AV Issue 62 by Alchemedia Publishing

Ultra-realistic Messaging On Display

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ISSUE 62

40 REGULARS Advertising Office: +61 (0)416 230329 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 Australia

NEWS Highlights from ISE 2019

Editorial Office: +61 (0)3 9998 1998 PO Box 295, Ballarat, VIC 3353 Australia

TERMINATION Immersive Experientialization

FEATURES Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@avapac.net)

ON A MISSION Wesley Mission’s new d&b point source PA

FIRING THE IMAGINARIUM Epson laser projection in school’s 360° theatre.

Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@avapac.net)

LENDLEASE BIG SVSI INSTALL Fredon takes care of big commercial AV project.

Graphic Designer: Daniel Howard (daniel@avapac.net)

GLOBAL LEADER The Sphere is a 3.5t AV behemoth.

Additional Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@avapac.net)

ARUP’S ABW HATRICK Arup eats its own ABW dog food.

Accounts: Jaedd Asthana (jaedd@alchemedia.com.au)

SITTING PRETTY Victoria Parliament’s new wing relies on AV over IP.

SADDLING UP A new Australian Outback Spectacular show is fully immersive.

Technical Editor:

Derek Powell Assistant Editor: Preshan John (preshan@alchemedia.com.au)

Subscriptions: (subscriptions@avapac.net)

REVIEWS

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 Australia info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright © 2018 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title AV is a registered Trademark. Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 3/4/2019

d&b KSL PA Line Source Array

OPTOMA 4K550 UHD DLP Projector

NEWS

The AVIAs are back!

his region’s premier commercial audiovisual awards program returns for 2019. We have a new logo, but little else has changed: the AVIAs remain a celebration of the high standards and ingenuity of this region’s audiovisual professionals in the fields of Commercial AV, Education, Events and Exhibitions. The AVIAs will once again be adjudicated by an independent panel of industry professionals, backed by the industry’s peak bodies – AVIXA and AETM. We will be announcing the winners at this year’s Integrate show in Melbourne, so time is tight. Now is the time to head to the AVIAs site, download your application form and begin the process of submitting your project. Andy Ciddor Chair of the Judging Panel

FAQs • What are the categories? The awards categories are: AV for Commercial and Government projects; AV in Education; AV in Exhibition and Display; AV in Production and Events; Each category has two budget ranges: $500,000+ AV budget, and sub $500,000. There is also special award for Innovation, to recognise an ingenious idea or solution within a project. • Why should I enter? More than backslap over a beer, the AVIAs represent a lasting accolade, where your business profile is raised, and your project is profiled in AV Asia Pacific magazine print and online, and we will provide you with the assets to capitalise on the award in your own marketing.

• Only the big guys win, right? No, not right. AVIAs have often been awarded to smaller companies and they’re regularly shortlisted, which in itself provides genuine marketing benefits. • I don’t have the time to enter: Like all good things, being part of the AVIAs takes a modicum of effort. But our judges are smart enough to see genuine innovation, if you give them a sniff. Focus on the innovation. • If you’re a first timer, welcome, get on board. Contact the AVIAs Chair of Judges for clarification or a chat about the AVIAs, he’d be happy to hear from you – andy@avias.com.au

In Association with:

AETM

the associationfor Audiovisual & Educational Technology Management

www.avias.com.au

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NEWS

ISE 2019: More Big Numbers

SE 2019 broke all records… again. The largest ever ISE show floor (56,100sqm) housed 1301 exhibitors. Of these, 225 (17%) were companies taking space at ISE for the first time. At the close of ISE 2019, 92% of the available floor space at ISE 2020 had already been sold. The overall number of registered visitors to ISE 2019 was 81,268 – another record figure for the show. Of these, a remarkable 32% were attending ISE for the first time. Wednesday saw the largest ever one-day attendance figure for any show at the Amsterdam RAI, and the number of attendees on Friday passed 20,000 for the first time. The only stat I find truly remarkable is the fact The Netherlands remains the most represented territory at ISE. For a country with the population of 17 million it feels like there can’t be a household untouched by the pro AV industry during February! Anecdotally there were plenty of Australians doing the ISE rounds. It’s hard to hear a bad word about ISE for attendees. Even when it’s difficult to move for people, the atmosphere remains positive, not niggly and harassed. Next year will be the final year in Amsterdam. ISE will move to Barcelona in 2021. Again, I’ve only heard positive reflections on this move. ISE continues to make all the right moves and shows the benefits of an exceedingly well run event that invests heavily back into its show. — CH

ISE PERSPECTIVE: PROJECTION

What role will projection play in the future of AV? It is undeniable that LED is taking centre stage. Bright, colourful, ever higher resolution. Fine pitch LED looks great and the OLED display from LG is just mind-blowing. Here is the question: Will all these features help to tell your story? Will an ever brighter, visually polluted environment help to get your message across? Or will the user, consumer or audience only filter all of this out, because it becomes just too much? Will a conference participant, after five days of exposure to super bright LED still want to watch

the screen? I think there is room for every technology, in every environment. Ultimately it is the story telling which counts; the best presentation of our message with the most suitable technology in the given environment. Only that should count, not just the latest, brightest, most glaring. A well designed projection, with a creative setup at a much lower cost and higher flexibility may just be the answer in many applications, not the deployment of whatever is in fashion. Projector manufacturers showed us what could be done with projections at ISE. I loved the bowling alley at

Hitachi-Maxwell or the Epson ‘Vortex’ interactive tunnel. Projection displays do not have to be a boring, rectangular screen. In fact, projection provides opportunities which are not easily achieved with alternative technology. Don’t get me wrong. LCD, LED, etc. are great and have many benefits and suit many applications but the question should not be if a certain technology has a future in AV, but which technology can best help to get your story across. Norbert Schmiedeberg, ITI-Image Group

The Epson Vortex 360 degree ‘kinetic portal’ used gesture-based interativity to make the visitor part of the installation. Epson employed 16 double-stacked EB-L1755U laser projectors with ELPLU03 lenses and a custom soundtrack using multichannel audio.

Q-SYS NV SERIES QSC’s new Q-SYS NV Series (NV-32-H) network video endpoint for the Q-SYS Ecosystem. This native, multi-stream, software-defined HDMI encoder/decoder enables network-based video distribution, optimised specifically for the meeting room. It features the new QSC Shift video compression codec which provides low latency video streaming with resolutions up to 4K60 4:4:4 over a standard gigabit network by dynamically adjusting network bandwidth consumption based on video content. This provides flexible and network efficient compression and distribution of common meeting room video content without sacrificing the ability to stream full motion video. NV Series also provides seamless integration of soft codec audio and Q-SYS conference camera sources via USB for web conferencing applications such as Zoom, Google Hangouts Meet and Cisco WebEx, without the need for additional control processors, hubs or bridges. Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or info@tag.com.au QSC: www.qsc.com

3-chip colour performance at a 1-chip price Now with Digital Projection’s COLORBOOST+® Direct Red Laser technology, these 1-chip DLP laser projectors, the E-Vision Laser 13000WU and the M-Vision 21000 MU, offer near 3-chip colour performance at a very affordable 1-chip price.

AUDINATE ADDS VIDEO Audinate’s Dante AV is an integrated audio and video networking solution. It solves problems of networked video and audio synchronisation, utilising a single network clock for submicrosecond accuracy. With Dante AV, audio and video signals are independently routable in a single, easy-to-use interface using the Dante Controller software. Manufacturers can also take advantage of Dante API to customise their management user interface. Dante AV solves time alignment issues and eliminates the need for audio de-embedders in applications such as sports bars, live events and multi-zoned AV systems for perfect lip sync everywhere. The Dante AV Module supports one video channel and eight bi-directional channels of uncompressed Dante audio. The Dante AV Module is ideal for manufacturers creating 1G video-over-IP products and includes Dante control, transport and synchronisation. The architecture is completely codec-agnostic, so manufacturers can use the codec of their choice and still get the benefits of Dante.

Award-winning Digital Projection raises the bar for performance and value in professional DLP laser projection. Experience incredible colour performance, bright, sharp, clear images even in higher ambient light conditions, in a compact package with five year warranties as standard.

Contact the Amber Technology team to find out more: 1800 251 367 sales@ambertech.com.au

Audinate: www.audinate.com

ambertech.com.au

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NEWS

Highlights from ISE 2019

BOSE PRO BIG PUSH

RIEDEL BOLERO STANDS ALONE

BIAMP CROWD MICS

Bose Professional new DesignMax loudspeaker range includes everything from two-inch low-profile models to eight-inch high-SPL compression-driver loudspeakers. All models deliver instantly-impressive sound, with no EQ or DSP required but the speakers can benefit from Bose DSP, SmartBass and Dispersion Alignment for even better performance.

Riedel’s all-new Bolero Standalone Application, is a license-enabled upgrade for the company’s Bolero wireless intercom system that delivers several performance enhancements along with standalone capabilities. With the Bolero Standalone Application, antennas are daisy-chained to each other in a line or a redundant ring via a low-latency, synchronised TDM network. Bolero is truly plug-and-play, with no IP configuration needed. A new external power supply can power up to five antennas, so power and data redundancies are easily achieved. A new, single-RU, half-width external interface box, with six analogue 4-wires and three GPIOs, can be directly connected to any antenna and then patched into an existing intercom system. The system is easily configured via a web GUI internal to the antennas. Other new capabilities provided by the Bolero update include individual rotary programming, Bluetooth headset support, and a new beltpack QuickMute feature that allows users to easily set the volume of all channels to zero.

Crowd Mics was a surprise hit at this year’s ISE. Arising from a Biamp acquisition, Crowd Mics is designed for presentations, lectures, panel discussions, and other presenter/audience events. Crowd Mics is hosted on a small hardware appliance — the ATOM — that supports up to 1000 event participants. The ATOM connects directly to the room’s audio system via USB or balanced audio outputs, includes the option to present video via HDMI, and provides moderators full access to the event’s participation log, including questions asked and poll results. Audience members connect to the ATOM using an iOS or Android app installed on their device. The app lets event participants use their smartphones as a wireless microphone and give access to standard audience engagement tools like polls and messaging. The separate Crowd Mics moderator application allows a presenter or moderator to select who will speak next, create and publish polls, and select audience text comments to be pushed to the room’s AV presentation system.

Bose PowerSpace is a new line of five cost-effective power amplifiers offering the right power levels and DSP options for premium commercial applications. Finally, ArenaMatch DeltaQ array loudspeakers and ArenaMatch Utility loudspeakers are for outdoor installations, bringing improved sound quality, consistency, vocal clarity and flexibility to sports stadiums, arenas, outdoor entertainment centres, and more. Featuring an IP55 weather rating, ArenaMatch DeltaQ modules make it easy to create durable and reliable outdoor loudspeaker arrays that bring consistent, intelligible sound to listeners. Bose: www.pro.bose.com

ISE NEWS IN BRIEF:

Riedel: www.riedel.net

Mover from Powersoft was one of the quirkier highlights from ISE. It’s a small yet powerful linear transducer that can be used in audio applications and as a linear motor / shaker. Adaptable to various purposes, including 4D cinemas, theme parks, or venues with vibrating acoustic floors, Mover lets audiences feel the sound through haptic perception by vibrating the surrounding environment, which the human body picks up and, through bone conduction, translating the vibrations into perceivable frequencies. Powersoft: www.powersoft.com PAVT: www.pavt.com.au

QSC and Audinate announces their partnership to develop cross-platform technology that will promote integrations between QSC solutions and Audinate licensed products. The first round of co-developed solutions are scheduled for availability later this year. Trent Wagner, Audio Product Manager, QSC, says, “By partnering directly with Audinate, we are able to pursue unique solutions that will … push the entire industry towards providing more native interconnectivity options.” QSC: www.qsc.com Audinate: www.audinate.com

Electro-Voice has introduced three new additions to its versatile EVID family: C4.2LP (four-inch low-profile ceiling), C6.2 (6.5-inch ceiling) and P6.2 (6.5-inch pendant). The P6.2 is a two-way full-range pendant speaker with 6.5-inch woofer and one-inch HF driver. Its magnetic grille allows for easier servicing and installation. Sold per piece and available in black and white, the P6.2 includes a 30W transformer with an 8Ω bypass option, and certified for indoor and outdoor use. Electro-Voice: www.electro-voice.com Jands: www.jands.com.au

Biamp: www.biamp.com Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au

In response to the changing commercial environment Cloud is announcing the establishment of a supplementary range of commercial products — Cloud Contractor Series — and will run alongside Cloud’s traditional British designed and built models made in Sheffield, England. First to be released is a series of quality in-ceiling speakers that deliver exceptional value for money, sonic performance and reliability for a wide variation of applications. Cloud Electronics: www.cloud.co.uk NAS: www.nas.solutions

AtlasIED Z Series sound masking solution provides high-quality speech privacy, high-definition background music, and paging functionality. The Z Series consists of a choice of a four-zone (Z4) or two-zone (Z2) high-definition acoustical system and a wireless-enhanced speech privacy activation sign. Both include integrated pink and white noise generators for sound masking, as well as mic-line input for paging/background music and a Bluetooth receiver for wireless music transmission. AtlasIED: www.atlasied.com PAVT: www.pavt.com.au

PETER COMAN’S ISE PERSPECTIVE AV consultant, and managing director of InDesign Technologies, Peter Coman, takes a look at some of his (sometimes less heralded) highlights of the ISE show. Best product of the show, for mine, was LG’s rollup OLED product. It was a clear winner at the CES show in January (where the competition is even fiercer) so it would have to win the ISE gong. I think it’s a game changer — it’s amazing what they’re doing with that technology now. An unexpected hit for me was the Sony Edge Analytics Appliance (REA-C1000). It uses a standard camera and some processing to do some clever lecture presentation tricks. You can turn the wall behind the lecturer into something like a green screen and superimpose whatever background you like (they call it ChromaKey-less CG Overlay) — an image or a Powerpoint background etc. A little like Kaptivo, Edge Analytics will save incremental changes to a whiteboard presentation. Only, in the case of Edge Analytics, it will recognise the characters and clean up the presenter's freehand writing (‘handwriting extraction’ in Sony speak). What’s more you can use any size whiteboard — it’s just based on the purview of the camera. There are setting for making the lecturer translucent (via augmented reality) in the captured presentation as they write on the whiteboard. This was a product that really took me by surprise and will be huge in the education sector. Lecture capture systems are a big deal and this is a stand out. I was really impressed with the Biamp Crowd Mics system. It wasn't being actively demonstrated

but it’s my understanding that there are already successfully-deployed systems in the marketplace. I love the concept. Like a lot of people in AV I’ve grappled with the problem of attempting to mic up a whole lecture theatre. It’s a nightmare, which is why a product like Catchbox has been successful — toss the mic around and have some fun with it. But with Crowd Mics you’re leveraging the tech in everyone’s pockets — plus you get crowd polling etc. Crowd Mics also touches on the broader move to BYOD and piggy backing off those devices. This is a slightly obscure highlight. It’s a wireless presentation system from a company called NorthVision. Much like ClickShare etc, the idea is to take the HDMI output of a laptop and wirelessly share it to a display. But rather than using wifi it uses a 60GHz transmission for what they claim is a zero latency presentation (up to 4K uncompressed for its top of the line system). I’m instantly a sceptic (I don’t believe in ‘zero’ latency) but I couldn’t fault the way NorthVision had it set up and the counters looked legit. In reality, a little bit of latency is never really a problem but it’s a fascinating development. Zioxi has been producing height adjustable lecterns for a while. The point of difference is they’re battery powered. I noticed at ISE they now have a number of different-shaped education furniture that are all motorised/adjustable, again with batteries. It’s something a little bit different and a good application of improvements in battery technology.

