Amazing.
Invigorating.
Fantastic.
Neat.
So said people like Nicole Cross, who gathered yesterday at lunchtime in the Comcast Center lobby.
"My friends said I had to come and see the big TV screen. So I came for lunch downstairs. Now I'm here gawking at it like everyone else. Doesn't it make you feel like you're in Tokyo, or someplace bigger, more technologically savvy?" asked Cross, of South Philadelphia, as she gazed up at Philadelphia's newest attraction.
"It's neat," agreed her sideburned friend, Jacob Keen, who said he did not want to appear too blown away.
Comcast and the developers of its new headquarters, Liberty Property Trust, hoped to create Philadelphia's version of Rockefeller Center with the 56-story Comcast Center at 17th Street and JFK Boulevard. Perhaps they have nailed their goal, but in a surprising 21st-century way - a super-high-definition video wall in the open-to-the-public lobby.
Showing for less than three weeks, the video wall is attracting crowds daily to the Comcast Experience, which, despite its name, has nothing to do with TV or the company's history.
The specs on the wall are impressive: The screen is 83 feet long and 25 feet high, but that's not nearly the interesting part. Comcast calls it the world's largest four-millimeter LED screen. It's a pixel riot with 10 million of them, in a giant screen five times brighter than the latest high-def TV.
And it gets better: The content is nothing like you'll see on TV, movies or Comcast's own gazillion-channel lineup.
It's artsy vignettes - one of them showing people who seem to live in the wall. Every so often, a man or woman springs to life and scrambles up or down the wall, or does a Cirque du Soleil-like exercise, or climbs a ladder. "Pretty esoteric concept," says Brian L. Roberts, the chief executive officer.
There are images of the earth from outer space, fish, flowers, trees, and professional dancers doing the Mashed Potato. When it's not showing video, the wall blends into other parts of the building interior.
A company official said Comcast had been stunned by the fast reaction to the video wall and would begin showing 10- to 15-minute specials of the best of the Comcast Experience this weekend. The once-an-hour shows will start at 8 a.m. and run to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and will continue every weekend.
