World Cup Cricket Tourney - Antigua Display Install

Not to brag too much but I just got home from two weeks on the Caribbean island Antigua in the West Indies (pronounced Antigah). It was a business trip for Multimedia LED, the company I am currently consulting. My purpose on the trip was to provide project management and IT support for our front end computer control system. Overall it was a fantastic trip and I learned a lot more about the digital sign business, the Caribbean islands and myself as a project manager.

The physical install went very well when we finally received our LED display modules. Due to our freight forwarding company "JSI" dropping the ball three times getting our modules to Antigua the installation took four days longer than planned. What is infuriating to me about JSI is that they have yet to acknowledge full responsibility for the delay when they let our modules sit in Miami for three days missing two flights into Antigua. To top off the issue, they failed to secure priority shipment on a flight the following week. Hopefully they will take responsibility for their service failure or it might be difficult for us to trust them on another time sensitive project.

The entire project took just over two months from bid to completion and proved that Multimedia can run with the best of them. We had numerous critics saying it couldn't be done in such a short amount of time and to our benefit, they were promptly proven wrong.

The actual display is a 20 x 33 foot 17mm pixel pitch E4 (4-diode pixel pattern) full-color RGB LED display. It has a professional Kramer video switch/scaler with Multimedia's eClips control software. We can display anything from full-motion high-definition video feeds to avi, mpg, mov and wmv video files to bmp, jpg and gif images. The final product is impressive with a 700:1 contrast ratio and brightness enough to light up the entire Sir Vivian Richard stadium at midnight.

Hopefully the display will be the proper visual accessory to the 2007 ICC World Cricket Tournament at the end of this month. It was a great experience and one I will not soon forget.

As for my time spent enjoying the beaches of Antigua while waiting for our modules to arrive I got as much sun as a German red haired guy can. We visited the many beautiful beaches and bays of Antigua and ate Mahi Mahi and Coconut Shrimp every night. The island is a fantastic vacation destination with a safe environment and friendly locals. We stayed at the Antigua Village Resort, a rental beach-front condo community. The accommodations were very good with comfortable beds, a nice pool and a great location in Dickenson Bay. As one can imagine on any Caribbean island, the water was crystal clear with coral reefs and plenty of sea life. I will post more pictures on my personal website and you can click the title at the top to be sent there.

I am quite impressed with Multimedia and their abilities, especially with some very significant, yet uncontrollable setbacks. I feel fortunate to be a part of the process and hope that my contribution will be a lasting one.

Oh, and I decided I really like geckos.

- Mitch G