Sonance Professional Series From the company that invented the Architectural Audio category comes a range of professional loudspeakers that set a new benchmark in sound quality and aesthetics for commercial environments. The Sonance Professional Series is a range of 70V/100V/8-ohm (selectable) in-ceiling, pendant and surface-mount speakers.

LG’s rollup OLED: mind-bendingly good.

New low-profile in-ceiling models have been added to the range to provide a solution for installations in restricted spaces.

Sony's Edge Analytics Appliance – next level lecture capture.

Contact the Amber Technology team to find out more:

Zioxi battery powered furniture.

NorthVision: a wireless presentation system done differently.

1800 251 367 sales@ambertech.com.au

ambertech.com.au

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NEWS

Highlights from ISE 2019

MEYER’S ‘NEW’ UPA-1P

PHILIPS MEDIASUITE: CHROMECAST BUILT-IN

TVONE ENHANCE CORIOMASTER

Meyer Sound used ISE to preview a redesign of its point source loudspeakers. Designated Ultra-X40, the new loudspeaker series features a concentric driver configuration, new amplifier and processor technologies drawn from the LEO Family of line array loudspeakers, a rotatable horn, an improved power-to-size/weight ratio, and a wide selection of versatile rigging options. The Ultra-X40 employs a concentric driver configuration with dual eight-inch neodymium magnet cone drivers coupled to a low-mid waveguide surrounding the single three-inch diaphragm high-frequency compression driver. The speaker also incorporates a newly designed and highly efficient three-channel Class-D amplifier that produces a total peak output power of 1950W. The new amplifier design also contributes to a total system weight of 25kg, a reduction of more than 9kg relative to its spiritual successor, the UPA-1P.

Philips Professional Display Solutions has launched a new MediaSuite range that, for the first time, offers Chromecast built-in, as well as full access to the Google Play Store. New features: Chromecast built-in allows instant, secure casting from portable devices in up to 4K resolution; Extended lifetime Android OS updates ensures TVs are kept secure and remain to the latest technology for longer; Google Play Store directly available via TV, delivering full access to thousands of Apps; Google-certified, demonstrating complete product and service assurance; Instant customer satisfaction survey content option allows hotels to collect valuable feedback before the guest has checked out; and detailed usage statistics available for each and every MediaSuite TV.

tvONE launched an enhanced CORIOmaster video wall processor at ISE 2019 which includes a secure communication suite with full REST API and multi-user control. Other improvements include an HDMI four-port output module (CM-HDMI-SC-4OUT) which upgrades your C3-540 CORIOmaster to up to 56 outputs, making massive video walls, projector edge blends, and LED installations easy and smooth. The new embedded audio support and audio module ensure the CORIOmaster is supreme when you need both video and audio in an installation. The IP streaming now accepts both H.264 and H.265 (HEVC) for higher quality and bandwidths. All modules are now shipping. The tvONE stand also featured the CORIOview 4K multi-window processor and a HDMI 2.0 family of products including an ultrathin auto switcher, a new line of active optical cables, and a new matrix switcher series.

Audio Brands Australia: (02) 9659 7711 or sales@audiobrands.com.au Meyer Sound: www.meyersound.com

ISE NEWS IN BRIEF:

Tascam continues a move into AV territory with the MX-8A matrix mixer, intended for small to medium-sized installs. Features include eight mic/line inputs, eight line outputs, integrated DSP for audio optimisation, and a built-in, 2x2 audio interface. Combine up to 10 sources (eight mic/line input channels and two USB audio interface returns) and create up to eight discrete mixes to serve up to eight different zones plus the two-channel USB audio interface output. Tascam: tascam.com CMI: www.cmi.com.au

These new MediaSuite products (the range includes seven models in two series) offer new levels of performance, customisation and flexibility to ensure hoteliers always provide their guests with the very latest service and infotainment experience.

Corsair Solutions: (03) 9005 9861 or sales@corsairsolutions.com.au tvONE: www.tvone.com

Westan: 1300 963 963 or www.westan.com.au

Datapath has introduced two new high-end video wall processors to meet the demand for today’s highresolution, high-demand video applications. The next generation VSN992 and VSN1192 are the most powerful video wall processors are equipped with dual Intel E5 processors to provide unparalleled power with the reliability of Datapath’s VSN range. The latest generation VSN992 features a nine-slot backplane, with the VSN1192 boasting an 11-slot capacity. Both are designed by Datapath engineers to ensure stability and cool operating temperature. Datapath: www.datapath.co.uk Midwich: www.midwich.com.au

PSNI Global Alliance announces the addition of SKS Technologies to its global network of AV integrators in a move to strengthen PSNI’s presence in the APAC market. Headquartered in Melbourne, SKS Technologies brings strategic, in-country resources that enable PSNI affiliates to better meet the AV and communication needs of their global customers. “SKS Technologies is very excited about the opportunities that being part of such a prestigious global network will bring,” said Matthew Jinks, Director of SKS Technologies. SKS Technologies: www.sks.com.au

Ashly Audio is refocussing; helping AV and system integrators to install faster, troubleshoot more efficiently, and develop effective, long-term partnerships with their customers. The first solution in Ashly’s next generation of pro AV products is the mXa-1502 Mixer Amp – an integrated product bringing four zones of mixing and DSP, plus 2 x 150W of power and programmable mic preamps, all made simple in a single, compact rack-mountable unit. Ashly Audio: www.ashly.com NAS: www.nas.solutions

BrightSign is partnering with AdMobilize, an audience intelligence company that focuses on powering DOOH and retail networks with real-time, fully anonymous audience intelligence. The partnership comes after more than a year of collaboration in an effort to bring their solution to market. BrightSign Series 3 and 4 XT, XD and HD expanded I/O digital signage media players can now support AdMobilize audience intelligence, focusing on enhancing the consumer experience by understanding engagement. Midwich: www.midwich.com.au BrightSign: www.brightsign.biz

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ben.smythe@westan.com.au +64 21 554 588

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NEWS

Highlights from ISE 2019

COLLABORATE LIVE 1000

ALTIA SYSTEMS LAUNCHES PANACAST 3

MONDOPAD: 12 NEW MODELS

ClearOne announces availability of the new Collaborate Live 1000, which includes the company’s new Beamforming Microphone Array Ceiling Tile (BMA CT). For large-sized boardrooms, auditoriums, conference rooms, lecture halls, courtrooms, training centres, and telemedicine theatres, Collaborate Live 1000 delivers a complete collaboration system solution. It features a powerful combination of video components integrated with audio DSP technology for an optimal large meeting room collaboration experience. In addition to the aesthetic appeal of its integrated design, the new BMA CT offers a full range of unique capabilities. Within the space of a standard ceiling tile, the PoE-powered BMA CT provides full-room microphone coverage, adaptive steering, noise and echo cancellation, as well as amplification, all before the signal is sent to a DSP mixer. An onboard 10W, two-channel amplifier can drive two ceiling-mounted loudspeakers, and additional BMA CTs can be daisy chained together to cover larger spaces.

Altia Systems introduces the PanaCast 3, the world’s first intelligent panoramic video system with ~40 Megapixels capacity for today’s generation of distributed teams. PanaCast 3 integrates three 13-megapixel cameras, stereo microphones and advanced software to deliver 100% video coverage, 100% audio capture and 100% data sensing. PanaCast 3 easily mounts on top of any digital display or on a wall with available mounting hardware. The USB-C connection allows connection to any compatible device or display. PanaCast 3 is compatible with all leading collaboration software providers, including Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, Slack, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, join.me and more. PanaCast 3 lets users include all team members in their conversations and utilise every seat in their rooms or collaboration spaces, with lossless zoom up to 6x and real-time video stitching just 18 inches from the camera.

Featuring new user experiences and updated industrial design, 12 new Mondopad models range from 55inch to 86-inch and provide flexible and collaborative touchscreen solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of any team or space: Mondopad Core, Mondopad Launch, and Mondopad Ultra. Each tier of the new line has features specific to various use cases and environments, but all 12 models are based on an easy-to-use touchscreen collaborative system with digital whiteboard, wireless casting for document, photo and video viewing and annotation, and the ability to browse the web.

ClearOne www.clearone.com PAVT: (03) 9264 8000 or www.pavt.com.au

ISE NEWS IN BRIEF:

Symetrix debuts the latest version of Composer, its endto-end programming software for Radius NX, Edge, Radius, Prism, and Solus NX DSPs. Workflow enhancements make system design and management more flexible. Time/date and special character export in the SymVue for Web interface is now present. New sizing handles allow resizing of objects in control screens on the fly. A new crosspoint audio delay is available in the Super Matrix for mono matrix modules. PAVT: (03) 9264 8000 or www.pavt.com.au Symetrix: www.symetrix.co

avt: (07) 5531 3103 or www.avt.tech PanaCast: www.panacast.com

The flagship, Mondopad Ultra features an integrated suite of collaboration apps including video conferencing, whiteboarding, casting, a web browser, and full Microsoft Office suite for a truly efficient faceto-face collaboration system. As a video conferencing platform it includes a 4K camera, microphone, and wireless keyboard with integrated touchpad, plus ConX Cloud video conferencing subscription. Infocus: www.infocus.com/mondopad-series Westan: 1300 963 963 or www.westan.com.au

The AKG CBL Series Boundary Layer Microphones is available in two layer and three layer coverage patterns to support a variety of meeting space sizes and shapes. These mics support conference rooms, education spaces, and a variety of pro use cases in large- and medium-sized rooms. Featuring talk/mute controls, understated design aesthetics, and screw terminals, the CBL Series is designed with ease of use and install in mind. avt: www.avt.tech CMI: www.cmi.com.au

Atlona has unveiled a significant new software upgrade for the company’s Velocity IP-based AV control and anagement platform. Version 1.5 enables integrators to create fully-customised graphical user interfaces from the ground up while adding new flexibility to video wall operation for end users. These hancements are available to all Velocity system owners at no additional cost. Atlona: www.atlona.com Midwich: www.midwich.com.au

Maxell (née Hitachi) introduced its first Lecture Capture Station (LCS) – MA-XL1. The MA-XL1 Lecture Capture Station connects all your E-learning tools into a single control point, which enables you to switch instantly between a wide variety of resources. With the MA-XL1 users can record and upload interactive content, while collaborating with classrooms across multiple remote locations, maintaining full interactivity with all students. Maxell: www.maxell.com.au

Panasonic has three new zero offset lenses for its range of 1-Chip and 3-Chip DLP projectors, the ET-DLE020 ultra-short throw zoom lens – the ‘industry’s first’, featuring powered optical zoom, designed to fit all Panasonic 1-Chip DLP projectors. The two lenses developed for Panasonic’s high brightness 3-Chip DLP laser projectors include: the ET-D3LEW200 short-throw zoom lens and ET-D3LEU100 ultra-short throw lens, suitable for 20,000 and 30,000-lumen, WUXGA and 4K+ projectors. Panasonic: www.panasonic.com

NEW CV Series UNPARALLELED EFFICIENCY

n Up to 1000W 100V / 70V Line Output n Energy Star Compliant n On-board Digital Signal Processing n Output Power Sharing n 2, 4 & 8 Channel Models n Maximum Connectivity - RS232, Ethernet, GPIO n Unrivalled Build Quality and Reliability

www.cloud.co.uk

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NEWS

Highlights from ISE 2019

TIME FOR KRONOS

MERSIVE SOLSTICE 4.0

EPSON’S 30K PUSH

Kramer Electronics’ Kronos is a secure, enterprise-class cloud-based room booking and scheduling platform. Kronos streamlines and automates the management side of room booking. Due to its integration with Kramer Control, IT administrators can easily use a room’s availability as a trigger for automatically controlling room elements. With 802.1x and Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption on all communication to and from the scheduling touch panels and the Kramer Kronos server (cloud-based), sensitive booking and scheduling information is completely secure. Additionally, the Kronos schedule can also be displayed on the room display using a VIA device, when no presentation happens. Kramer Kronos works with popular scheduling platforms, including Microsoft Exchange, Office 365 and G Suite. It is also compatible with iOS and Android tablets.

Mersive Technologies has a new hardware platform and v4.0 of its Solstice software. The newest version of the Solstice Pod introduces ShareSwitch, which together with an HDMI-input offers simultaneous sharing and control of both wireless and wired content sharing. The Gen3 Pod also includes dual HDMI output (single 4K or dual 1080p displays), and PoE+. Solstice 4.0 includes added end-user capabilities such as Solstice Ink which enables collaborative highlight and mark-up displayed content from anywhere in the room by simply pointing and drawing with a smartphone. At the same time, international language support is expanded to 16 different languages.

Epson’s ISE focus was on its high-lumen rental and staging projectors — current and upcoming. There’s a new 30,000 lumens laser projector (the EB-L30000U) to be launched in 2020, which Epson previewed. Epson also unveiled its latest range of fit-and-forget, compact, installation laser projectors, the EB-L1075U, EB-L1070U and EB-L1050U. These are Epson’s most affordable and versatile installation projectors, complete with 4K enhancement and interchangeable lenses. Epson has a new signage projector, the EB-U50: designed to be space- friendly and unobtrusive. It can be used as a projector or a spotlight, and is ideal for shop window displays, retail showrooms, dynamic or experiential content for digital art, commercial signage, décor, education or corporate presentations.

Mersive: www.mersive.com Midwich: 1300 666 099 or www.midwich.com.au

Epson: epson.com.au

Kramer: krameraustralia.com.au

CRESTRON FLEX UC

KV2 AUDIO: SMALL TALK

MAGEWELL CAPTURE

Crestron Flex delivers a native Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, and Zoom Rooms software experience, including one-touch join. There are four series – Crestron Flex P100 Series: Crestron’s first ever VoIP desk phone delivers the Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business experience to users of desktop phones. It features a large touchscreen. Crestron Flex B100 Series: A wallmount sound bar, the B100 Series delivers audio, has a beam forming microphone array and an integrated 4K high-definition camera that provides auto-zoom and people counting. A front of room solution for Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, or Zoom Rooms, the B100 Series pairs with a 10-inch touchscreen to deliver a simple, intuitive inroom user experience. Crestron Flex M100 Series: is a tabletop solution with audio handled by the four-mic 360° array. Crestron Flex C100 Series: a UC kit that brings one-touch join to established installations.

