AT&T and global architecture firm Gensler enlisted Moment Factory, a Montreal-based multimedia studio, to help develop an immersive and engaging multimedia experience in the heart of downtown Dallas. The mandate included overseeing strategic project development and experiential design, including content and digital platform integration.
The AT&T Discovery District, a one-of-a-kind public destination located within AT&T's global corporate headquarters campus, was designed to create a vibrant entertainment destination, reflecting the mood and energy of the community.
A 104-foot, 6K, Media Wall towers as the focal point of the installation and provides an immersive experience for visitors, employees, and residents. With over 18 million pixels, the Media Wall displays artful content, offering a subtle nod to AT&T's history and values while creating moments of collective enjoyment, relaxation, and exploration.
Content That Blurs the Line Between the Physical and Digital World
Content powered by real-time data blurs the line between the physical and digital world. For example, wind and solar data power a virtual future neighborhood, inspiring visitors to consider how natural energy can transform cities. In another piece, real-time data tracking the movement of planets, moons, and stars inform a nightly virtual journey through our solar system.
[VuWall Announces NDI Protocol Support Across Visualization Ecosystem]
The AT&T Discovery District also includes two large two-story trellises with over 58 hundred linear feet of LED and a 30-foot-tall signature Globe sculpture whose mirrored outer surface reflects its surrounding buildings. Walking inside the Globe, visitors can enjoy an interactive light and sound experience that senses and responds to location and movement. A content management system enables coordinated content across the Globe, LED trellis and Media Wall.
[Inside NDI 5’s ‘Quantum Leap’ with NDI President Michael Namatinia]
A vital part of Moment Factory's role was creating a system that could handle a variety of content and sources, including real-time generated graphics. To meet that requirement, Moment Factory selected NDI, a royalty-free standard for capturing, transmitting, and receiving high-quality, low-latency, frame-accurate video and audio over IP. NDI, a Vizrt Group brand, is source agnostic, empowering the AT&T Discovery District's content creators to use their engines of choice.
Moment Factory is in Montreal, which is over 1,700 miles from Dallas. That distance highlights another benefit of NDI: It enables people to collaborate effectively over an IP network even when they cannot travel to a project site for reasons such as scheduling, budget, or a pandemic. For example, NDI enables designers to remotely review content on the District Media Wall in Dallas, TX, with switching handled by software at Moment Factory in Montreal, Qc.
"NDI was particularly helpful for our teams during the pandemic as it allowed us to deliver the AT&T project out of Montreal while having only one person on-site in Dallas," said Moment Factory innovation producer Céline Mornet.
