Smart Water Operation Centre now enjoys Barco screens

The Smart Water Operation Centre is responsible for preventing water shortages and flooding throughout Thailand. It processes data from 17 provincial irrigation offices and 700 irrigation projects at all times, providing advice to farmers, news services and various other institutions. Barco is proud to have fitted the Smart Water Operation Centre with ODL video walls. This was the first time the technology had been employed in Thailand.

Tasked with interpreting meteorological data, and hydrological and agricultural information from hundreds of sources, the experts at the Smart Water Operation Centre are responsible for ensuring a ready flow of water throughout Thailand. When they needed high-quality video walls, they turned to the experts from Barco. And Barco didn’t disappoint: for the first time in Thailand, state-of-the-art, direct laser ODL video walls were installed to allow the all-important information to be presented in super-sharp clarity.

Irrigation and state-of-the-art technology
In Thailand, the Royal Irrigation Department is tasked with the mammoth responsibility of regulating irrigation. This means it’s their job to track precipitation, weather and thousands of other variables to ensure water management. Their work helps to prevent drought, flooding and to ensure there’s water available to keep the country developing and running smoothly, day in, day out. All these operations are now managed from the new Smart Water Operation Centre, SWOC.
However, SWOC is more than just a base of operations. Facilities range from a control room to meeting rooms and a newsroom that serves as a media reception area. And when SWOC intended finding a supplier for its video wall systems, there was only one name that came to mind: Barco.  

A familiar name
Barco is well known in Thailand. The company has been involved in more than 50 installations around the country since the year 2000. And it has developed a reputation for displaying high-quality images on sensibly designed systems that offer targeted solutions. Arthit Songkrod, Global AV Co., Ltd., Barco’s Thai partner explains: ‘There was no doubt in my mind that Barco can provide SWOC with what they needed. The system integrator Money Babe Co., Ltd. was also doing a great job! We never would have expected the solution—the ODL-721—to be so impressive.’

Meet the ODL-721
This marked the first ODL-721 installation in Thailand. There was already interest in the system after it won the prestigious Beijing International Radio, TV and Film Exhibition Product Award in 2016. It is also the only direct laser RGB solution on the market. As such, it has a lot of advantages over LED video walls; it’s brighter, the colours are more saturated, the screen gaps are smaller and the product lifetime longer.
‘When you’re talking about a screen that will operate 24/7, efficiency and quality are incredibly important,’ says Arthit Songkrod. ‘Laser is the most effective projector light source; it turns electrical energy into visible light very efficiently, using less power for double the brightness. The image quality is spectacular.’ 

Built to last
The ODL-721 is built entirely from Barco components. This ensures it will have the ability to grow and adapt over time. This is extremely important: when run continuously, the system will perform at peak levels for eleven years!
Of course, with everything designed in-house, there’s no need to worry about critical components being incompatible or obsolete in the future. After setting a new standard, the ODL is likely to lead the industry for the next three to five years.

A bright future
As well as the ODL-721, the solution at SWOC included a NSD-410 control unit and ClickShare technology.
‘We are incredibly happy with the systems at the Smart Water Operation Centre. In fact, we like them so much, we are thinking of using Barco solutions for other rooms in the future,’ says Thanaroj Worraratprasert, Chief of Water Watch and Monitoring for Warning Branch. ‘The screens are just part of the story. We use the control room and newsrooms for presentations because it’s so simple with the ClickShare software from Barco. In the past, people were sometimes reluctant because of the problems with finding the right cables, matching formats and so forth. All those issues are behind us now. Barco is definitely part of our future.’

 

‘There was no doubt in my mind that Barco could provide SWOC with what they needed. But we never would have expected the solution—the ODL-721—to be so impressive.’ Arthit Songkrod, Business Develop Manager, Global AV Co., Ltd.