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Sony’s SXRD 4K Projectors Give ITC Holdings Corp. The Power To Keep Watch Over Multi-State Electricity Grid

IGI Teams with Electricity Transmission Company to Deliver Control Room with 160-Foot-Wide Screen

PARK RIDGE, N.J., Sept. 25, 2008 –ITC Holdings Corp., one of the nation’s first electricity transmission companies to operate independently, is now monitoring 25 billion watts of energy from its state-of-the art control room in Novi, Mich., equipped with eight Sony SXRD® 4K projectors.

Installed by IGI, a company specializing in designing large-scale display solutions, the 4K projectors display graphical data about the status of a multi-state electricity grid onto a 160-foot-wide video wall.

“We worked with IGI to design and build a control center that would enable us to efficiently manage and monitor the entire system, in real time,” said Joe Bennett, director of facilities for ITC. “From one location, the operators in the control room are fed time-sensitive data displayed by the Sony projectors in ultra-high resolution, 24/7, so they can assess and address any critical issue that arises threatening the reliability of the electricity grid.”

IGI chose to use Sony SXRD 4K projectors in the control room thanks to the projector’s advanced performance, including its ability to produce high pixel densities, reproduce rich colors as well as deep blacks. Each of Sony’s SXRD 4K projectors is capable of displaying images at four times the resolution of today’s high-definition television sets, or 8.8 million pixels per unit.

“Using SXRD ultra-high resolution projection for this caliber of system is a change in the fundamentals of control room design. Typically control rooms of this nature are designed using multiple rear-projection video cubes,” said Pat Hernandez, President of IGI. “With the overall size of this screen measuring nearly 1,600 square feet, the sheer number of cubes that would have been needed to operate this type of system made that option impractical. We estimated that using Sony SXRD projectors resulted in a cost savings of over 70 percent for ITC”.

The display screen in ITC’s Michigan control room is 160-feet wide by 10.5-feet tall. The eight projectors, model number SRX-S110, produce 10,000 ANSI lumens each, and combine to create an image of approximately 70.4 million pixels.

“This is another perfect example of Sony’s 4K technology proving it’s more than up to the challenge of meeting the demanding requirements of today’s leading visualization and simulation projects,” said Andre Floyd, marketing manager for SXRD at Sony Electronics. “We expect to continue to see many more projects like the control center built by IGI implemented in the future, using Sony’s 4K projectors, including installations that range in applications from government to private corporations.”

“We provide electricity to more than 13 million customers, in five states, through more than 15,000 circuit miles of transmission lines,” said Bennett. “With the control room we’ve built, our operators get a clear picture of what is happening, where, allowing them to manage and direct resources as needed.”

For more information on Sony 4K technology visit www.sony.com/sxrd.