A dining establishment as upscale, architecturally interesting, and culturally diverse as Boston’s uber-trendy High Street Food Hall deserves an equally remarkable and eye-catching digital display. A prominent fixture inside an all-season glass-encased atrium created by a world-class team of designers, the roughly 28-foot-wide Digital Projection Performance Series video wall is one of the largest in the downtown area offering multi-content viewing which complements the eclectic aesthetic of one of the city’s busiest downtown neighborhoods.

The custom video wall anchors numerous restaurants, cocktail lounges and coffee bars occupying the 20,000-square-foot eatery, presenting daily menu items, sporting events, and other curated content. Bright, vivid imagery jumps off the high-res backdrop, keeping patrons entertained, informed, and engaged from sun up until well into the evening. “Video is a major design element and the linchpin of the day-to-day operations of every vendor in the food hall,” says systems integrator John Bray. “It was vital that we chose a display that could live up to the highest of performance and aesthetic standards.”

Interestingly, the eye-catching, multi-faceted Digital Projection Performance Series video wall wasn’t the first display of choice among the High Street Food Hall developers. “They had originally requested a traditional projection system with a motorized screen mounted against the side of a building,” says Bray. “I knew immediately this arrangement wouldn’t work.” Constructed primarily of glass panels, the downtown eatery intentionally welcomes plenty of sunlight—a projection system’s worst enemy.

The incoming light would surely interfere with images tossed onto the screen from a projector 100 feet away, no matter how bright the projector happened to be. These constraints would limit use of the projection system to nighttime only, Bray explained to his clients. Still, they needed to see it to believe his rationale. So, on a sunny summer afternoon, Bray and Jeff Schneider, Digital Projection Director of Sales, Northeast and MidAtlantic Sales Manager, brought a TITAN LASER 37000 projector to the jobsite for a daytime demonstration. After witnessing the dramatic drawbacks, the High Street Food Hall developers quickly revamped their plans in favor of an LED video wall. This was a more expensive option, but justifiable, says Bray, because they’d be able to use the display day and night, in all lighting conditions.

There was just one problem. The office building standing behind the planned video wall location. Originally, the developers envisioned the projection screen rolling down only in the evening when the offices inside the building were vacant. This would preserve window views for office workers and architectural views for Food Hall patrons for most of the day. Because the video is a stationary display it would block both. But Bray had a genius workaround. He would mount the display slightly below the office windows; when the video wall wasn’t being used for digital signage or programming, it would display a digital rendering of the covered section of wall. “The resolution and clarity are exceptional, so the digital version of the wall looks just like the real thing,” Bray says. “The display seemingly fuses into the wall surface.”

Tailored touches like this showcase the imaging capabilities of the Digital Projection Performance Series video wall, as well as Bray’s exceptional customization and integration skills. Numerous video servers and processors, plus a Lutron lighting control system and distributed audio, are managed and controlled by a Crestron system. To simplify management of the food court environment as much as possible, Bray programmed the Crestron system to launch commands to specific components automatically throughout the day. For example, a few minutes prior to opening, the video wall presents content from a preset cable channel, music plays through speakers at a prescribed volume level, and select lights activate. These settings shift continuously; for example, the video wall divides into multiple windows to display the lunch specials from several food court vendors and switches to ESPN for Monday night football.

Needless to say, there are a lot of moving parts on this project. Fortunately, Bray was able to offload the design, installation and deployment of the video wall to the onsite tech team from Digital Projection. “With this portion of the project in good hands, I was able to focus on other aspects of the job and streamline workflow,” Bray says. “It made the entire project go much smoother and transformed High Street into a one-of-a-kind dining experience.”

Whether businesspeople make a pitstop for coffee on their commute, foodies tour the venue to taste-test the latest cuisine, or a group of friends gathers for a casual Sunday brunch, the Digital Projection Performance Series video wall serves up ample portions of entertainment. Day or night, be the meal choice sushi or a burger, the wide array of imagery provided by the impressive display from makes the perfect side dish.

Photography by Brian Samuels Photography