The world’s top athletes weren’t the only ones raking in the gold at this summer’s recently wrapped Beijing Olympics.
Cypress-based Christie Digital Systems Inc. saw a nice boost to its bottom line after it installed some 200 high-end digital projectors for special displays during opening and closing ceremonies of the Games,for a price tag of $10 million.
“It was a big deal,” said Jack Kline, Christie’s president and chief operating officer. “This was probably one of the most complicated business transactions and technical requirements that we have ever taken on.”
The company competed with Belgium’s Barco NV for the contract.
“It was hotly contested,” Kline said. “They worked hard to win this project, almost to the stage of just giving it away for the promotional rights.”
Christie’s high-performance digital projectors won out,mostly because they were more reliable.
“It comes down to the fact that if you have 1 billion people watching an event and you only have one chance to get it right,” Kline said, “failure isn’t an option.”
There were some very tough requirements.
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Digital projectors at Beijing Olympics: Christie Digital installed some 200 |
At the Bird’s Nest, the main arena for the games, Christie had to install some 60 machines on the ceiling that projected a single, seamless image on a continuous screen that went around the entire stadium.
Special software ensured that each projector displayed just a piece of the image and that it blended in a way that wouldn’t be distorted on a curved screen.
The projectors had to work reliably and over long distances, despite the humidity in Beijing, which can affect electrical equipment’s performance.
Christie also put in some 80 projectors that displayed images on the floor of the Bird’s Nest and on screens that were hand carried by performers in the ceremonies.
It took about two months to get it right, according to Kline.
“It demanded very exacting optics and a very complex installation,” he said. “We had our best engineers and designers over there.”
Now that the games are over, the projectors are set to be sold to movie theaters in China, a move that allowed them to be essentially rented by the Olympic Committee, Kline said.
Kline attended the Olympics a few weeks ago as a VIP guest, he said.
Christie started in Los Angeles and moved to Cypress a dozen years ago to be near to its parent, Japan’s Ushio Inc., a maker of halogen lights that has its U.S. base in Cypress.
Ushio, which bought Christie in 1991, makes the lamps that go inside Christie’s projectors.
For 70 years, Christie has been making film projectors used to show movies in theaters.
About nine years ago, Christie bought Canada’s ElectroHome Projection Systems to get into digital projectors.
The Business Journal estimates that privately held Christie sees about $400 million a year in revenue.
It’s currently outfitting one of its two buildings here as a high-tech network operations center that’s set to remotely manage and maintain digital projectors that the company has sold to movie theaters in North America.
The 50,000-square-foot center is set to open by the end of the year.
Zipping through Security
Anaheim’s Targus Inc. is looking to make the airport slog a little easier.
The maker of laptop cases, backpacks and computer accessories came up with a line of bags geared toward getting business travelers through security lines faster.
Targus calls the cases “checkpoint-friendly” because they are designed to meet the security rules of the Transportation Security Administration, which focus on the screeners’ ability to get a good image of the laptop.
The case is designed so that it’s split down the middle, isolating the laptop on one side to allow for clear x-ray scanning.
It allows travelers to pass through the checkpoint without having to remove their computers from their bags.
Targus said it worked with TSA authorities to test the product through an actual airport screening device. The case goes for about $100.
By the Numbers
In a story that I wrote a few weeks back about Anaheim’s Multi-Fineline Electronix Inc., a few numbers regarding the costs it’s set to take for a plant it’s building in China got mixed up.
The plant is set to cost an estimated $60 million to $70 million in all. A satellite plant that the company is leasing to keep up with demand while the other is being built is set to cost $22 million.
Multi-Fineline also said it is set to see a charge of $6 million to $8 million for tax expenses during the current quarter related to moving some operations to Singapore.
The folks at M-Flex, as the company’s known, also wanted to clarify that it has not taken on debt to finance the factory expansion. It has, however, taken out a line of credit that’s still untapped.
