Now a musical event of a different kind – Bon Jovi is out on the 2019 leg of their ‘This House Is Not for Sale’ tour and it is just as much of a visual visual spectacular. A major part of the impact is achieved via three huge, curved LED screens. Provided by PRG, they deliver high resolution visuals, with perfection of image assured by Brompton Technology’s Tessera SX40 processors.
PRG has worked with Bon Jovi for the past 17 years. The remit for this year’s tour, which takes in some of the world’s best known stadiums including London’s Wembley and Liverpool’s Anfield, was high definition, as PRG Vice President Sales Mark O’Herlihy explains: “The brief was for everything to be in 4K from start to finish, to shoot the show in 4K and to be able to display true 4K on the screens, which was achieved by using Brompton processors.”
A total of 92 panels wide by nine high using Brompton R2 receiver cards. The two side screens having a resulting resolution of 1768 x 1296 pixels, and 3168 x 1296 pixels for the main upstage screen. The SX40 processors were used in conjunction with Brompton’s XD data distribution units, which use a 10G Ethernet-based backbone which bring the significant advantage of reducing the number of home-run connections to the processor.
“Working with these products day in, day out, you constantly get to see how the devices behave, as well as the software,” says PRG LED Specialist, Maarten Deschacht. “The great thing about the Brompton software is that it’s very adjustable to your needs; there is a plethora of options to make your screen look exactly the way you want it to. Brompton provides a lot of hotkeys, which really helps with quick actions during shows or rehearsals and means we don’t have to mouse-click through everything.”
Deschacht is particularly keen on the SX40’s front panel buttons, which can be used to trigger a switch to a redundant processor, as well as the ability to customize the freeze button to make it into an internal test pattern button. “In addition, every processor provides logs to check when issues occur, and that helps tremendously in tracing the roots of those issues,” he notes. “Also, the Tessera control application gives access to certain parameters or presets for all processors at the same time. This is a great feature when you need to dim the entire screen down or change colour temperature, etc.
“Another great feature we use is the specific indicator light settings. Understanding the differences between those lights makes it super easy for us to find breaks in strings of data. That way, we can climb up walls without the need for a test pattern to be present on the wall, or without an extra person on the ground to call them out. It speeds up our tech’ing process tremendously.”
Deschacht also appreciates Brompton’s excellent backup and support. “It’s fantastic,” he says. “The people there are super helpful and, once an issue is resolved, they may check in to make sure it hasn’t reoccurred. Brompton offers an ‘urgent’ telephone line, or you can just email their support team, all of which is really easy to find on the new website.”
“Their products are well thought out, and they always listen to technicians our thoughts about certain aspects of what they do, from setting everything up to troubleshooting. Working with Brompton makes our lives very easy every day.”
The tour continues in South America in September.