KV2 Audio’s ESD Cube ultra-compact passive five-inch loudspeaker uses a unique trans-coil design for “superior vocal reproduction, extended high frequency response, increased dynamic range and the lowest distortion of any comparable loudspeaker in its class”. The ESD Cube may be used as a standalone system with up to eight Cubes powered by a single ESP1000 amplifier or with the ESD1.10 single 10-inch passive subwoofer for applications requiring more low end reinforcement. Housed in a durable and stylish aluminium enclosure, available in any RAL colour, the ESD Cube’s compact dimensions make it ideal for applications requiring discreet, high quality peripheral and/or distributed sound reinforcement including bars, hotels, houses of worship, museums, tourist attractions, and corporate venues.

Magewell demonstrated its video capture and streaming capabilities. Products include the new Pro Convert family of NDI encoders — reliably bringing traditional video signals into IP-based live production and AV infrastructures (available in 4K and 1080p/60 configurations with a choice of input interfaces). Next, Ultra Stream HDMI allows anyone to record or stream high-quality video with one click using ondevice buttons or an intuitive smartphone app. The USB Capture Plus external capture devices are a reliable way to bring SDI, HDMI or DVI sources into popular software applications such as web conferencing, while the Eco Capture family of M.2 cards offers OEMs and SIs an ultra-compact capture solution with low power consumption. Finally, multi-channel Flex I/O PCIe inputoutput cards combine Magewell’s highly-regarded video capture advantages with versatile playout capabilities.

Crestron: www.crestron.com.au

KV2 Audio: (02) 4388 4152 or www.kv2audio.com

Magewell: www.magewell.com Corsair Solutions: (03) 9005 9861 or www.corsairsolutions.com.au

Real-time networks for video, audio & communication

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CCTV

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FEATURE

On a Mission

he Wesley Mission auditorium is a busy Sydney conferencing and performing arts venue, in operation since 1990. Hired out most days of the working week, the 800seat auditorium regularly hosts events ranging from single-microphone lectures to musical concerts. Every Sunday the auditorium holds both morning and afternoon worship services run by Wesley Mission. While there was nothing ‘wrong’ with the resident PA system installed in 2000, David Prideaux, Technical Production Services Manager at Wesley Auditorium, recognised that the busy venue warranted an upgraded PA system to better service Wesley Mission’s clientele. “There’s a large majority of speech that goes on,” says David. “But we also need the facility to cope with bands on the weekends and anything else that comes in like a musical show, dance recital or something that requires a fair bit of grunt behind the sound.” Before weighing up the options for a new system, the Wesley Auditorium team first settled on a few non-negotiable criteria. “We make it a point that you will get the same audio experience regardless of where you’re seated

in the auditorium,” says David. “That was one of the things we looked for in a replacement system. The room has a bulkhead at the back which means we needed some delay speakers to cover the area which isn’t reached by the main PA.” In addition, it was important the system didn’t pose a steep learning curve to regular or one-off clients hiring the auditorium. David comments, “The PA had to be easy to operate from an end user point of view because we have multiple users — ourselves as the technical department for the conference centre, but also the congregations have their own operators so they needed something that they would be able to turn on and off and they will preset easily.” V FOR VICTORY

The team at Wesley Mission auditioned a number of PA systems before settling on their choice of d&b loudspeakers. “We looked at a few options and the d&b system came out as the best performer for what we required and fit within our budget as well,” says David. “We felt the d&b system had a bit more clarity in the top end and midrange and didn’t lose any grunt in the bottom end from the

subs. For the size of the subs, the fact that we’ve only got two on each side flown, it still produces a lot of bottom end.” Doug Pringle from the NAS Projects Team designed a V Series-based solution to ensure the coverage and SPL requirements were met. “It’s a really compact system,” says David. “The fact that they got away with only having two boxes on each side, and they’re not even mounted side by side — they’re on top of each other — the horizontal coverage is pretty amazing.” Among all the positive feedback, one of the most obvious improvements brought by the new PA system is how quickly an operator can pull a good mix. “It’s definitely easier to mix on,” says David. “There’s a lot less involved in order to get a goodsounding microphone. We pretty much reset the desk back to zero to start again and there’s been much less EQing across groups and things like that. Hearing clients and other operators come in here and say the new system sounds great is the biggest take away for me personally.”  NAS (d&b): 1800 441 440 or nas.solutions

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FEATURE

Epson Laser Fires The Imaginarium

oomera Anglican College is an independent school founded in 1997 that is operated by the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. It consists of a Primary School, Junior Secondary School, Senior Secondary School, and Early Learning Centre on the same campus. Recently the College decided to install Epson laser projectors for their future-focused, new Imaginarium 360-degree immersive learning environment, a part of their new building, The Pod, which opened earlier this year. Coomera Anglican College IT Services Manager, Darryl Hall explained, “When the College made the decision to construct a 360-degree theatre a tender process was undertaken in which local SI company, 5th Corner won the opportunity. After consultation with 5th Corner they recommended the EB-L1300UNL as there wasn’t another projector on the market that could meet the needs and requirements of this project.”  Not only did the EB-L1300UNL meet the College’s requirements but its functionality also impressed the team there.

Hall continued, “The College has invested a lot of money into this facility and the last thing we need is unreliable projectors. If the facility starts to become unreliable it will then have a knock-on effect with our staff who will start to lose confidence in the technology and stop using the facility. Epson are recognised leaders in projection technology at this level so it was a very easy decision to go with this brand. Impressively, after installation Epson came onsite to visit with a projector engineer to ensure that all colour and white levels were adjusted uniformly across all six EB-L1300UNL projectors. The service experienced from Epson, also validates the College decision to select Epson for this project.” 11,520 PIXELS

The EB-L1300UNL laser projectors are mounted onto a circular steel metal frame in the centre of the theatre and are used to project a 11,520 x 1080 pixel image onto the walls in a full 360-degree circular room. The room measures nine metres in diameter and the walls have been painted

with a specialised low reflection paint. Used in conjunction with ImmersaView’s SimVisual software the projector images are then warped and blended resulting in a seamless 360-degree image across the curved walls. Hall added, “Of all the technology used in the Imaginarium the projectors have so far proven themselves to be the most reliable. This alone to me proves that they are of an extremely high standard of quality and I highly rate them. Their image quality has been faultless and overall we are extremely satisfied by the end result.” Coomera Anglican College has plans to build and implement a secondary technology-focussed building for which Darry Hall concluded, “Given the excellent experiences of the product and service we’ve had to date, I’m sure Epson will be at the top of our list when it comes to projection decision making for the new building.”  Epson: www.epson.com.au

See the big picture Hills brings together the biggest names in visual technology to help you create purpose built solutions – using the latest products from the most respected brands in the industry – to provide vivid colours, multi view displays and breathtaking presentations. provides multi-view, multi-display and mosaic designs From low band width H264 or JPEG2000 on 1GbE networks to the ultimate experience of uncompressed 4K/60 4:4:4: on 10GbE

10GbE Wide diffusion design ensures 160 degree viewing angle High resistance to temperature, moisture, deformation and stretching with a maximum stretch rate of less than 1% With no lamp to replace, the Maxell MPWX5503 is perfect for 24/7 operation. Featuring ‘Aspect Zoom’ to project maximum image size on the screen while maintaining image quality and ‘Perfect Fit 2’ technology to correct geometric and complicated distortions.

Government

Corporate

Worship

Education

HAV0031-Feb19-V1

For more information on these and other best-in-class solutions from Hills call us on 1300 HILLS1 (445 571) or visit hills.com.au

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FEATURE

Lendlease Big SVSI Install

redon Technology recently partnered with Audio Systems Logic (ASL) to outfit Lendlease’s new Barangaroo office building relying heavily on an integrated Harman networked AV solution for the activity-based workspace environment. With the goal of improving their activitybased working model, Lendlease hired leading AV specialist consultants Audio Systems Logic to design a building-wide networked AV solution. After careful consideration, Audio Systems Logic selected a Harman system comprised of state-of-the-art AMX SVSI solutions and JBL Professional speakers. “Lendlease wanted to make sure the AV system in their new building would complement their activity-based workplace office design,” said Aleksandra Deren, Consultant, Audio Systems Logic. “To help them achieve this goal, we proposed implementing a versatile networked AV solution that could support a wide range of presentation styles and activities. We selected Harman’s AMX SVSI solutions to ensure the new system is flexible, reliable and easy to use.” The ASL team determined that an IP-based solution would give Lendlease the flexibility needed to achieve their vision. AMX SVSI solutions played a big role in enabling ASL to

deliver a reliable network performance and intuitive AV operation throughout the entire building. To minimise the uplink bandwidth between individual floors, Fredon Technology installed AMX SVSI N1000 Series encoders and decoders on each floor. This ensured video could be delivered to thousands of destinations across a range of applications and networks. “We have utilised SVSI in previous installations and were immediately impressed by how quickly it allows you to switch between different presentation formats, video conferencing and more,” said Nick Orsatti, General Manager – NSW, Fredon Technology. “The Lendlease install was a much bigger project in scope, but the intuitive design of the SVSI system helped us overcome the challenges associated with a much larger deployment.” The installation team outfitted the facility with a range of AMX Modero Touch Panels to give staff the ability to quickly and easily set up multimedia presentations. Modero Touch Panels deliver intuitive, gesture-based operation in a streamlined interface that is ideal for interactive meetings and to enhance collaboration. The entire system is controlled using AMX NetLinx Controllers and managed & monitored via the AMX Resource Management Suite.

“As one of the world’s largest property and construction companies, we focus on not just creating the best assets but also activating them,” said Katrina Stewart, Workplace Delivery Manager, Lendlease. “We wanted to showcase to our clients a future-forward workspace that supports collaboration and video conferencing across multiple locations. With this overall goal in mind, Audio Systems Logic teamed up with Fredon Technology to create a unique workspace with a simple user experience tailored to our specific needs. We’re glad to say that the entire Lendlease team is raving about how easy it is to use the AMX SVSI system. We’re excited to see people moving away from booking formal meeting rooms in favour of using more of these open, collaborative spaces.” Fredon Technology equipped the building with JBL Control 24C and 24CT Micro ceiling speakers. The speakers deliver extremely wide coverage and smooth frequency response to ensure that audio streamed over the network can be heard with clarity from anywhere in the building.  avt (Harman): avt.tech Fredon Technology: fredon.com.au/technology ASL: (02) 9700 8669

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FEATURE

Global Leader You’ve seen The Cube, now QUT would like you to meet The Sphere. Text:/ Christopher Holder

Where Else? The Sphere is the most recent and most impressive example of such an object but it's not without precedent: Rio de Janeiro Museum of Tomorrow. Tokyo’s National Museum of Emerging Science & Innovation OLED globe with 16 channels of audio.

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FEATURE

ou’ve got to hand it to QUT; it knows how to make a big technology statement. There’s not an AV person in Australia who hasn’t seen or heard of The Cube. It won an AVIA and continues to create a real focal point for QUT’s outreach efforts in its Science & Engineering faculty. So, you’ve heard of The Cube, now it’s time to get acquainted with The Sphere. CENTRE OF GRAVITY

The Sphere is the 5m (in diameter), 3.5-tonne centrepiece of the Education Faculty building on QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus. It might look like a giant show stopper but its intent is to do more than blow visitors’ minds; rather, it’s a legitimate data visualisation and research tool for teacher training. Gavin Winter is QUT’s Visualisation and eResearch Manager: “My mantra is to make a high-impact and memorable experience for our end users and The Sphere is doing that. It’s probably the most complicated object we’ve been given to create and we’re yet to totally bed it in, but it’s already performing a role.” The Sphere is a Leyard product. Leyard purchased the Linzo LED factory in China which specialises in bespoke LED shapes and structures. Systems Integrator, Pro AV Solutions, did its due diligence before signing off on the order. Shannan Brooksby, Pro AV Solutions’ Education Sector Sales Account Manager in Queensland picks up the story: “Initially we were looking into a German built product that weighed five tonnes and would take one and half years to manufacture and assemble, so we had to pull the plug on that. We went down a couple of other rabbit holes — at one point I had six Russians in New York chasing me for a purchase order on another product — until we heard from Midwich that Leyard had procured Linzo LED and they routinely built LED spheres. After a few iterations, factory visits and factory tests we were satisfied we had the right product. “We made a few modifications to the design — we developed gantries and ladders inside the sphere — and we also rewired the mains power distribution, all to comply with Australian safety standards.” The Sphere arrived in two shipping containers. Inside were nine crates and the steel core of the sphere in its own box. It was now ready for assembly… all while the builder was finishing construction of the building. Shannan Brooksby: “The first thing to be hung was the central shaft. It was temporarily rigged up on the load point and then the skeleton was assembled on the spine. Did it all slot together millimetre perfect? No, there was various things we had to do to get the Sphere fit for assembly. But once it was, we started assembling the LED tiles, starting at the ‘equator’. “There was approximately 1500 hours of work, with up to eight people on site on any given day. Not everyone was suited to working inside The Sphere. It was a learning experience for everyone involved.”

IMMERSIVE AUDIO

The monumental LED sphere is the jewel in the technology crown, but QUT hasn’t skimped on the audio aspects. A multichannel Bose EdgeMax inceiling speaker system is distributed on two levels of the faculty, allowing for an immersive experience regardless of the viewer’s vantage point. Each loudspeaker is addressed by its own amp channel via Dante, using QUT’s network infrastructure. And via the Bose DSP, sound designers can tailor the audio to the 12 audio zones of The Sphere and an additional two audio zones for the adjacent Data Wall. It’s a mouth watering prospect. Already the media team are considering how to match audio to the point of view of the observer of The Sphere. Gavin Winter: “I’ve always maintained these projects can’t leave audio out of the main concept development and thankfully there’s now capacity there for content developers to use.” Originally the plan was to install Bose Professional’s new MSA12 Panarray column loudspeakers. But the architect put the kibosh on them due to structural concerns. But Shannan and

Gavin both agree that it was for the best. Shannan Brooksby: “EdgeMax is a brand new product that’s predominately designed for classroom and meeting spaces. The beauty of EdgeMax is you can locate it at the perimeter of the room and it will provide an even audio coverage into the space. These loudspeakers fit the space perfectly. They’re virtually invisible, and they perform superbly — there’s an immersive quality to the sound and it’s very even regardless of where you’re situated. “We had the chance to conduct some very cool test driving one evening and we had a whole gallery of faces pressed up against the glass of the adjoining library building. It sounded like a nightclub. These speakers have helped create a high quality venue atmosphere.” At most other times EdgeMax provides something far more discreet — not treading on the toes of any of the nearby classrooms and huddle spaces. Gavin Winter: “One of the Deans of Research in the Education Faculty bailed me up recently, saying how much he’d enjoyed the ambient bird

Lush: The Sphere is gargantuan but appropriately so in the scale of the Education building green atrium. The landscapers were spreading mulch and watering while ProAV Solutions were doing final assembly. Yikes.

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FEATURE

Taking Shape: The Sphere involved some 1500 man hours of assembly.

