Products

Stella Vista's Research and Development team of engineers and programmers has kept the design and development in Stella Vista at a break-neck pace. The company has always been at the forefront of the technological improvement in the industry and has been one of the first to introduce technical features now considered standard.

Stella Vista displays advanced features include: Virtual Resolution®, standard 10-bit colour, FaceUp™ compatibility, brightness and uniformity control, etc.

While the quality of the displays is extremely important, a system is good only as its weakest part. This is why Stella Vista employs considerable energy to design and improve its control systems and software. Advanced features list, including real-time operating systems, fibre optic transmission systems, customised software, and many more, keeps growing.

We are learning every day, and adding to the palette of services we offer, as well as disciplines we cover - be it programming, electronics, optoelectronics, information technology, system design, etc. By applying our knowledge and experience, today we are able to design and implement a complete information solution. In this, we can utilise different visual communications technologies, produce the software sub-system and integrate the parts into something that can easily be controlled, maintained and improved.

Titan™ Range

Titan™ video displays generate up to 1 Billion colours, are flexible in size, mobility, rapidity of installation, and are able to provide an outstanding visual experience under all lighting conditions, whether indoor or outdoor, in stadiums and venues of any size. Additional features that increase the overall picture quality are the proprietary Virtual Resolution™ technology and uniformity correction.

Virtual Resolution™ technology employs interlacing of parts of an image at a very high speed into one image with a resolution multiple times higher than the actual number of physical pixels in a display. Essentially, this technique multiplies the number of pixels, but adds only a fraction of a cost to a conventional display. The resulting dot-pitch (distance from center of one pixel to centers of adjacent pixels) is smaller, producing a higher resolution display that can be viewed from a closer distance.

Virtual Resolution™ and uniformity correction combine to provide a unique system offering incomparable versatility, and supplying an extra dimension to almost any event. The modular design concept enables the assembly of modules into screens of any size and shape, providing a seamless picture. LED intensity levels can be regulated to provide the optimum visual quality relative to any ambient light conditions, from complete darkness to direct sunlight.

On-line and off-line video, vivid information, text, graphics and animation can be selected on demand, assisted by off-the-shelf and Stella Vista Muse proprietary computer software.

Constellation™

Although based on graphical dot-matrix indoor LED displays, the Constellation® information systems have a variety of applications, some of which are: in sports stadiums, financial centres, airports, entertainment complexes, call centres, industrial operations, etc. Providing both indoor and outdoor information solutions, the displays can be single colour or multicoloured generating up to 16.7 million colours with multiple lines of text, graphics or animation and can be stand alone or networked with other smaller displays. The Constellation® systems are not limited to LED technology and integrate other display types, such as LCD/LED combination displays used at Johannesburg International Airport’s Domestic Terminal, or strictly LCD, plasma or back-projection screens, depending on the application demands.

LB Series

LB Series is the newest addition to the Stella Vista product family. These displays feature a flexible product design and are used as a cost-effective solution in application requiring text and graphics display mostly in outdoor environments. The LB Series was used as the basic building block for all the scoreboards Stella Vista built ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.

Control Equipment

Stella Vista uses a great variety of control equipment to run and manage its screens. The most advanced Display Controllers used in Titan® displays use VxWorks real-time operating system, guaranteeing great reliability and performance. Other types of PC-based, as well as 32-bit microcontroller units are used in smaller screens.

To transport information to the displays, a variety of connectivity options are available, ranging from satellite downloads, fibre-optic connections, fast Ethernet, to RS-232 serial and dial-up modem links.

Software

Stella Vista has a wide range of internally developed software products to enable clients to use the displays to their full potential. They are developed through interaction with customers, paying close attention to the requirements of each application.

Some of the Stella Vista developed software packages are:

Stellaware Mercury production software is a versatile product that enables the information from different program sources as well as advertising logos, static messaging, simple animation and graphics to be displayed on a variety of screens.

Stellaware Muse video replay software enables commercial and highlights playouts on Stella Vista video-capable displays.

Stellaware OnLine package is used for fast display of text and graphics pages on LED displays, primarily used in places of worship, but also suitable for opera houses and other applications.

Stellaware AutoFIDS flight information display software is used at airports in Namibia and Mozambique to inform passengers of the airplane arrivals and departures.

In addition to the Stellaware line of software products, Stella Vista integrates reliable, user-friendly and cost-effective commercial software programs, depending on the application, with the aim of satisfying the clients’ needs totally.

The displays’ remote diagnostics capabilities include continuous remote status monitoring and control room message display (mirroring). An integrated system monitor software package shows the messages as they are on the displays, along with other operation and performance indicators.

More Information

Big Screen Test - November 2001
The LED display market is suffering from high costs, lack of consumer knowledge and a declining supplier base. With jittery buyers unwilling to take risks, standardisation and improved sharing of information across the industry represents the way forward...
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More colours and more pixels - August 2000
This is the second article in the "Importance of Colour in Stadia Design" series. This article will concentrate on two advanced features of modern full-colour LED displays whose importance is sometimes not understood fully. However, please be aware that some simplifications have been used for the sake of understanding...

LED display design issues - December 1999
The full-colour video LED display market is growing rapidly. The demand outstrips supply by far. This can lead to customers being sold inadequate or obsolete technology. The proliferation of products, the absence of any standards in the field and the constant technological development can lead to bad products, bad service, and bad name for the industry...

Importance of colour in Stadia LED design - August 1999
Although the technical language of opto- electronics is often hard to decipher, a grasp of pixel depth and gamma correction is critical when selecting large screen LED display systems. Ignore it, and your audiences could be looking at a'washout'...

Background to technological advancements - June 1999
The development of electronic displays started several decades ago with the use of luminescent lamps or lightbulbs. This progressed to the use of cathode ray tubes ("CRT"s), which are also currently used in television sets. The most advanced elactronic displays today use LEDs...