set by the original MicroTiles that launched 10 years ago, but with a monumental leap forward with narrow pixel pitch LED technology and advanced mechanical design. The award-winning product, designed with smart architecture, 12-bit processing, 4K@120Hz capabilities and HDR10 compatibility, is an industry-first. With proprietary cabinet-free Click-n-Go^™ magnetic modules and tiles and QuickMount^™ system, you can build your display in any shape or size. Ushio chose a standard size for its lobby, but MicroTiles' unique design means you have design freedom, including 90-degree inside and outside corners and curves, and the ability to create giant video walls, ribbons and pillars. Furthermore, unlike other types of displays, MicroTiles LED can be viewed up close with almost imperceptible gaps between tiles.

"The high-quality 4K is beautiful, and the overall performance of the Christie MicroTiles LED has exceeded our expectations. The image is so life-like it's as though you are peering out the window at scenery outside. Since we installed the video wall, visitors pause to stare at the display, and many have made inquiries about it," concludes Inoue.