Stay in Touch: The Leyard touch-enabled LED Data Wall would be the centrepiece of just about any university AV install. Here, it plays bridesmaid to a 3.5-tonne LED globe. It’s when the two displays work hand in glove that things really get interesting.

sounds I was running through the Bose system during commissioning, and could we have them back. It was amazing how calming that looping soundscape was, especially in the context of the internal gardens in the building.” VR SPHERE SIMULATION

Gavin’s media team has got their work cut out for them. A huge LED installation such as this is a very hungry beast, voraciously demanding content when it’s not being used for research purposes. The media server (called a Splicer) breaks The Sphere’s pixel canvas up into 24 vertical segments. The resolution is approximately 5K. Gavin Winter: The Splicer shows us what will get lost in the content because of the geometry of The Sphere. What’s more we have a simulation package that allows us to use VR to look at the content on a virtual Sphere — to see the content before you run it on the real-life Sphere. It’s especially valuable to future developers, even off-site developers, who might have existing media they’d like to see rendered on The Sphere. The point of view of the VR simulation is from within The Sphere, with the content mapped out around you.”

BRAIN PROJECT

An early Education Faculty project that allows the Sphere to stretch its legs somewhat is the Brain Project, which pertains to early childhood brain and neurological development. Gavin Winter: “The first thing we realised was the brain is not a sphere. That was the initial challenge. So we didn’t want to make the content on The Sphere a literal visualisation of the brain and its activity. But the dynamic graphics on the Sphere complement the data on the Data Wall. It demonstrates that the two working together are much great than the sum of the parts. It tells another story entirely. “The Sphere is so imposing that you have to engage with it differently. You have to stand back. You have to spend time on the next floor to experience the upper half of The Sphere.” THE POSSIBILITIES

For Gavin and his crew it’s all about the possibilities. Already the many cogs are turning and The Sphere will doubtlessly come into its own. For Shannan and his crew, they’ve signed QUT

up to a three-year service deal. There’s a generous 20 percent complement of spares on site, with a full gamut of LED tile shapes (20 in all) and circuit boards, just in case. Servicing The Sphere is a nontrivial exercise. It’s lowered and the technician needs to enter through a hatch at the ‘south pole’. When powered up, it’s an uncomfortable 50°C inside The Sphere. If a LED tile needs to be replaced, a second technician needs to assist from the outside of The Sphere, on a scissor lift. The powering up/down is to be sequenced and controlled via the AMX control system, as is the motor of the winch. Gavin mentioned that there was some pressure from certain quarters to source the LED Sphere directly from China – presumably to save dough. Gavin’s left in no doubt he made the right decision to push back and partner with Pro AV Solutions and Midwich as the Leyard distributor. If you’re in that neck of the woods, it’s well worth paying The Sphere a visit. It’s open to the public. As you gaze up at in wonder, you’ll no doubt have a brainwave application of your own. Me? I can’t stop thinking about the Death Star. 

Dante Compact Processors The compact solution for all DANTE networks

• • • •

2 Channel and 4 Channel i/o options POE or individual power supply On Board DSP Intuitive software for installers and end users

Corporate Install

Retail Projects

• •

Available in XLR or Euro block configuration Compatible with Dante Domain Manager and Dante AES67 Mode

Hospitality

For more information contact CMI on (03) 9315 2244 or email: cmi@cmi.com.au web: cmi.com.au

Broadcast

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FEATURE

Arup ABW Hat Trick Arup eats its own dog food. Text:/ Derek Powell

Team Details Interior Architecture: HASSELL Building Services: Arup Arup AV Consulting Team: Ben Moore (Sydney) Tom Brickhill (Sydney) Nick Liley (Melbourne) System Integration: Rutledge AV Gino Simonel (PM Sydney) George Markovski (PM Melbourne)

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FEATURE

ast year, the international engineering consultancy firm Arup set its own consultants a challenge by planning an almost simultaneous move for three key regional offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore. The move into new, custom-designed premises was the culmination of an eight-year project to move to an Activity Based Workplace (ABW) model in the region. The concept of ABW is to enable ‘frictionless movement’ of people within the workplace so they can switch quickly between tasks, form up into project teams when required, and easily meet to collaborate. Its success relies not just on clever architectural design but on using audiovisual technology to empower quick and productive meetings and enable effortless remote collaborations. Often the workplace changes required to enable ABW can be very disruptive and success is not guaranteed in any project involving such revolutionary change. Arup, as an organisation, was well aware of the need for careful preparation before undertaking wholesale change. Cameron McIntosh, Arup’s Workplace Leader in Victoria and South Australia described the fastidious process that led to the triple move. “Back in 2011, I led a pilot of activity based working in the Melbourne office for 30 staff,” he recalled. “That pilot then built into a refresh of the Melbourne office five years ago. As well as the alternative work settings, we were also able to trial technology that we were looking to incorporate into the new move, which we knew was on the horizon for late 2018.” Building on a new set of internally developed workplace guidelines, Cameron was also keen to ensure alignment amongst the three new offices so that interconnection would be seamless and travelling staff would have a consistent experience across the region. Accordingly, he involved Arup’s Audiovisual Consultants in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore to develop a coherent set of technology solutions across the three different fitout projects. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Nick Liley, who is Arup’s Senior Consultant, Acoustics, Audio-Visual & Theatre in Melbourne, was involved from the early stages of design. “Arup internally-developed workplace guidelines reflected some very high level technology aspirations,” Nick explained. “They comprised a set of experiences we wanted our staff to have access to. These formed into a series of interior design settings that were clearly going to need technology in order to enable them to work properly.” As the regional AV team worked with the client groups and the architects, they formalised a set of technology guidelines for the region. “We don’t have hard and fast rules,” he noted. “What we have effectively done is to have a slightly different

interpretation of those higher level guidelines [in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore] to ensure that all the offices can collaborate and talk to each other.” The fitout architect on each of the three projects in Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore was Hassell Studio with the local Hassell teams in each city working with each local Arup client group. Both firms often work together on major projects so Arup and Hassell as organisations and individuals know each other quite well. “There was a level of comfort and desire to really challenge each other,” Cameron recalled. “So that relationship was really good in that we could have quite open and robust discussions about how the rooms were laid out or adjustments we need in particular spaces to better accommodate certain use cases or technology. Across the design team, whether Hassell or our service engineers or AV, it was very much the ‘best for project’ solution that came out on top.” Nick also noted the benefits of the close relationship between the firms: “We were able to engage with Hassell very early to identify spaces that were heavily reliant on technology and allow the requirements for that tech to shape the architectural form,” he said. “For example we have digital design review suites, which use two touchscreens, to review and mark up digital models. It was important that the furniture settings and the shape of those spaces responded to the way our staff need to gather around those monitors and interact with them.” Given these design review suites featured huge 84-inch Panasonic touchscreens, the layout details were quite crucial. “We looked at the way people engage with those screens,” Cameron observed. “We were all very conscious of making sure that the tables in that area are standing height so that people are up — at a height that means they’re more likely to get up and engage with the touchscreen — rather than sitting down in a chair where it’s more of an effort to get up and engage with the displays.” VC EVERYWHERE

As a global firm, Arup staffs collaborate closely with their international offices, which put a heavy burden on videoconferencing. Nick explained that Arup globally have standardised on Cisco: “All of our offices have Cisco VC endpoints, because we obviously have access to the latest equipment from Cisco,” he said. “We deployed the Webex Room Kit and the Room Kit Pro in almost all enclosed meeting rooms so we could conduct a high quality video conference, or, for that matter, an audio conference, using that Cisco gear. The codec itself is mounted behind the screen and we use the Cisco Webex Pro camera, which is their three-lens device. We designed the room around the Cisco speaker track system so that we have optimised framing of the talker in each of those rooms.”

Arup’s move to ABW meant that all staff have their own laptop, so all rooms are designed around a BYOD environment. “As part of this project,” Nick continued, “We standardised our presentation interface to be the Barco ClickShare so we weren’t confined to a table box. In our dualscreen VC rooms we are using the CSE800 version so that we can have two separate presenters on each of the screens.” While ClickShare is very much the standard, an HDMI connection at a table box provides a secondary connection when needed. Each office features a number of ‘studios’ which are flexible spaces often used by project teams. “To accommodate different room configurations we have a combination of flat panel displays and retractable projection screens,” Nick explained. “So, for example, in Studios 1 and 2 in Melbourne we have a single 84-inch Panasonic UHD monitor and two Panasonic laser projectors mounted at 90° to each other to accommodate different room configurations.” SOUND IDEAS

Audio is handled by a grid of QSC recessed ceiling loudspeakers that can be zoned in three areas and turned on or off depending on how the room is configured. Some studios open out into areas that have exposed services with no ceiling. These zones have QSC pendant loudspeakers to achieve an acoustic match with the ceiling grid speakers. Overall audio control is achieved with a series of DSPs, rather than a completely centralised system. “The DSPs are the Q-Sys Core 110f,” Nick continued. “Our approach was to minimise single points of failure even though we understand those systems have a very high uptime. In the studios, the three spaces all run on a single DSP core but that is separate to our town hall space or our boardroom. Each combinable functional zone has its own DSP core.” The boardroom is, as in all corporate projects, a critical space — especially when videoconferencing is so heavily used. For the intensively used VC spaces, including the boardroom, Arup decided to use the popular Shure MXA-910 ceiling array microphones rather than table or suspended mics.

Equipment Highlights Displays: Panasonic Projectors: Panasonic, Epson, Dell Video switching & distribution: Extron Wireless Presentation: Barco ClickShare Audio DSP: QSC Q-SYS Loudspeakers: QSC AcousticDesign Microphones: Shure MXA & MXW, DPA d:screet Cameras: Panasonic Video Conferencing: Cisco Touchscreens: ELO, Panasonic, AOpen & Advantech

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FEATURE

Nick described the decision making process: “We identified that the tabletop microphones, although they perform very well, were getting in the way. Being an engineering firm, we quite often have large-format printing on tables. So it was a key requirement for us to get as much equipment as possible off the table. We looked at different in-ceiling or pendant solutions and picked the Shure MXA-910 because we had some previous experience with them on other projects.” “We worked quite closely with our architects and they are quite keen for us to stick with something that we could mount flush or recess into the ceiling. Our [Melbourne] boardroom seats 24 and we have two MXA-910s covering that table. We’ve been really happy with the way it’s been able to cover a large area. Those particular microphones are actually sitting above an extrusion form lighting fixture. And there would have been some concerns with other microphone forms that the lights would have caused shadowing or similar effects but we haven’t noticed any of those problems using the MXA-910s.” TOWN HALLS: CATCHING ON

In the Town Hall space, Shure Microflex wireless handheld and lapel microphones take care of PA duties but there is one unusual aspect to the voice lift system. The age old problem of making audience questions audible is handled by the quirky Catch Box microphone system, a padded container that can actually be tossed around the audience to reach whoever needs to speak. “It’s an oversize foam microphone that’s heavily padded, with a Microflex transmitter and a little micro relay inside it,” Nick elaborated. “When it’s in motion it mutes itself. So the idea is that you can pass it around the audience or you can actually physically throw it around the audience and you won’t get handling noise. Then once it stops moving, the microphone un-mutes, so you can hear it. We use it for both near-end and far-end questions.” Throughout the three regional offices, video switching and distribution relies on Extron. “We’re using Extron DTP Cross Points for our video matrix switching and obviously DTP extender, but in all spaces, the primary input device for users is ClickShare. So the DTP switching is primarily used to manage other sources,” Nick observed. TAKING CONTROL

A big part of creating user satisfaction, especially as people move between offices, is an intuitive room control system and a standardised GUI. But Arup knew they needed more than just room control. “With ABW, people move around a lot,” Nick pointed out. “So we also wanted a staff locating platform; and on top of that we needed a room booking system. So having looked different platforms, we decided on ACA to do all of those things.”

AURALISATION: NEXT LEVEL LAB SPACE A unique part of Arup’s fitout are the specialist ‘lab’ spaces. Some offices have ‘Experiential Labs’ which feature a large shaker platform that simulates floor vibrations. Others have a ‘Lighting Lab’ to allow clients to experience the effect of different lighting fixtures. But the most exotic are the ‘Sound Labs’ with one each in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore. Each of the new Sound Labs is constructed as a ‘boxwithin-a-box’ with sound-lock doors to allow extremely low levels of background noise in an acoustically dead environment. Each lab features an Ambisonic loudspeaker array. Using recordings created by a four-

capsule Ambisonic B-format microphone arrays, it is possible to generate an ‘auralisation’ that reproduces the acoustic environment in a real-world space. Nick described how it is used. “We can generate auralisations using a computer model and combine the results of that modelling with an anechoic recording to auralise what certain spaces will sound like before they are constructed. And we use that for everything from designing performing arts centres; through to describing different wall partitions to architects; or to community engagement for large infrastructure projects like wind farms or high speed rail.”

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FEATURE

ARCHITECTS’ VIEW

“When technology is discussed early in the design phase, it can be considered and integrated well – the trouble in the past is when it’s an add-on at the last minute” Rebecca Trenorden, HASSELL Architects

HASSELL Architects has a long history working with Arup on a whole variety of projects. This time is was ‘personal’. AV Asia Pacific: Was this an unusual project given the work Arup does in AV design? Was AV weaved into the DNA of the fitout from the beginning and is that a departure from other projects? Sarah Knapman (Senior Interior Designer): The AV design helped to create a brief around the spaces. We found it was important to have spaces that were fully equipped with an immersive AV experience versus others that were low-tech in comparison. In creating a diversity of spaces, it’s not just the work setting, furniture and finishes that vary, but also the technology offering. AV Asia Pacific: Traditionally, architecture and technology are uneasy bedfellows in projects such as this. How is this changing? Rebecca Trenorden (Associate): From the outset of the project, the client, consultant and Hassell design teams aspired to create a holistic ‘one team’ environment, enabling effective, integrated and quick communication between all design and engineering disciplines. Using 3D building technology (with programs such as Revit) we were all able to better visualise and coordinate across the whole project. When technology is discussed early in the design phase, it can be considered and integrated well – the trouble in the past is when it’s an add-on at the last minute. AV Asia Pacific: Can technology (especially audio visual technology) actually enhance the architecture and design of a fit-out such as Arup’s HQs? Rebecca Trenorden (Associate): Seamless technology is crucial in creating an efficient, usable and activated workplace. At Arup, its specialised engineering lab spaces rely heavily on a unified architecture and AV design. Beyond that – technology can be used to enhance staff and visitor experience. At Arup Sydney, for example, the client’s ambitions in creating a space beyond a ‘typical’ workplace is evident in their innovative use of integrated AV sound, music and coloured mood lighting in staff wellness and visitor exhibition spaces. AV has also enhanced the spaces within Arup’s workplace by telling a story or supporting a specific need. For example, in Melbourne the LED signage is paired back and simplified, while the Project spaces have advanced dual BIM modelling touchscreens to work on live virtual models in a team setting. AV Asia Pacific: What are the architectural challenges for a successful deployment of an Activity Based Working office environment and how does technology assist in making such a work environment successful. Sarah Knapman (Senior Interior Designer): The success of an ABW workplace relies on the provision of a diverse mix of settings and spaces for a variety of activities, ensuring that each setting has the appropriate technology – whether it be hi or low tech – is integral to encouraging staff movement, flexible working and collaboration. It is critical the technology systems are intuitive and consistent across the project to ensure they are used at their best. For their new offices, Arup developed a specialised wayfinding system allowing staff to find colleagues and collaborators easily in the ABW environment.

