Video walls on London Underground
By Benny Har-Even in Editorial
Posted in video, London Underground on
Arriving at Camden Town this morning on my commute to work I was intrigued to see a large video advert on the wall of the station advertising a white super mini.
Is this new? I’ve seen the video panels running alongside the escalators at Leicester Square but I’d not seen this before.
I have to admit I thought it looked pretty cool and it certainly seemed to be doing the job by attracting the attention of the many commuters on the platform.
Initially, I was wondering how the image was being produced as the screen was pretty flush with the tube wall. The penny dropped when I spotted the rather enormous projector hanging from the ceiling above.
The video ads are run by CBS Outdoor and a look at its web site (www.cbsoutdoor.co.uk/alive) tells me that the projected ads are called XTP – or Cross-track Projection and that the image is in high-def 720p resolution – it did look rather good.
But does the projector really need to be that large? I guess in the brightly lit environment of the tube it does, in order to fit bulbs that are sufficiently large and bright and with enough room in the enclosure for them to not get too hot.
CBS also does those escalators video ads, which it dubs Digital Escalator Panels (DEPs) and it also does the moving video billboards, dubbed LCD. I’ve not yet spotted a bus with video ads on its side (LED Bus) though.
So if you’re a London commuter are you impressed with the walls becoming ‘alive’. Now I love things going ‘futuristic’ more than most, but at the same time I’m concerned that we could eventually end up with our entire journeys becoming like Picadilly Circus, a dizzying fairground ride of bright lights and moving images. Will we all start having to wear sunglasses on the tube just to get through the journey?
Answers on a postcard – no video messages please.
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