Government

The New Look of Government Video

By John Kaloukian
Director of Marketing, Sony Electronics' Professional Display Group

First there were televisions, then monitors, and now displays. The transformation in terminology for these omnipresent viewing devices reflects how their role has changed and how diversified their applications have become. During a recent trip to visit customers in Washington D.C., I was struck by the fact that there is no single video viewing solution and that, while the government's rapid transition to HD is at one end elevating the demand for better quality and more critical video data delivery, at the other end there is still an increasing demand for portable and affordable standard-definition solutions.

Sony has reacted to the changing and varied needs of its government customers by delivering a wide range of displays. From the acclaimed SXRD™ 4K large venue/digital cinema projector, which delivers more than four times the resolution of full HDTV (1920 x 1080), to LUMA™, the most advanced, critical viewing, professional LCD, flat-panel monitors, to a wide range of installed and portable projectors, as well as flat-panels designed specifically for digital signage applications, Sony has the right display for virtually every application.

Of course, there are many branded models on the market. What makes Sony the right choice for your government agency and unique application? Sony is world-renowned for the advancement of video technology and I'll address several of the more important innovations elsewhere in this article. But what makes Sony models particularly unique are the feature-sets of its individual units and how they have been intrinsically designed to address the real-world needs of today's workflow applications. Our staff and our dealers have studied your agencies and have communicated this market data to our factories and engineers, which have responded with the most advanced selection of display features available.

On the new-technology front, LCD -- liquid crystal displays - are becoming critical additions to government production suites. Editors and operators now recognize that there is a world of difference between a professional LCD display and those that are being sold for IT and consumer applications. Professional LCDs provide the high level of critical-viewing specifications essential to maintaining and managing the visual integrity of your video productions. As operators are starting to appreciate the fact that better quality and stellar color reproduction are now available in smaller, flatter, lighter packages, they are opting for Sony's popular LUMA LCD monitors. For production offices that are either already working in HD or getting ready for their own HD transition, LUMA monitors have become the studio monitor of choice.

Elsewhere on the new technology front, Sony's SXRD 4K projector is opening up a world of new opportunities for the government sector. The ability to display and manipulate 8.8 million pixels of resolution in quad split as high definition images on one screen enables government users to see information and analyze visual data like they haven't been able to ever before. No wonder that the SXRD is finding its way into many Command and Control applications, as well as in presentation theaters that are delivering the digital cinema experience to public audiences for the very first time.

Digital signage is becoming an essential mass-communication tool. Like the flat-panel systems you commonly see in airports and other public places, the ability to network numerous, affordable flat-panel displays, whether they are plasma or LCD in sizes up to 50-inches (viewable area measured diagonally), has become an integral part of the communication plan of several government facilities. Sony has developed integrated digital signage capabilities in many of its flat-panels - providing the ability to create an entire digital signage network, or deliver one monitor, one-card messaging that lets you simply load a PowerPoint™ presentation on a SmartCard® for an easy and instant digital signage solution.

Sony delivers government video professionals the right solution for every display application. Sony understands government video needs and has developed a line-up of displays that are changing the way government productions look to their operators and to the world at large.