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FEATURE

RUTLEDGE AV PERSPECTIVE

With advanced activity based working comes the need for advanced wayfinding. Arup developed an ACA-based staff-finding/wayfinding system allowing staff to book rooms, as well as find colleagues and collaborators easily… without the need for staff microchipping.

The ACAEngine provides room control for the larger rooms such as the studios; the Town Hall space and the boardroom although the smaller rooms, such as the VC optimised rooms, make use of the simple Cisco Touch 10. The people finding platform is available on strategically located ELO touch panels or can be called up by staff on their own laptop screens. On a map of the office, the system shows where hot-desks are available and allows users to search for staff members and displays exactly where that person’s laptop is located in the office. A sister ACA product, CoTag, provides the digital signage platform throughout the offices. “We did put a lot of effort into standardising the experience that our users were going to have,” Nick elaborated. “We designed a GUI on ACA that looks very similar to the standard Cisco GUI, so regardless of whether the room has a Touch 10 control or ACA running on a wireless tablet, users would be presented with the same

decisions and the same control interface. For the same reason we took the ClickShare decision. Whichever rooms people go to, they look for the ClickShare button to plug in their laptop. We’ve put a lot of effort into making the user experience as seamless as possible.” So far, the staff reaction to each of the new offices has been very positive. As Workplace Leader, Cameron McIntosh is quick to credit the work of Arup’s AV Consulting team for producing a frictionless and coherent user experience. “I think the team has worked very hard to make things simple — and simple takes a lot of hard work,” he observed astutely. “So they’ve done well!” 

For Dennis Craig, National Project Manager, Rutledge AV, the challenge was about making ABW a working reality: “The move to activity based working places a heavy emphasis on utilising technology to ensure employees are mobile and able to connect and work easily from anywhere in the new space”. The scope of the project was: to provide a solution which enhanced and supported an activity-based working environment, integrated from end to end, monitored and supported remotely, simple to use, provided the expected result every time, and had a flexible BYOD focus. “We worked closely with Arup, Lendlease and Built to deliver a consistent experience across all audio visual-enabled spaces. Arup had identified early in the process that leading technologies such as Cisco room kits and wireless presentation facilities such as Barco ClickShare were key in supporting their ABW model,” states George Markovski, Project Manager (Melbourne), Rutledge AV. “The range of systems, user interfaces and consistency delivered across Melbourne and Sydney ensures that their offices are a first class experience for all Arup employees, visitors and users alike.” adds Markovski. “For us, as the integrator, the main challenge in an ABW environment is how to conceal technology and associated infrastructure in large open plan designs that generally feature an abundance of glass, exposed ceilings and promote architectural features.” recalls Gino Simone, Project Manager (Sydney), Rutledge AV. “The challenge is also about coordinating with all the other services that are on a new build site.” Arup’s modern and clean designs are architecturally sensitive and required sophisticated technology installations that complement the overall design but also allow future proofing any serviceability/ maintenance requirements.

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FEATURE

T Sitting Pretty The Parliament of Victoria has a new wing for 102 members’ offices. This is an AV over IP design with bells on. Text:/ Christopher Holder

he Victorian parliament has a new wing. Like a 4.5-star hotel (designed by Peter Elliot Architecture), each member has a brand spanking new office that looks out to a central garden. It’s neat, unobtrusive and really only required the sacrifice of a lawn tennis court to accommodate. The new wing needed new AV. But before we get to that, it’s worth returning to the old parliamentary building (work started back in 1856, and hasn’t really stopped) to understand the new offices. AV Asia Pacific met with the Manager, Hansard, James Scott, on site on a day when parliament wasn’t sitting. “Prior to the new members annex being built we had 88 members from the Assembly and 40 members from the Legislative Council all housed in the old building. Back in the 1850s no one could foresee it being a workplace for 128 members, their staff and all the support people. Because of that, over time, offices were shoehorned into places you shouldn’t put people.” ANCIENT AV: LOOKING BACK

The old building has some old AV. The old rack looks somewhat like one of the Telecom totems you occasionally see unsheathed on the nature strip. A mass of copper strands, like tendrils, reach across the old site. No one knows exactly where they all end up but the team is nursing the setup until the next round of

FEATURE

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“102 offices for 102 members. Each has their preferences for how they would like to hear the division bell”

improvements sees the old system phased out. “I feel like a caveman seeing TV for the first time. I don’t know how the old AV rack works, so it’s like magic. We revere it, pray to it, and periodically we need to sacrifice replacement amplifiers at its altar to keep it running.” James has the look of a man only half-joking. GO LIKE THE CLAPPERS

The control catchcry is ‘simplicity', with this elegant yet simple wallplate controller from BSS winning the day. (Above) One of the new members' offices.

If you drill down deep enough to the dark ages of AV, you’ll find evidence of mid-century division bell technology. The division bell is rung whenever legislation is brought to the vote. All members of the house (lower or upper, depending on the vote) are called to enter the chamber and participate. Nothing is more important than the division bell. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just been phoned by Donald Trump, the Dalai Lama or even your mother-inlaw, when the bell rings, you hotfoot it to the chamber. That being the case, there’s not a square foot within parliament where you can’t hear the division bell. Back in the day, actual bells were installed throughout the building (some of these remain in use). There was a button in the chambers which would trigger a blast of AC to the bell clappers. In time, a red and green light was added to the unit to signify for whom the bell was tolling — upper or lower house. It’s impossible to stress enough just how important the division bell is. Missing a division

could be worse than missing 10 wedding anniversaries in a row. “Getting the division bell right in the new members’ annex was important,” noted AV consultant, Parity’s Andrew Hicks, with some understatement. Parity was appointed as AV consultant and worked with the Victorian Parliament on developing and documenting an audiovisual standard for this work and future upgrades. CLEAR AS THE BELL

Little did Andrew know that so much of his time would be spent on bells. The 21st century division bell has moved with the times, but not so much that you can get cute with it. “We sampled the sound of the bell,” continued Hicks. “It’s important the bell, regardless of whether you’re hearing it in the new wing or the old house, sounds the same. There are 102 offices for 102 members. Each has their preferences for how they would like to hear the division bell.” Those preferences don’t extend to turning the bell off. You have three level settings for each of the chambers. If you’re a member of the lower house you can’t mute the upper house bell because you may have an upper house member in your office when the bell goes off. The bell will duck the level of the audio from the chambers if you have it on. You can make these adjustments via a neat little wall plate controller. In fact, the BSS wallplate won the vendor the DSP contract. There are four

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FEATURE

The only AV cable to each office is the Cat7 cable. Even the clock is on the network. the PoE network clock even features red and green LEDs to signify which division bell is ringing. The AV in the old house is mostly unknowable and best left alone until a future upgrade!

primary BSS London DSP units in the rack room and four backups. Each of the 102 rooms is its own audio zone. ONE-CABLE PROMISE

The Dante audio is routed to the offices via the IP network and Cisco switches. At an endpoint is a SoundTube IPD series PoE in-ceiling speaker — one per room. The six-inch SoundTube speaker accepts Dante natively: just plug in the RJ45 connector. And being PoE, no other cables are required. To be precise, the SoundTube speakers are HPoE — higher power than PoE or PoE+. So if standard PoE provides 15 Watts and PoE+ is 25W, then high power PoE is more like 40 Watts. “In our test the 15 Watts of power from PoE was sufficient in the members’ offices given the environment,” recalls Andrew Hicks. “Saying that, you have to load share the power requirement, so we had to add a second power supply to each of the network switches as well as mixing the devices.” There are nine network ports in use in every room, (“eight would have been handy when you have 48-port switches!” observes James Scott wryly) which includes a PoE clock. “We thought there’d be plenty of PoE clock designs to choose from. Not so — we had to design this one ourselves,” reports James Scott. The clock remains remarkably stylish despite being designed after ‘extensive consultation’. As mentioned, it’s powered over the ethernet, receives its timing updates via the network and features red LEDs on the top of the face and green LEDs at

the bottom to signify which division bell is tolling.

BENDING TO THE WILL OF CAT7

IPTV & MORE THAN IPTV

Apart from a smattering of Quest 100V line ceiling speakers, every item of AV in the new members’ annex is on the 10Gb network. Cat7 (shielded) wins the day. Actually, it’s Cat7’s bend radius that stands out as a potentially bum-biting fly in the ointment. “We had to be very careful with the bend radius and connection points on the in-ceiling speakers and the wall plate controllers,” recalls Andrew Hicks. “Otherwise the cables could be bent from the recess cavity or the wall construction itself.” It’s also a happy tale of a collegiate and helpful IT department. I asked James how he got both areas to share the same (converged) network. For example, how were quality of service (QoS) discussions broached? “One thing we all agreed on: the division bells. At a pinch, we can live without the other stuff. But the division bells? Well, the bells get the highest QoS.” Ah, yes: the bells! The bells! 

The other big piece of the AV fitout is IPTV. Each new office has a 48-inch commercial display (a NEC V484, specifically for its low reflections), with another 38 dotted about, each capable of displaying free to air, Foxtel or Parliamentary TV. The Exterity IPTV system also manages any digital signage content parliament wants to push to those screens. Each screen has an Exterity IPTV set-top box (STB), with a remote to control the STB and display. As it turns out, James Scott’s first parliament gig in 2009 was to set up the broadcast AV network (his first job back in Australia after a stint in the US broadcast sector). “Today there are a number of broadcast feeds of both houses and an audio-only feed. There’s a video-on-demand service, where we can push content to the NEC displays or even to members’ mobiles or desktops. The webstreaming is managed by Akamai. All this is on the Parliament network and managed by the Exterity IPTV system. “It’s been a big IT job and they really stepped up. We now have technical support in-house, which means we don’t always have to escalate issues to Exterity or Cisco.” Here’s why Exterity won the day. Where other IPTV systems purport to be ‘more than IPTV’, Exterity is proving it can be a one-stop shop for delivering, recording, managing and scheduling network-based content.

CONTACTS Peter Elliot Architecture: peterelliott.com.au Parity (AV Consultant): parity.com.au Fredon (Integrator): fredon.com.au/technology

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FEATURE

All Together Now: DSP Goes Net-centric The move towards centralised DSPs seems inevitable as more of the content goes on the network. But at what cost? Text:/ Derek Powell

et’s face it - DSPs are useful devices in meeting rooms, classrooms, lecture theatres, auditoria, in fact anywhere where there is a sound system and a control system. AV Control systems, either with a touchscreen or a button panel, empower users to take command of a room without having a detailed knowledge of the AV system. DSPs allow us to replace what might otherwise be a complex mixer with a simple touchscreen slider or volume up/down buttons — something that anyone can cope with. There are, though, a couple of disadvantages. Typically, they will add a couple of grand to the cost, which while good value for a reasonably complex room, starts to get expensive for a simple system that only needs to provide volume control for one or two audio sources. Secondly, it means we need a central rack to mount the device, something increasingly difficult to provide in many modern, minimalist spaces. Thirdly, you can get caught short, running out of inputs and outputs when a relatively simple room suddenly needs an upgrade to add videoconferencing, recording, or live streaming. These issues became more apparent when two other trends in AV design came to the fore. The

first was the rise of AV over IP, where both video and audio signals could be carried easily over the network, and could be accessed in adjacent rooms as easily as at the rack. The second trend was towards centralised AV control systems, as we discussed extensively in this magazine last year. If you have a number of rooms close together, such as in an office building, a classroom block, or a university campus, it can be more cost effective to have just one (or two) central control processors with each room having a touch panel and all the edge devices connected via the network. Once you centralise control systems, the cost drops, software upgrades turn out to be trivial and it becomes very easy to add extra devices to upgrade rooms. The funda mental thesis is simple and all the advantages of centralised control also apply to centralised audio design. So with that background, and after thoroughly canvassing centralised control last year, we will begin our discussion of Centralised Audio Design. Three questions come up continuously in any discussion of centralised infrastructure. What sort of projects does it suit? Does it cost more? What if the central box fails? We put those questions and more to a panel of industry experts.

THE EVANGELIST: DEAN MCFADDEN Dean McFadden has spent his life learning by experience. He lives by this credo and even made Learning by Experience the name of his audiovisual consulting business. Starting as an apprentice radio technician in the RAAF he then built a solid background in the audiovisual industry as a roadie. He next moved into consultancy and followed that with a five-year stint as a Technical Architect for a major university in Melbourne. While there, he implemented an audiovisual design and strategy that was one of the first examples of centralised control, video and audio on the network. He also became Australia’s best known guru on the subject of AV over IP. As expected, he has well developed ideas about the value of centralised DSP and who was scoring runs in that area. “We’re seeing a big push for content on the network,” Dean declared. “For any organisation adopting that technology, centralised control is almost mandatory to finish the design. It doesn’t make sense to come up with a net-centric design for your control and transport of video on the network

FEATURE

and then have to bolt a DSP in the room and use analogue signals. That goes against what you’re trying to achieve. So it’s critical you go to a centrally deployable and manageable audio solution.” Dean is positive the big advantages from centralised deployment flow from taking a bigpicture view. “Is putting a DSP in every comms cupboard on every floor centrally deploying or is that still distributed?” he asks. “I mean you’re consolidating a little bit but what you want to do is take a whole building or even a campus-worth of audio and centrally deploy the resources to manage that.” Dean’s first major university project involved considering that big picture. “We did an end state design that would allow for 3500 video sources and 2500 destinations with 4000 channels of discrete audio,” he recalled. “The network design part was about three months of the process. We engaged external consultants to help us with the multicast design because no one in the team had ever had any experience of that amount of multicast across an enterprise network. Looking back, there were no white papers or benchmark sites to review, so we had to blaze a path. It’s a lot simpler today because what was achieved there is now common knowledge. The manufacturers are a lot more aware of what needs to be done and the guys at QSC have been part of that journey. So it’s an evolving industry and we’re getting better but we’ve got to start looking at it from an IT not an AV viewpoint.” “At the moment QSC seem to be ticking all the boxes. There are other products on the market but QSC seem to have approached things from a more IT-centric point of view with the Q-SYS ecosystem rather than as an audio company trying to incorporate a net-centric approach.” In Dean’s view, a centralised DSP system has to work as a Layer 3 (routable) component on the network. “In the rush to get everything on the network,” he explained, “you hear these statements like: ‘You just plug it in and it works – just enable IGMP snooping and querying and it just works’. That’s fine if you’ve got a Layer 2 solution, which is a switch sitting in a room and you just plug in all the gear into it. But when you get on to the Enterprise network it’s all about Layer 3 and the Q-SYS ecosystem operates on Layer 3.” When asked about potential failures in a centralised system, Dean is direct: “If a DSP in a room fails, you upset 30 people. It’s no big deal – you’d get by for the time it took to replace. Now we’re now talking tens of rooms hanging on a single piece of hardware. If it fails, yes there’s a larger impact to the business. The Net-centric approach that Q-SYS has taken is you can run them as a fully redundant solution. If one core fails it automatically switches over to a second one. Depending on how you deployed it, you may have a drop of audio for three to five seconds while everything renegotiates but that’s more than acceptable in a teaching space or meeting room.

