EPub: all-weather TV screens

Taking your indoors outdoors is a big issue for a pub industry faced with a smoking ban. Why should smoking customers have a poorer quality experience just because they fancy a drag?

The good news is that technological advances now make it possible for tobacco fans who are also sport fans to to watch the game on the big screen outdoors. Weatherproof screens first began to appear in pub gardens in the run-up to last summer¹s football World Cup, but now leading supplier Sanyo claims to have invented the first flat LCD screen that passes all the tests and is completely waterproof.

Three years in development, the IP56 screen was purposely built for a pub market facing a smoke ban. ³We believe we are the only manufacturer that offers a completely sealed unit in the UK,² says Sanyo business manager Damian Tighe.

³It was a massive technical challenge for us and we tested four or five different versions before we were happy.²

The fact that the screen is resistant to whatever the weather throws at it to the extent that you can leave it outside all year round is not the only innovation. Sanyo has addressed the security issue that must otherwise deter pubs from putting an expensive piece of equipment in the garden by designing a special thief-proof bracket for it.

This will cost you five per cent more but comes with a two year anti-theft warranty, suggesting the company¹s confidence in it.

The screen also addresses damage worries, built of 3mm thick toughened glass that can resist a pint pot flung by the angriest fan. Around 25 screens should be up in beer gardens by the end of March.

For further details visit www.sanyo.co.uk​