Video wall reliability is one of the most important considerations in control room video wall design. A video wall is a human-machine interface, and we can classify the factors you should consider in designing your control room video wall as either human or machine. Christie control room video wall solutions are designed to address all such factors.
63,000 hours MTBF for Christie 24/7 rear projection products
Christie has confirmed the high reliability of our rear projection products in a RPMX-D120U & RPMSP-D120U Reliability study. The study found these Christie systems run with an average of 63,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), the longest documented hours of operation in the industry.
Machine factors influencing reliability include:
- Operating Life
- Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)
- Redundancy
- Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)
Will the critical components of your chosen solution be reliable enough to meet the demands of 24/7 operation? Will your system run without disruption? Your vendor should be able to provide this information and answer your reliability questions.
Video wall operating life
The video wall's operating life is not simply the length of time it continues to display images. When you budget for the video wall's operating life, you are estimating the period of time over which the solution operates without performance degradation. In other words, how long will the video wall perform to the display standards set on installation day.
MTBF – Mean Time Between Failures
MTBF is a standard measure of reliability. It indicates the average time between system failures. This measure is not the same as the solution's operating life. In more specific, mathematical terms, MTBF is the sum of the Mean Time To Failure (MTTF – the reciprocal of the failure rate) and the Mean Time To Repair (MTTR).
Redundancy
Is redundancy designed into the system architecture so that one component's function can be taken over by another? In complex systems, this capability is know as failover. Failover capability indicates that the functions of a failed component are automatically (or sometimes just with minimal human intervention) assumed by another component.
MTTR – Mean Time to Repair
Does the architecture permit fast response and failure correction? MTTR is a measure of how long it takes to return a system to full functionality after a failure has occurred. Components of your control room video wall solution should be accessible and easily replaced to achieve a low MTTR value.
A reliability milestone — 3 million hours and counting at AT&T site
In 2007, Christie installed 141 RPMSP-D120U rear projection engines into a 250' wide by 12' high AT&T global network operations center located in Bedminster, N.J. As of February 2010, the 24/7 operating wall reached a "3 million combined operating hours with zero hardware failures" milestone! In December 2009 an additional 39 Christie rear projection engines were added to the upper display wall confirming AT&T's certainty in the reliability of our products.
These projectors have been part of the nerve centre of AT&T, a telecommunications giant, running smoothly and flawlessly. We are very proud of this "3 million combined operating hours with zero hardware failures" milestone as it is an indicator of our products reliability.