041

People cough and miss parts of conversation for longer than that. That part’s covered.”

THE INTEGRATOR: NICK ORSATTI (FREDON TECHNOLOGY) With more than two decades experience in top level audiovisual integration companies, Nick has been around the block with DSPs more times than he can count. He’s seen the application of central audio processing infrastructure in everything from large stadium projects to campuses of all kinds in the corporate, government and education sectors. “A classic use case is an airport,” he noted. “I have a user requirement to page to a single gate, as well as to a whole wing of a terminal, and then across the wider facility. Centralising the DSP makes sense in that traditional commercial use case.” But he doesn’t see a central audio infrastructure meeting all needs. “We’ve done a lot of fitouts in large corporate environments and in spaces where people work at desk; where you have a lot of smaller, simpler meeting spaces; DSP is typically not centralised. But in the dedicated client areas and high-density areas where they have more formalised meetings, there’s a strong desire for it. That’s for a couple of reasons: 1. is about efficiency and value. The second one is more around meeting the use cases. Where they choose to centralise and share expensive infrastructure such as videoconferencing, then it makes sense to deal with the audio in a similar fashion. And often, even on client floors, there will be a hybrid DSP topology deployed.” Nick Orsatti explained that reliability was also a more complicated issue in some installations. “In a number of large recent projects we have undertaken in Sydney, we have used centralised DSPs but distributed the load. We have separate processors to deal with the main areas of operation — the external precinct, the back of house areas etc. So the idea is whilst they’re centralised, there’s an element of segmentation so you’re not going to take everything down if a unit fails.” “Most of those systems do have a failover capability, Nick went on. “So Q-SYS or Biamp are probably the two leaders there, but BSS also has a redundant solution. All of those systems have multi-level redundancy capabilities. Some areas are deemed to be mission critical, and life-safety is the best example of that. So if the systems are doing life safety then absolutely it’s got to fail over. In other applications it’s pegged against what the users describe as the service level they require. Is it acceptable for a room to go down? Most can deal with that in a large facility. So they choose not to spend the money on complete redundancy. If the fail over is a proper, fully considered failover strategy then obviously it’s a lot deeper than just the audio hardware. It’s discrete and redundant cable paths. Networks get completely discrete network stacks. And obviously all of those add dollars.” As it happens, both Biamp and QSC now have the ability to route and process video alongside

THE QSC APPROACH It all started with Peak Audio’s CobraNet. The team subsequently moved to QSC and was tasked with developing a new platform to help shape the convergence of AV and IT — Q-SYS. Andy Pearce (QSC Director of Systems Sales, APAC): “Q-SYS was quite different to anything on the market because it used standard Intelbased processing. We’d worked out how to have a Linux operating system with the spare processors on the Intel platform used as a DSP processing engine. From the very start, it was designed to be an integrated platform for audio, video, control and monitoring, and the development of Q-SYS has been a relentless pursuit toward that goal of providing the industry a complete ecosystem approach”. Q-SYS is grounded in standard IT networking protocols allowing Q-SYS to run on off-theshelf network hardware over standard Gigabit Ethernet. As well as finding a home on the network, any DSP infrastructure needs to interface with other parts of the audio ecosystem and Andy is keen to emphasise QSC’s credentials here. “Q-SYS is a fully agnostic ecosystem,” he stated. “We interface with Dante, CobraNet and even AVB.” The watchword today for interoperability is AES67, so the question of Q-SYS support for this is important. “Q-SYS natively supports AES67 and does not require the user to buy additional hardware or additional licenses like competitive solutions. When you buy a Q-SYS Core processor, you can divide the channels between Q-LAN and AES67.” Andy Pearce sees the discussion of cost in centralised audio infrastructure in a different light: “I think people are now costing our AV systems in a similar way to IT systems. Your IT manager is far more used to saying: ‘Well I have a mail server and then I buy license packs for how many users I want’. You have to consider the customer’s financial model, taking into account both the capital expenditure and operational expenditure. “Similarly, you need to consider the installation needs when deciding on a hybrid or centralised system,” Andy pointed out. “A hybrid can be ideal when you want to take advantage of centralised audio, video and control processing along with remote monitoring and management, but need a dedicated system in mission-critical rooms like the executive boardroom. Regardless, Q-SYS offers full redundancy of nearly every Q-SYS component and the AV network, offering a far more robust system.”

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FEATURE

THE BIAMP APPROACH Thousands of standalone Biamp DSPs are at work in Australia, powering university teaching spaces, corporate spaces, courtrooms, transport hubs and more. While Biamp’s approach to DSP systems is resolutely based on its own hardware (everything is built in-house in Oregon), it is one of the industry pioneers in embracing audio transport over the network. Biamp now offers both video and audio DSP on its Tesira platform, interfacing easily with AVB and several other protocols including Dante. Jim Seretis (Biamp Systems BDM and consultant liaison) explained that Biamp has been promoting centralised DSP systems for some time: “A few years ago, we brought out a concept called ‘partitions’, where we can segregate the DSP power/usage within one processor,” he said, noting that there were other distinctive enabling features in Biamp’s

underlying architecture. “If you have a Tesira design — with multiple DSPs, multiple in and out boxes, multiple microphone arrays and so on — then once you compile, the software always sees it as a system, not as individual devices you connect. It automatically allocates DSP resources, sets up all your networking (routed lines or channels if you prefer), assigns dynamic delay EQ groups, and even provides a list of equipment needed to implement the system design.” Jim explained that in addition to the familiar fixed I/O DSPs such as TesiraForté, Tesira also has configurable DSPs that support made-to-order modular configurations. “It allows you to add inputs and output cards as needed, VoIP and telephony too, but you can include multiple DSP cards in the chassis as well. So, it is literally a frame. And we also support full fail-over and redundancy for mission-critical systems

audio. But does it make sense to utilise one system for both payloads? Nick notes that a single system can be valuable to avoid the need for conflicting network configurations, which could happen with two different protocols sharing the same integrated network architecture “The networks have to become quite sophisticated both in terms of the performance of the network and the performance of the switches themselves. The bandwidth calculations, the latency and all the quality measures become very, very complex. Most network engineers really don’t have a deep understanding about deploying networks with real-time multicast capability. The performance requirements and configuration that needs to be done can end up being very complex to resolve. “When we designed and built the Sydney Convention Centre, we spent a lot of time with network analysers — verifying network design and configuration to ensure it met the needs or a real-time capable multicast converged network. And reconfiguring networks to deal with video and audio is a significant skill set that isn’t all that common in the major IT spaces… at least not just yet. Most network stacks are optimised for bandwidth or storage requirements or wireless — not necessarily for real-time or multicast traffic. So if video and audio transport are in one protocol stack then it solves a few of those sometimes competing interests.”

THE VERDICT AV on the network is here to stay and centralised audio resources have now become a standard, even expected, part of big projects. Quite a few large-

on Tesira Server chassis with the flexibility to drop in up to 8 x DSP cards for large centralised, partitioned systems.” AV networking is handled using your choice of protocols. “Our Server-IO device is unique in the industry in that it can support AVB, CobraNet, and Dante simultaneously. You can identify any clock as the master or slave. If you want both Dante and AVB, they will not fight each other. We allow you to utilise whichever protocol you want.” Importantly, Biamp has targeted a midMarch firmware upgrade for Tesira to enable AES67 compatibility. Jim cites a number of recent projects that use centralised Biamp DSPs. “We installed the West Australian Industrial Relations Courts in Perth and also DoTAG – the Attorney-General’s Department in Perth – as centralised systems. Also a large commercial Barangaroo fitout,

scale examples have been completed in Australia, though the great majority are in publicity-shy areas like government departments, banking and legal, so detailed case studies are hard to find. Where video and audio are going to be running on a converged network, it makes sense to use a common platform for both. Otherwise you may find the network configuration essential for video doesn’t suit audio, or vice versa. While a ‘DSPper-room’ and hybrid designs will continue to be good practice, for new-build projects, centralising audio resources gives us unique opportunities to both save money and improve reliability — and the larger the project, the better the prospects. Currently, Biamp and QSC are the leading contenders and should be seriously considered for any such project. Biamp uses AVB as its networking platform which works very well, but not all network switches support this protocol. Q-LAN is more hardware agnostic while remaining IT-centric. In any case, as Dean McFadden is quick to emphasise, the starting point for these undertakings has to be a long and very detailed collaboration with the network architects. By far, the best chance for success is where the IT department is the one responsible for procuring and maintaining AV — something much more common today. This time, the last word goes to Nick Orsatti: “I don’t think there’s one solution for all. But key costs to consider are accessibility and maintainability. There are many things that stack up to centralise audio infrastructure but it’s better that clients go in with their eyes wide open.” 

which a Fredon job,” he said. Jim is quick to point out Biamp’s advantages as a single platform for both video and audio. “It’s always a challenge when you have two different brands or platforms together and try to make them talk,” he observed. “A lot of people I speak to have had challenges when they try to put [two platforms together] even when they use AES67 as the bridge. You still have the latency and lip-sync issues that you need to solve. AVB provides the basis for automated lip sync in Tesira. We guarantee that regardless of whether the audio is analogue or digital, or even if the audio and video come from separate sources, you can embed and de-embed the two streams at will, process them together or separately, doesn’t matter, and the streams will arrive at their outputs in sync. No one else can guarantee that,” he claimed.

“We’re seeing a big push for content on the network. For any organisation adopting that technology, centralised control is almost mandatory” Dean McFadden

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FEATURE

THE AUDINATE APPROACH

“As it stands today, I do not believe there is any clusterable DSP that can really scale to the size that may be required for a large scale deployment.” Nick Orsatti

Bob Ehlers, Vice President Product Management, Audinate: Networked audio offers the flexibility of providing digital signal processing locally in the room where audio endpoints are located, in a central location of a building, or in the cloud. Where to locate a DSP is highly dependent on the application. Processing in the room typically is best for applications such as beam forming, echo and noise cancellation, and EQ, where timing and latency are important. All of the data required for processing is present in the room, and where user control is local. There is no need to transmit large amounts of signal data out of the room, only to send it immediately back for these applications. Local centralised processing is appropriate for applications where there is either substantial amounts of data being processed (more than what an embedded DSP is capable of), where real time processing is not required, or where aggregation of data is required from many sources. Applications such as audio analytics, recording, speech recognition and even some types of spatial processing benefit from local central processing. Cloud processing is an extension of local centralised processing where latency is even less restrictive, and processing resources may be greater. Typically Cloud applications aggregate and process data from many different campus locations and store the results of this processing in massive repositories. A more likely model is a distributed model with tiers of processing which leverage DSPs in the room, centralised DSPs on the campus and DSP processing in the Cloud, each delivering services appropriate to their position in the network. These cooperative processing models require complex, real time control and messaging capabilities. Fortunately for manufacturers, Dante provides all the required capabilities for local, centralised and in the future, Cloud, processing in real time over networks. The correct architecture is application dependent.

COST SAVINGS: IT’S COMPLICATED Centralising DSP, at first blush, should result in cost savings. But it’s not that simple. Dean McFadden: “If you’re looking at ~$15,000 256-in/256-out DSP unit, as opposed to a device 12-in/8-out ingle DSP for $3000–4000 dollars in each room… It doesn’t take many single-room DSPs before you’ve covered the cost of a unit that can manage 256 channels,” Dean pointed out. “But there are other cost advantages to centrally managed DSP. For example, a support tech, instead of having to run to that room or dial into an individual piece of equipment, can now go straight to a single device and listen to the audio; see what the levels are throughout the whole design while sitting in his chair. So if there was an additional cost, they would be easily covered by the other advantages you get.” Nick Orsatti: “Initial savings from centralised DSP are probably more in the hardware rather than the installation component. After all, you still need to get audio sinks and sources in and out, and the installation still has to allow for that. However, installation of sources is becoming simpler with a move driven by major manufacturers (Shure, Sennheiser and the like) towards network-based microphones, and a plethora of other network-enabled end points, both in hardware and software form.” But there are more subtle motivations and savings as well. Nick Orsatti again: “Amplifiers and joinery can be

a bad mix due to heat and the valuable ‘net lettable’ areas it can consume. And there’s often an aesthetic requirement that minimises what is in a room. Clients want their rooms to be technology enabled but do not necessarily want to see the equipment. Centralised multi-channel amplifiers in a comms room allow density and value. Speaker cables are pretty cheap and cheap to run. And if the amplifiers are central, it makes sense for the DSP to be central. The finishes of a high-end, premium-grade commercial fitout can be very expensive. We don’t want joinery for the sake of it, and [removing joinery by centralising equipment] can improve both the room aesthetics and budget. You are still putting field devices there, whether it is direct, like a Dante-based microphone, or if it’s a traditional microphone that’s fed into a box under a table or under an access floor.” “In terms of value, right back to Peavey’s Media Matrix, to today’s BSS, Biamp, QSC Q-SYS and so forth, you can get some significant saving by packing it densely into a comms room rather than distributing it. Then there are the serviceability and sustained lifecycle costs. Often requirements change. Today it’s a standard meeting room, tomorrow we want to add conferencing, whether audio or video, and I can centrally manage that. By keeping more equipment centrally, it is saving a fair bit of cost, particularly when we’re talking of large roll outs. There’s upfront value to

the project in terms of the capital expenditure but also there’s a value in serviceability over the lifecycle and in any future upgrade.” Nick Orsatti added a cost savings caveat for large projects: “There is still a huge cost impact to a truly centralised approach (as in a data centre style high availability). As it stands today, I do not believe there is any clusterable DSP that can really scale to the size that may be required for a large scale deployment. For example, currently the largest Q-SYS Core maxes out at 512x512 channels and is capable of a maximum of 160 channels of echo cancellation – and while this has redundancy capability, it is not clusterable… yet! “And, let’s not forget the network infrastructure to support the bandwidth and latency requirement a centralised approach — that’s a lot of high-end hardware that may be hard to justify in terms of capital (and operational) cost to support a centralised approach. While this might stack up in some sectors, it won’t in others – basically the business case will be hard to justify… for now! “So the question I pose is: are most of our clients prepared for the cost uplift of network hardware for a fully-routable audio (and video) solution? And, in reality, do they really want and need it? I have clients that absolutely do not want it, as it poses a significant security threat, for example.”

