qic watergardens – cob australian launch, the marketplace
Digital Place Solutions brings COB LED Technology to Australia
QIC Watergardens Town Centre (Melbourne)
Australia’s first Public COB LED display launched in Melbourne at QIC Watergardens Town Centre in March 2020. Watergardens extended its fresh food related offering The Marketplace, with a significant new $50million development that opened in late March 2020. The large format double-sided COB LED display is suspended above the primary shopper avenue within The Marketplace.
Watergardens Town Centre is situated in Melbourne’s North West, a growth region for the city. Owner QIC is expanding the shopping centres already large footprint. The first new precinct adds new fresh food formats and grocery offerings in a contemporary market design.
QIC called on their Digital partner Digital place Solutions to develop a bespoke display solution. The location demanded a significant sized display to maximise the commercial opportunity for QIC to market third party advertising as well as promoting retailers within the shopping centre. To provide ease of content management and sales opportunity the display needed to be conformant with QIC’s standard media format of 32 x 9 maintain a standard format configuration, in this case 32:9 format.
The display design needed to respond to the client brief for the maximum impact, while maintaining a minimum distance from the floor to the underside of the digital display and ensure the best resolution commercially available. The format and floor clearance criteria resulted in a display height of 1.4m to deliver the 32:9 format. The selection of 1.9mm fine-pitch LED compliments the large format impact with high quality resolution within the given display dimensions.
The DPS solution is a double-sided 32:9 landscape display 4.8W x 1.4H in 1.9mm pixel pitch. The image resolution is 2560 pixels x 720 pixels. The 32:9 format provides the full screen as a single digital canvas as well as the flexibility of 2 x 16:9 windows, subject to content demands.
DPS recommended COB for Watergardens for its special features. Stephen Rubie, DPS Director explains “Selecting a COB solution provided a high resolution option in building blocks that easily delivered the aspect ratio and resolution demanded. Needing to be suspended COB provides a lightweight solution with a slim-line form factor.” COB LED has a smooth surface finish, compared with SMD LED. “COB is easier to clean and provides a more robust surface along with ease of handling during installation and servicing, unlike the fragility often encountered with fine-pitch SMD modules where the pixels are exposed” Rubie added.
The installation and commissioning was a seamless 3 work shifts as final construction touches were being added prior to The Marketplace March opening.
DPS partnered with Ledman Optoelectronics to design and manufacture the COB display in early 2020. Despite the challenges of the Corona virus disruptions DPS and Ledman were able to deliver the project manufactured, shipped, installed and commissioned on time and on budget.
