In pictures: Australia's biggest video wall

Brenton Currie
Sunday, 27 November 2011 10:50

IT Industry - Strategy

NEC and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSWRFS) last week unveiled what they say is the largest digital video wall in the Southern Hemisphere.

Rural Fire Service of NSW unveils the largest digital video wall in the southern hemisphere (Image Credit: Eden Connell)

The wall, comprised of over 100 LCD displays, took just 7 weeks to go from nothing to completion, and is situated in the NSWRFS headquarters in Homebush.

It will be utilised over the course of the summer to provide critical information to NSWRFS staff organising teams fighting fires and creating response plans to deal with emergencies.

'By introducing a state-of-the-art video wall into the information centre, the RFS can now access and share incident information, and monitor weather data and bushfire movement in real time,' NSWRFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said in a statement, citing the video wall as evidence the organisation is willing to invest in technology to help protect residents from fires.

'As an agency we will continue to explore any tool that will assist us in protecting communities from bushfires. As technologies evolve and expand we will endeavour to utilise all options available to us.'

14 computer systems, 4 dedicated servers and 32 digital video inputs are required to power the wall, NEC says, with the wall also capable of displaying live footage streamed back from helicopters at any fire front.