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FEATURE

Australian Outback Spectacular’s ‘Heartland’ is the new theme park show featuring an all-new immersive Meyer Sound system. So what makes it special, and why does it sound so darn good? Text:/ Derek Powell

ustralian Outback Spectacular is one of Village Roadshow’s suite of themed attractions, located between Wet’n’Wild and Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast. Like previous productions, ‘Salute to the Light Horse’ and ‘High Country Legends’, Australian Outback Spectacular’s ‘Heartland’ show offers patrons a sit-down meal while they watch an original musical theatre performance featuring spectacular live action sequences with horses, cattle and working dogs that introduces the audience to life on an outback cattle station.   While production values have always been high, this new show ramps things up technically with a fully immersive Meyer Sound audio

system and enhanced projection mapping across the arena elevating the entertainment to the standards of a top Las Vegas show or Cirque du Soleil-style event. OUTBACK BACK STORY

The story behind the upgrade is complicated and starts nearly four years ago when management began looking for a new system to replace the competent, but decade old, original PA. The venue is unique. The purpose-built arena, some 60m long by 40m wide, has an oblong sand floor with raked audience seating in a horseshoe configuration on three sides. The existing audio rig, installed when the

venue was built, consisted of a series of line arrays ranged above the performance space that provided reasonable coverage, but had a number of limitations. Being a mono rig, there was no way to localise the sound source, so often the audience was unable to determine which performer was speaking or singing as the story unfolded across the vast stage. Something new was needed for audiences who were, by now, used to immersive audio experiences like Dolby surround. Chris D’bais, then BDM with Meyer Sound Australia, recalled the original meetings with Australian Outback Spectacular (AOS) technical management. “The venue originally had line array hanging very

FEATURE

047

TECH TEAM Sound Design: Kingsley Reeve Audio System Design: Chris D’Bais (Meyer) Audio Design & CueStation Programming: John Taylor CueStation Programmer: Jamie Muller (JTAP) Systems Integration: Jason Lea (AMPD Electronics) Automation System Design: David Fish (Theatre Safe Australia) Lighting Design: David Walters Lighting Programming: Shannon Barclay Projection System Design: Tyson Niepelt (Customised Technical Solutions) Projection Programming: Clinton Dulieu

low so they were taking up a lot of real estate. Moving to a point source solution not only cleaned up the sightlines and greatly reduced the weight loading on the grid it also gave us much better coverage across the seating area.” “For our demo,” Chris continued, “we actually went in and we set up point source loudspeakers to do the whole end of the horseshoe — whereas we were told that all of our competitors just did one seating bank. “We decided to hang six boxes around the whole corner because we wanted to show them the smoothness of the UPQ dispersion across the entire width of the horn. It’s very important because the old system used to have a lot of dead

spots when walking from left to right – you’d be in coverage and out of coverage.”” DISCREET AUDIO IS DISCRETE

Chris revealed that considerable time had been spent designing and redesigning the potential audio solution. “We wanted the system to be discreet and above all of the show elements because there’s a helicopter that flies in and tracks all the way down stage,” he noted. We also wanted the UPQ-3Ps to be as close to the seats as possible because the old system was far into the on-stage arena so when there was a vocal, it didn’t feel present enough.” Despite the demo going well, the investment

was deferred. But the potential for improvement had made a good impression on the technical staff. Later, after his appointment with Meyer Sound USA, AOS made contact with Chris. The timing was right as the creative development team had just started work on the new show that would become Australian Outback Spectacular’s ‘Heartland’. Chris outlined what happened next: “I did a presentation and explained what Spacemap is; and what D-Mitri is; and went through the process of how you design a show and how important it is to get on board early with the creative and development team.” Chris was already thinking along the lines of an immersive system — one that could take advantage of Meyer Sound technologies

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FEATURE

EQUIPMENT HIGHLIGHTS Meyer Sound Main System Loudspeakers: 16 x UPQ-3P Compact Wide Coverage Loudspeakers (Main Loud Speaker) 18 x 750-LFC Compact High-Power Subwoofer (Main Subwoofer) 39 x Ashby-5C Compact Loudspeaker (Overhead effects) 6 x UP-4XP Compact Loudspeaker (Bio monitor & VIP Area) 2 x MM-10XP Compact Subwoofer (VIP Area) Loudspeaker Management, Array Processing & Remote Monitoring: 1 x Galileo Galaxy 6 x D-mitri 4 x MPS-488 1 x RMServer Mixing Console: Digico SD9 Show Control: Q-Lab4 Projection (Arena Floor): 8 x Christie Boxer 2K30 systems + lenses 1 x Christie Mystique (auto alignment) Pro Venue Edition Software with Camera system 4 x Pandoras Box Quad Player Systems 1 x Pandoras Box Compact Player 1 x Pandoras Box Manager & Widget Designer Software Wireless Audio: Sennheiser 9000 with 10 x HSP4 headworn mics Lining up the impressive Christie Boxer projection system.

“We wanted to do something completely different, to embrace the technology and really push the arena to its maximum capabilities” like Spacemap that can provide proper localisation of a live performer located anywhere in the arena. By this stage Audio Brands had taken on the Australian distribution of Meyer Sound and helped maintain momentum: “We invited the creative development team down to Telstra in Sydney [the theatre at the Telstra Customer Insight Centre] where we have Spacemap and Constellation,” Chris continued. “I remember after the demo the conversation went from discussing a simple one-forone replacement of a mono system to ‘how do we make a Spacemapped immersive system happen?’. The discussion became very solution based.” MORE AUDIO HORSEPOWER

AV Asia Pacific was treated to an exclusive technical tour of the 60m x 40m, 1000-seat venue with Brendan Shipley – Audio Engineer/Show Control Technician for the Australian Outback Spectacular & Village Roadshow Theme Parks.

The show that runs every night features a cast of singers, actors and stunt performers. The singers perform live, and to add to the complexity, a lot of the action happens on horse-back. Live sound from the cast is mixed on a Digico SD9 console and comes via 10 channels of Sennheiser 9000 series radio mic systems. Brendan noted that they trialled a number of radio mics in the demanding and dusty arena environment before settling on Sennheiser HSP4s “After testing the HSP4 mics we didn’t look at anything else,” Brendan Shipley said. “Sennheiser specifically designed it for Pink and she’s been using it touring the world. It’s a vocal, even an operatic, performance mic and it also doubles as a speech microphone. It’s omnidirectional. It’s easily cleaned. Sennheiser has gone above and beyond with their technology and it just works for us.” But the 10 live performance mics are just the

start. There are over a thousand separate audio tracks, music, effects and atmosphere that go into each performance. How they were created, programmed and replayed is another story. “The sound designer, Kingsley Reeve, essentially had two performance spaces,” Brendan explained. “He created a performance space that would come from inside the arena out into the audience and from above and behind he developed a full 360° atmospheric effect that could put the audience right in the middle of outback Australia at night.” NEW THINKING

Implementing the possibilities the system offered required a fundamental shift in thinking. Instead of Kingsley providing a single, fully-mixed sound track, he provided a series of music stems and individual effects tracks that were loaded into Meyer Sound’s Wild Tracks Audio Playback

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FEATURE

Horsing around: Thanks to the Meyer Sound immersive audio system, audiences can now match the location of the performers with the location of the sound.

unit. Along with the major music tracks came spot effects like gunshots and some atmospheric effects such as crackling flames for the campfire. Then, working with contractor John Taylor from JTAP (who was the integrator and Meyer Sound CueStation programmer) they created hundreds of individual cues that placed each sound exactly where it was needed for each scene. The description of each scene and each individual spot effect is programmed in Q-Lab running on a Mac computer. As the show progresses, the audio operator triggers each cue in sequence from the Q-Lab list. Q-Lab initiates the lighting changes, fires off the video replays and communicates via Open Sound Control (OSC) commends with the Meyer Sound D-Mitri DCP that handles audio playback, processing and system routing that changes per scene or cue. Within D-Mitri, a Wild Tracks module stores and replays each audio track on cue. Within Meyer Sound’s CueStation software, individual Spacemaps are created, allowing each track or live mic to be precisely positioned in space according to the requirements of each scene and sent to the selected speakers – UPQ-3Ps, 750-LFC subs, or Ashby-5C surrounds – each with a level and delay

setting that positions them in the arena. That’s why you get this depth,” noted Chris D’Bais. “Because you’re hearing so many different sounds it’s not flat, it’s not mono, and you’re actually hearing the dynamics and the separation between each little element Kingsley decided to choose. In terms of programming, it took three weeks. We might spend hours on one song because the show is going to run for three years and you want it to be perfect.” SPECTACULAR RESULTS

Brendan runs the show night after night and he summed up the achievements of the technical crew behind the new show. “We wanted to do something completely different, to embrace the technology and really push the arena to its maximum capabilities,” he declared. As I listened to the show from different positions around the arena, I had to agree: mission accomplished.  We covered AOS in AV Issue 8 back in 2009 where we reported on the end wall projection system.

FULL IMMERSION: THE AUDIO DESIGN The new sound solution design emerged gradually as Chris worked with the Meyer Sound design services team to develop exactly the right coverage. The primary sound is provided by 16 newly released UPQ-3P 80° by 80° pointsource boxes, with one speaker in front of each seating bay providing stereo coverage to every seat. Complementing the UPQ-3P is a total of eighteen 750-LFC subwoofers. Directly above each seating bay hang three Meyer Sound Ashby-5Cs in custom black pendants — 39 in all. The Ashbys provide the immersive effects — everything from crickets to whip-bird calls — with each speaker individually addressable, effectively providing a 39-channel surround environment to add to the 16 channels (plus subs) of front of house sound. Sound effects can be moved front to back or left to right all the way around the entire arena. A huge benefit to this design is that it effectively futureproofs the venue, ensuring complete flexibility both now and for any future show. Audio Brands Australia (Meyer Sound): (02) 9659 7711 or www.audiobrands.com.au

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REVIEW

KSL’s first Australian outing: 8th Day Sound air freighted a rig from its US base just in time for the Australia Day celebration concert in the Sydney Opera House forecourt.

d&b KSL Loudspeaker System In a secret September Stuttgart meet up, d&b showcased the successor to J. AV Asia Pacific was there for the big reveal. Text:/ Mark Davie

ver a tall glass of weissbier in Stuttgart, d&b’s Head of R&D Acoustics (née prophet), Mathias Christener, tells me he saw this day coming a good 12 years ago. Not that he’d be downing a few frothies with some Aussie in a hotel bar, but that way back in 2006 — just after he, and his team, delivered the J series line array — he could already see exactly where they needed to go next. J series was, of course, a massive success for d&b. Engineers loved how it sounded, but crucially, it made investment sense. It was light — about half the weight of V-DOSC — and its passive crossover network only required a single amp channel to operate. All great stuff, but Matthias’ mind was already looking over the horizon at the defining feature of d&b’s next large format line array — immaculate directivity. He could envision a future where pattern control didn’t have to be limited to the mid range and top end of the frequency spectrum. That it could extend down to the last two octaves of human hearing.

Having an idea is one thing, achieving it was going to take time and laying a number of stepping stones along the way. The first step wasn’t hardware at all, it was software. R1 and ArrayCalc arrived around the same time as J. As well as being a one-stop shop for designing, simulating and fine-tuning a system, it provided d&b with an expandable environment to grow its DSP control. In 2013, d&b added matching hardware. The D80 amplifier had enough DSP power to make external processing redundant and paved the way for enhanced software features. The Power Factor Correction, which decouples the amplifier’s output capability from any voltage variations also increased audio quality and stability. Crucially, putting the focus on output voltage (a measurement that marries better with the unpredictable nature of music than continuous output power) opened up the door to higher-efficiency speaker designs, enhancing the ability to shape system directivity even further. In 2014, the standardisation of OCA as AES70,

foreshadowed the debut of ArrayProcessing the following year; a huge leap forward in line array control. It basically turned d&b PAs into the best possible versions of themselves through infinitesimal filter optimisation. It meant increased linearity over distance, and greater control over dispersion patterns and level in the target area. In 2016, NoizCalc added to d&b’s elaborate computation arsenal, allowing system techs to plot noise emissions and adhere to local standards anywhere in the world. A byproduct simulation, but one informed by ArrayCalc and ArrayProcessing with its success being heavily dependent on the ability to control dispersion. SETTING A NEW ISOBAR

All of these layers set the stage. The software begat the amplifier and DSP, which begat the fine control of ArrayProcessing and NoizCalc. But the promise of these higher-efficiency, more controlled speaker designs — the ones Matthias conceived way back when — hadn’t yet been fulfilled. The time had come for new speakers. Boxes that would natively

REVIEW

deliver immaculate directivity. Full-bandwidth directivity has a number of instant benefits. The obvious one is that sound stays out of the places you don’t want it. Indoors, this means quieter stages behind the PA, and there’s less off-axis sound to excite the reverberant field — excitation that translates into low-end rumble and increased reverb times indoors. Bad news. Outdoors, all that sub-400Hz directionless spill is like a PTSD trigger for noise meters. With noise pollution standards only getting more stringent, it’s a problem big gigs can’t afford to have anymore. Full-range directivity also translates into a better experience in the desired coverage area. You get a wider ‘usable’ coverage; it retains clarity and frequency balance at lower levels; and horizontal arraying is far easier when you don’t have to worry about low-mid, off-axis creep. When the new SL series debuted with the flagship GSL8 and GSL12 speakers, their defining feature was immaculate directivity. Isobar plots of line arrays, even J, usually show a concentration of energy that starts to relax and bloom outwards below 3-400Hz. Not so with GSL. The red hot areas stay tight like a laser all the way down to 45Hz. It beggars belief, until you walk behind an array of GSL going full tilt and experience the dearth of noise back there. GSL also arrived with a companion, the natively cardioid SL-Sub, which altogether killed off the notion of directionless sound in a concert rig for d&b. In a similar way to J, GSL also managed to do more for less. While GSL is up against boxes like L-Acoustics K1, it shaves off 25kg per box and is a tad smaller in every dimension. Also, while K1 is a three-way, quad-amplified box; the GSL is a threeway, dual-amplified box courtesy of d&b’s adherence to passive crossovers. SMALLER SIBLING

But GSL wasn’t the final step in Matthias’ vision. It also wasn’t the reason I was over in Stuttgart for a sneak peak of a new mystery PA. The flagship GSL is a marvel, and necessary for festivals and stadiums. However, in the world of touring, bigger isn’t always better. For the majority of gigs, a box that’s lighter and more compact, without sacrificing on sound, is ideal. It’s why J was a huge success for d&b. They needed another speaker to fill the gap it would eventually leave. One that had the same immaculate directivity as GSL, would fall within the weight limit of the J series (60kg), have plenty of headroom (especially down low), use the same D80 amplifier, and work seamlessly as a fill and delay system for GSL. When we arrived in Stuttgart, there were hundreds of customers from around the globe and four members of the international press. The first day was straight down to business. Stuttgart is the automotive capital of Europe, home to the Daimler group (Mercedes, Chrysler) and the birth of the modern automobile. It’s also Porsche’s home turf. d&b had parked us right in the middle of it all. Passing both Mercedes Stadium and Porsche Arena as we walked down the road to Hanns-Martin-SchleyerHalle, the 15,500 pax arena where the mystery PA was ready to fire.

