Lighthouse Technologies LED shines on NBC Sunday Night Football

By Andrew Lippe

When NBC Sunday Night Football telecasts begin and go to the broadcast booth with Al Michaels and John Madden the viewers attention may be on the two top broadcasters but its Lighthouse Technologies’ ultra fine resolution R4 4mm LED screen behind them that adds depth and visual splash to complement the lively conversation.

AG Light and Sound installed and currently operates the 4 mm screen for NBC Sports. The screen measures 2.10 feet wide x 6.30 feet high.

“We are able to get our brightness down low enough without compromising the color gamma,” says Joe Lapchick, Lighthouse Sales Manager, Eastern U.S. Region. Lighthouse is a LED manufacturer that specializes in full-color LED screens and manufactures every component of its product, enabling ultimate quality control of the product.

This is not Lighthouse Technologies’ first taste of NFL action. Their LED screen was on the set last year of CBS’ Sunday NFL show. Lighthouse also was used for CBS Sports Super Bowl broadcast, with a screen in the studio and a screen on the desk at halftime.

Lighthouse Technologies LED screen has a completely fanless design. “The reason we do that is it takes less power to run it,” explains Lapchick. “It’s also less then 10 decibels.”

An XClyps video playback system from Chyron supplies the video feed from NBC’s mobile production studio. The system is connected to a media server that accepts an HD-SDI input. Scores and stats data is fed through a Lighthouse LIP-KX Interface Processor to the screen.

NBC’s LED uses Lighthouse Technologies white SMD package, which means NBC’s screen has a white chip background. The Pixel configuration is SMD (surface mount diode), meaning the RGB is built right into it. The screen can produce up to 4.4 trillion colors.

“NBC’s LED is one screen with four panels stacked on top of each other,” adds Lapchick. The screen weighs just 61 pounds and has a quick refresh rate. Using a 14-bit digital processor and a video frame rate of 50 to 60 frames per second the LED is ideal for a NFL broadcast.

Lighthouse Technologies is headquartered in Hong Kong, but has offices all over Europe and in the US. Lighthouse Technologies manufactures indoor screens from 4mm to 6mm 10mm and produce outdoor screens from 10mm, 16mm, 19mm, to 30mm.

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