BrightSign sets the tone at China’s largest car showroom

Players deliver synchronised playback across 700 screens over 5 floors

Cambridge, UK, XX January 2014. AKD Luxury Cars Mall is using 350 BrightSign players to power the 700 screens that set the tone at its brand new car dealership in Shenzhen, China’s largest vehicle showroom.

Opened in 2013, the 120,000 sq. m AKD Luxury Cars Mall accommodates 3000 luxury vehicles and is a magnet for car enthusiasts amongst China’s fast growing affluent professional community. It specialises in high-end used cars, including exclusive marques like Bentley and Lamborghini as well as luxury brands like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Land Rover and Audi.

Commenting, Mr. William Ng of AKD Luxury Cars Mall said, “Our clients are highly fashion conscious and AKD caters for them by providing a first class car buying environment that compares favourably with an exclusive shopping mall. For our new premises, we specified 700 display screens delivering synchronised video across each of five floors. As one of the world’s best known independent dealers in high-end used cars, we welcome visits and inspections from the vehicle manufacturers including BMW, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen and Toyota. They expect to see their vehicles presented in an environment that does full justice to their high quality engineering.”

AKD Luxury Cars approached the CAS Group, a leading Chinese digital signage specialist, for support in implementing this vision. Anson Ng, Managing Director of the CAS Group said, “AKD wanted to create a real impression with the screens in its showroom, so it was absolutely essential that every screen works perfectly all day every day. With over 100 screens on each floor, a single screen that is blank or isn’t perfectly synchronised with the neighbouring displays looks really bad. We recommended BrightSign HD220 players because they are totally reliable. It was straightforward to set up the synchronisation through the file networking provided by the supporting BrightAuthor content management software. Content is stored on an SD card on the player and regularly refreshed from the central server via the showroom’s Intranet. AKD sources content from the manufacturers of the vehicles it sells, and also creates its own content.”

The new AKD Luxury Cars Mall features 700 42” displays fitted to the front and back of each pillar on every floor of the showroom. The screens are powered by 350 BrightSign players, each driving two screens via a 1x2 HDMI splitter. Each floor plays its own content, which is identical on each screen on that floor. Synchronisation between the screens is flawless – every screen shows the same video at exactly the same time, and is controlled and synchronised through the showroom Intranet and BrightAuthor software. The CAS Group provided the players, programmed the players and tested the installation to ensure that it was working flawlessly.

Key Facts

Industry: Premium automotive retail

Location: Shenzhen, China

Supplier: The CAS Group, Hong Kong

Integrator: The CAS Group, Hong Kong

Project: Displays in high-end automotive showroom

Installation

• 700 screens across 5 floors of a 120,000 sq m showroom
• One BrightSign HD220 player used with each pair of screens

Challenges

• High-end luxury environment demanded flawless presentation
• About 100 screens needed to be flawlessly synchronised across a very large sales floor
• Zero tolerance of player failures in a premium environment

The Solution

• 700 42” displays fitted to the front and back of each pillar on every floor of the showroom
• Screens are powered by 350 BrightSign players, each driving two screens via a 1x2 HDMI splitter
• Each floor plays its own content, which is identical on each screen on that floor
• Screens synchronised through the showroom Intranet and BrightAuthor software

Benefits

• BrightSign players small enough to be concealed easily in the pillars
• Synchronisation, control and updating are easily set up and adjusted in BrightAuthor
• BrightSign’s uptime rate of over 99.9% gave AKD the assurance of flawless playback at all times
• Outstanding support from The CAS Group, BrightSign’s local installer