Advantech TPC-642

Color Touch Panel Control
on New Digital Cinema Projectors

Christie Digital Systems Inc., a High-performance projection equipment maker, chooses Advantech's TPC-642 color touch panel control to project itself out-front of other digital cinema projectors using monochromatic touch panels.

Introduction
Christie's search for a color touch panel computer to help differentiate its cinema projectors from competitive products using traditional, monochromatic touch panels led it to the Advantech TPC-642. The company purchased a number of TPC-642's for use in its new DCP-H and DCP-I lines of Digital Cinema projectors featuring DLP Cinema™ technology (DLP Cinema™ is a trademark of Texas Instruments). The Advantech panel is used primarily in the set-up and operation of the projectors. The touch panel mounts to the mobile projector unit and connects to the projector head via Ethernet. An operator uses the touch panel to set parameters and operate the projector. The product is used in a variety of cinema applications, including theaters, post-production suites and multi-media theatrical productions.

Project Requirements
This control application required that the controllers be rugged to withstand the environmental conditions for all cinema applications and run on a Windows CE platform. This project represents the first time that Christie has implemented color touch screen panels in its Digital Cinema projectors, so simple control integration and product support were vital.

Why Advantech
Advantech's compact TPC-642 allowed Christie to develop a solution quickly, speeding time to market, thanks to its standard Windows CE platform. This allowed Christie to be the first projection manufacturer to implement a color touch panel controller for Digital Cinema projection applications. Christie also capitalizes on features such as Ethernet connectivity, secure login/password function and color screen differentiation for ease-of-use and navigation. The control is robustly engineered to withstand temperatures from 0 to 45 degrees C with a 5.7" touchscreen rated to over 1 million activations.

Conclusion
Christie is very satisfied with the quality of Advantech's controllers and the support received over the course of this new product development. "Though this is a first-time project, we are confident in Advantech's ability to meet our requirements," notes D'Arcy Pickering, product manager for Christie's Digital Cinema projectors.

The above mentioned application was designed and implemented by Christie Digital Systems Inc, Kitchener, Ontario.