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REVIEW

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Schleyer-Halle isn’t a perfect venue, and there’s nothing special about the tiered seating or the makeup of the walls, but it is the place where every d&b line array is rigorously tested during the development phase. If a d&b PA sounds bad in Schleyer-Halle, then something’s gone horribly wrong. K, HERE ’TIS

We’re soon introduced to the star of this particular show, KSL. It’s a big deal for d&b. This is the missing piece in the SL series; the speaker designed to replace the J. Apparently the K stands for ‘Kleine’, which translates as ‘smaller’ in German. Product manager, Werner ‘Vier’ Bayer, explained KSL is designed to be the technically equivalent, smaller brother of GSL. If you’re thinking in box sizes. The width and height of a J top box sits in between the bigger GSL and smaller KSL. A hang of 12 GSL is slightly longer than 14 KSL, and KSL is also lighter than J. While GSL has done and will do well, d&b would expect to sell loads more KSL, so it’s important the little brother doesn’t become a side show to GSL’s impressive feature set. From the outside, KSL really does look like a smaller GSL. It has the same grilles for the sidefiring drivers, the same forked handles on the rear, and the same core driver layout. Two frontfiring LF drivers, the two side-firing LF drivers, and a centrally-placed MF driver attached to a split wave-guide that skirts round the edges of the similarly centrally-placed array of HF compression drivers. Naturally, every component is just a little smaller than its GSL equivalent. The LF drivers are 10-inch on the front, and eight-inch on the sides (14 and 10-inches on GSL), the MF driver is eight inches, and the two compression drivers have three-inch voice coils. IMMACULATE DIRECTIVITY EXPLAINED

So, how did d&b achieve this miraculous immaculate directivity? Well, with directivity already sorted above 400Hz, the main point of attack was obviously down low. Using side-firing woofers to achieve directivity is not entirely new. In principle, by spacing the woofers a quarter of a wavelength apart you get a 90-degree phase shift, creating summation in the front and cancellation

KSL8 TOP isobars (3dB / div)

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J8 TOP isobars (3dB / div)

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Here we compare the horizontal directivity of the J8 and KSL8. The bulk of the energy (orange and yellow) across the frequency range should ideally be located within the 80° horizontal spread (40° each side). As you can see, things get a little loose below 300Hz with the J8, and completely omnidirectional below 125Hz. The KSL holds its line right up to that point, with a slow easing of directivity all the way down to 50Hz.

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f / Hz

in the rear. Sounds easy. And it is, for a single frequency sine wave. But music, over two octaves from 50-200Hz? Not so much. Having successfully relied on passive crossover networks with J, d&b played the same tune with its core drivers again. The side-firing LF drivers, MF driver and HF compression drivers are all passively crossed over and driven by a single amp channel. The front-firing LF woofers get their own channel. d&b then packaged the side-firing woofers into separate bass reflex chambers to the front-firing ones. It meant the bass reflex systems could be tuned differently. With GSL/KSL, the higher octave is emitted by the speaker cones, and the lower octave by the ports. Then d&b was able to apply frequency dependent delay with allpass filtering to make them sum and cancel across multiple octaves. Common sense dictates the extra directivity should result in a reduction of output power, especially headroom in the low end. It’s the common knock on cardioid subwoofers. As it happens, d&b found that wasn’t the case with the side-firing woofer configuration. Instead, if you do it right, you can achieve full coherency with the front-firing woofers. It’s as if the baffle size and cone area of the front bass reflex has been virtually increased, netting a 9dB bump in headroom. Another issue with arrays is the drop in high frequency information over longer distances. While 125Hz will easily carry over 120m when unprocessed, information at 8kHz drops dramatically over distance. Unfortunately, that 9dB bump in low frequency headroom can’t be distributed to higher up in the frequency range. The only answer is to add more components up top. Again, it sounds relatively simple, but with space at a premium — and most of it taken up by LF woofers and bass reflex chambers — there’s not much wriggle room. Also, with directivity the main concern, all the drivers have to be symmetrically placed for the system to function properly. Adding two HF compression drivers with large three-inch voice coils left no room to squeeze the mid driver into the central axis. Instead, d&b borrowed the split exit horn from the V series point source speakers, which was a dry run for this design in SL. It allowed d&b to stick a whopping eight-inch mid driver on a dual-channel waveguide that wrapped around both sides of the HF drivers. The bipolar radiation also helps

achieve a narrower, more controlled dispersion. By placing the MF driver further back into the box, it nearly lines up perfectly with the sidefiring woofers, setting a common time alignment baseline. There’s also a frequency band gap between the low frequency range of the side-firing woofers and the midrange driver. So even though they’re connected to the same amplifier channel, it means the processing can target each more accurately and focus in on their task; one to enhance directivity, the other to produce mid range. PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT

All this would mean nothing if the KSL didn’t have the same amazing full-range directivity as GSL. But, gasp… it does. The isobars are impressive enough [see sidebar], with laser-like focus down to 50Hz, but in action, the rear rejection is equally as impressive as GSL. Sound from the FOH PA leaking onstage is officially a vestige of the past. It also plays its part perfectly when hung as sidefill next to a GSL main array. Walking from side to side, and around the corner of the two arrays, it was impossible to distinguish where one overlapped the other. You can sometimes sense a tonal shift or low-end blurring where the two overlap, or a different voicing of the smaller model sidefill. You could stand directly in the gap between the two, and in full-range mode, from top to bottom the frequency spectrum and voicing remained completely intact when transitioning from GSL to KSL. Showcasing mains-to-sidefill continuity is not a common test at PA demonstrations, manifesting d&b’s trust in the SL series’ directivity. KSL TO STAY

Throughout the day, there was plenty of time to experience the KSL in different configurations, including ground-stacked beside a cart of J series. While the incumbent sounded great, and familiar. There was an undeniable increase in clarity at all levels with the KSL, with a noticeable lack of power compression. Snares cracked harder, and kicks were delivered more consistently. In some ways it was sad to see J like that. It’s been such a solid performer for so many years. However, there is such a difference out front, and an incredible shift behind with KSL, that there’s no doubt… immaculate directivity will soon be everywhere. Well, it’ll be exactly where you want it. 

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056

REVIEW

Optoma 4K550 UHD DLP Projector A big 4K image for little more than $5000. Review:/ Christopher Holder

OPTOMA 4K550 FEATURE SET • 4K UHD (3840 ×2160) resolution • HDR10 and REC.2020 compatibility • 4500 lumens, 10,000:1 contrast ratio • Vertical lens shift • 3D ready with DLP Link compatibility • I/O includes HDMI2, 12V trigger, RS232C and LAN control

Price: $5499 Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or ambertech.com.au

his time last year it was a real struggle to properly review a 4K projector. At least now I can watch some 4K movies easily enough. In fact, it was a great excuse to buy a 4K Apple TV. 4K HDR movies are truly amazing. Love them. In fact, home cinema is the sweetest of sweetspots for 4K projection. For the right price you can achieve a huge image (at least, ‘huge’ in domestic terms) and amazing performance — draw the blinds, salt-up the popcorn, pull the lever on the Jason recliner and bask in the (10,000:1) highcontrast, colour-rich goodness. Optoma has a significant foothold in the home theatre market. It also has a strong commercial presence. The 4K550 is presented as a commercial projector and comes with a healthy swag of

commercial features. Chief among these is vertical lens shift (more on this later). It’s not a big unit and is well suited to meeting rooms and the like. If it wasn’t for the 4K engine, you’d be well within your rights to overlook the 4K550 as yet another 4500 lumen data projector, along with the dozens of others clamouring for sales in this crowded space. Instead, it’s somewhat of a unicorn… at least it is in early 2019, as I write this. CEILING FAN

The 4K550 has some very pleasing installation features. Mostly, the projector will be ceiling mounted in a small- to medium-sized room, and Optoma has you covered:

When mounted upside down from the ceiling the image is natively positioned below the centreline, so you don’t have to mess with keystone as much. The ~1.6x zoom lens projects a 120-inch image from about three to four metres, which is great for smaller spaces. There’s the aforementioned (±15%) vertical lens shift and, finally, the fan noise is kept to a minimum, even during my January heatwave tests. Connectivity is straightforward enough. HDMI2 handles the 4K duties. RS232 for control. There’s a ethernet port for diagnostics purposes (it’s easy to bring the projector under the purview of your favourite control system). A USB port will provide bus power to your device and will handle some HDMI streaming sticks. If you have the

Is this your copy of AV? correct adapter (MHL) you can plug your device straight into the 4K550’s HDMI port. Audio is handled by a minijack input and output along with a S/PDIF optical output. (The onboard speaker will get you out of trouble if necessary.) A 12V trigger port rounds out the I/O. HD content can be upscaled to UHD and it’s worth it. Spreadsheets and small text are all sharp and legible. Saying that, these days many laptops’ displays are running natively better than HD and an HD projector is in most cases a step down in resolution for a PCbased presentation. As for true 4K content? There’s an increasing need for it but that need is still relatively specialised. What isn’t specialised are office movie nights and/or video game nights (FIFA 19 in 4K anyone? Olé!). Sounds glib but when millennials require Evian in their water coolers and a glass of Third Wave ristretto never more than a HDMI 2.1 maximum cable run away… 4K for fun isn’t so stupid.

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BUSINESS CASE

If your client is moving to 4K content then a projector like the 4K550 provides them with a whole lot of display for under six grand. An equivalent 120-inch commercial 4K panel is still a lot of dough. The projector’s ~4000-lumen image benefits from a darkened room but will happily compete with average ambient light. Of course, this is where LCD, oLED or LED can’t be beaten. Chances are, your client isn’t thinking too much about 4K but, regardless, will be surprised to learn that you intend to install a display that’s only HD or WUXGA. I mean, that all sounds a little archaic, doesn’t it? The point I make is that 4K futureproofs your client’s investment. And when the projector is around $5000 that insurance isn’t breaking the bank. On the futureproof flipside: the 4K550 doesn’t use a laser light source. And this may be a deal breaker for some.

issue 62 $6.95 AUD

FUTURE PROJECTIONS

Industry analysts are quick to sound the death knell of the meeting room data projector (slain by cost-effective LCD and LED) but it’s products such as this that allow us to see a good short- to medium-term future for projection. The 4K550 is a sleek-looking, well-priced 4K DLP projector that produces an impressive image straight out of the box. The 4K550 displays a genuine (all 8 million pixels) UHD image. The 0.66-inch Texas Instruments DLP chip achieves this using a one-way actuator, rather than the four-way wiggle of the cheaper 0.45-inch chipset you might find on a domestic 4K model. It’s also one of the more cost effective ways of getting into 4K projection in the commercial sector; in fact, I’d go as far to say that the Optoma 4K550 is about the cheapest way of giving your client a 120inch 4K image. Period. 

$6.95 AUD issue 62

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058

COMMENT

Termination Immersive Experientialization Text: Graeme Hague

he 2019 AFL footy season has started, and at grounds all around Australia the crowds greeted the first bounce with an almighty roar... apparently. In fact, even when the punters are blatantly a bit thin in numbers on the bleachers — as can happen in the AFL backwaters— the amount of noise heard over the telly from the great pie-chewing, beer-swilling ‘Unwashed’ seems rather loud when you consider the corresponding visual bums-on-seats evidence. Is it being augmented by sound effects to increase the excitement and hype? Or have the technical crew judiciously placed the wild microphones to focus on the bar area? It makes me wonder, do we honestly need the reality boosted to keep us engaged? (Gold Coast Suns fans need not answer that, if you like.) REAL TIME BEEF

Enhancing the audio through a television broadcast is one thing, but beefing up the biffo in real time, live at the arena, seems a little odd to me. I mean, if the genuine thing isn’t exciting enough, it’s hard to believe a bit of Foley work behind a black curtain is going to help much. However, thinking about this, it occurred to me that some sports and events might attract a much bigger audience if you injected some Dream Factory-like additions to the audiovisual presentation. We’re talking top-of-the-wozzer technology here. Not Monty Python clopping together a pair of coconut shells. Take lawn bowls – an almost-sedentary game at best – what if you added an immersive PA sound, line array PA around the green and cued up huge crackling, popping sound FX whenever a player bent one of their knees, or stooped to measure the jack? You could have kind of ‘rolling thunder’ noises with each delivery, building to a crescendo and an explosion of lightning when

the bowls collide. Enormous screens at either end of the bowling green could replay all the action in slow motion – not too slow obviously, since nothing’s happening very quickly in the first place — but maybe some colour filtering and a bit of fake lens flare will make up the difference there? Now, suddenly, lawn bowls is on a par with the Big Bash League. Not difficult, I realise, but still an achievement. A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY

I recently had to do some sound engineering at a well-established County Music Festival. Here, really, it seriously needed some immersive audio to get things happening, but to be fair, the demographic this festival attracts is, well… suffice it to say that any overly-enthusiastic bootscooting would have thrown out myriad hip and knee joints, and the closest thing to a good ol’ fashioned country bar-brawl was some determined jostling of camp chairs under the shadiest tree and glares of contempt at Thermos flasks that didn’t have a tartan pattern. On a technical level, our production folks provided, free of charge as a kindness, an LED wall to replace the dropdown screen used since 1954 (okay, not that long really) and the local video producers complained that “everybody can see everything now”. A big problem, it seems. So is there a danger that enhancing live events through audiovisual systems only serves to confirm that what’s happening on the arena is otherwise a bit (ahem) boring? Left to its own devices, I mean. DVD: HELL FREEZES OVER

Don’t get me started on DVD concert videos ... okay, you have. About a hundred years ago my brother introduced me to Yes. I’m not the No.1 fan, but they’re on my list of prog rock favourites and a

concert DVD of Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman (calling themselves ‘ARW’) performing at the Apollo Theatre in 2018 attracted my credit card. As you do, when the disk arrived, it was a case of grabbing the bag of popcorn, making a strong cup of tea, and donning the headphones. A few minutes in, I’m thinking, “What the hell is that weird noise?” It was dubbed-in crowd noise, not only at the end of songs, but in-between verse and chorus changes, or significant moments in each arrangement – when backstage camera shots showed the audience were far from the sort who might rapturously applaud every chord change. A bit of toe-tapping perhaps, maybe some finger-drumming on the arm rests, but full-on mosh pit mayhem was reserved for the occasional ‘big’ moments only. Apparently somebody mixing the DVD audio decided that adding some audience appreciation noises would add excitement and a vibe. Constantly, all the time. Wrong. It’s really bloody annoying. And like all other really bloody annoying things, when you become aware of them, you hear nothing else. IMMERSED IN HURT

I reckon that ‘immersive’ can maybe too easily become ‘intrusive’, but at the same time punters these days expect to see, hear and smell everything in 5D, surround sound, olfactory, excellence or they want their money back. They demand to experience live entertainment exactly as if they’re there... oh, wait. What the hell, I give in. Pass the coconut shells will you? The rodeo needs extra horse’s hooves.  Graeme Hague likes his AFLX on an obscure cable channel he stands no chance of accidentally viewing. He realises experientialization isn’t a word.

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