AV Issue 49 by Alchemedia Publishing

SHAPE YOUR SOUND Bose F1 Model 812 Flexible Array Loudspeaker ®

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Introducing the first portable loudspeaker that lets you easily control the vertical coverage – so wherever you play, more music reaches more people directly. The Bose F1 Model 812 Flexible Array Loudspeaker’s revolutionary flexible array lets you manually select from four coverage patterns, allowing you to adapt your PA to the room. Plus, the loudspeaker and subwoofer provide a combined 2,000 watts of power, giving you the output and impact for almost any application. Your audience won’t believe their ears.

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SpinetiX. Reinventing HD Digital Signage

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For complete Digital Signage Solutions. Easy as SpinetiX. Whether you want plug-and-play, to create value via networked digital signage solutions, or provide an unmatched support service for your customers; SpinetiX have designed and built the perfect match for you. Hyper Media Players, Elementi intuitive software and Cockpit Cloud Services & Support. Contact us on 1800 00 77 80 or www.madisontech.com.au/digital-signage

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NETWORK INTEGRATION

Editorial All Change. All Aboard

Advertising Office: +61 (0)2 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 Australia

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

Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@avapac.net) Editorial Assistant: Preshan John (preshan@alchemedia.com.au) Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@avapac.net) Graphic Designer: Daniel Howard (daniel@avapac.net) Additional Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@avapac.net) Accounts: Jaedd Asthana (jaedd@alchemedia.com.au) Circulation Manager: Mim Mulcahy (subscriptions@avapac.net)

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 © 2015 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. 3/8/2015

he headline of Derek Powell’s cover story says it all: This Changes Everything. It’s not so much that SVSi (or any of the other vendors pushing video through IP networks) has only just come to our attention. It’s not so much that we’re surprised by the fact TCP/IP has ingested everything AV can throw at it… no, we made that very clear with our provocative AV vs IT Showdown cover of Issue 1 back in 2008. It’s more the fact one of the Big 3 (Crestron, Extron and AMX) has broken cover and made such a bold play. With the purchase of SVSi, AMX’s parent company Harman, is effectively saying: “we see the future and it doesn’t include a whole bunch of high-margin skews we currently have in our catalogue”. So is it a case of this ‘changes everything’ for three AV equipment giants and a couple more video-over-IP takeover targets? Will the front row of the first hall of ISE and the InfoComm show ever be the same? No, the impact is far more profound, far more far reaching than that. With AV making an almost wholesale migration to the network, it goes straight to the heart of what defines the professional AV industry. InfoComm International, as you’d hope and expect of the industry’s trade association, was reading the tea leaves earlier than most. Witness its recent slick Exceptional Experiences educational campaign. The pitch is all about the magic that happens when content, space, and technology work in harmony. In other words, for the AV professional it’s about being across all the various disciplines to create exceptional experiences for the client and, crucially, for the client to demand the right conditions in which to produce exceptional experiences. And this is the AV professional’s turf – client experience. Still, this refocus represents a shock for a chunk of the industry that has relied on specialist AV equipment (whether that be programming it, installing it or reselling it) for their bread and butter. I hope you enjoy our cover story. Clearly it’s a story that will run and run. And with that, I’d invite you to contact me and be part of how we report on the next chapter.  Christopher Holder Editorial Director, chris@avapac.net

“this refocus represents a shock for a chunk of the industry that has relied on specialist AV equipment for their bread and butter”

AV vs IT THE FINAL SHOWDOWN? INFOCOMM 08 —TRENDS & ANALYSIS

VIZCOM GIVE GOOD COUNCIL

AMX: ONE LUMP OR TWO?

CAT6A: A TWIST IN THE TALE

PARISH THE THOUGHT: RUTLEDGE &

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AV Asia Pacific’s provocative Issue 1 AV vs IT, ‘rockem sockem’ cover.

Switcher Control Ethernet lets you plug in a computer for control and uploading graphics.

12G-SDI Inputs 20 inputs with 12G-SDI and re-sync for HD and Ultra HD up to 2160p60.

Redundant Power Two built in supplies keep the switcher running in case of a fault!

Built in Audio Mixer Dedicated audio inputs can be mixed with audio from all SDI sources.

Aux Control Select video sources to aux output right from the front panel.

Aux Outputs 6 aux outputs allow connection to on stage screens and projectors.

Built in Monitoring Full resolution HD display lets you view any router source!

Program Outputs Send your program feed to your audience, or for recording!

Multi Views in HD or Ultra HD Multi view lets you see 8 sources and program on a single monitor.

Introducing the world’s first live production switcher with 12G-SDI for high frame rate production up to 2160p60. The ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K is a live, multi camera production switcher that features 12G-SDI so you can now work in high frame rate Ultra HD which is perfect for live events such as sports, music concerts, theater and more! The advanced 12G-SDI based design featuring 20 12G-SDI inputs with full re-sync lets ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K work in all HD and Ultra HD formats all the way up to 2160p60! You also get advanced broadcast features such as chroma key, transitions, keyers, multi view and much more!

Multi View Monitoring in Ultra HD

High Frame Rate Ultra HD

The 4 built in media players are designed for high frame rate HD and Ultra HD! ATEM can store full motion video and full resolution RGBA stills with key and fill, or you can direct export from Adobe Photoshop to the switcher with the included plug-in. The media memory is big enough for 64 Ultra HD still graphics plus 360 frames of Ultra HD video or 1440 frames of regular 1080 HD video!

The native 12G-SDI design lets you use the same high frame rate workflow in Ultra HD for fast action sports that you use in HD! 12G-SDI is 4 times faster than 3G-SDI so it easily handles Ultra HD in frame rates up to 60 fps. Because 12G-SDI switches speeds, you can instantly switch to operate in regular HD whenever you need!

Creative Transitions You get a huge range of real time high quality transitions in all resolutions and frame rates! Use mixes, dips, wipes and animated stinger transitions for eye catching live broadcasts! Every transition is instantly available and via macros so you get full control of transition type, pattern, length and other attributes. Create your own ‘on air’ looks with ATEM’s amazing transitions!

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ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K features two Ultra HD multi views so you can see your program, preview and sources with custom layouts and labels! For the ultimate in image quality you can use Ultra HD displays or you can use regular HD displays and the multi view will down convert to HD!

Media Players

ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K ............................... $8,445 ATEM 2 M/E Production Studio 4K ................................................. $5,309 ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K ...................................................$3,329

Get a complete 12G-SDI workflow! Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K ......................................................... $3,715 HyperDeck Studio 12G Broadcast Deck .......................................$3,515 Smart Videohub 12G 40x40 Router ............................................... $7,035 Teranex Express Standards Converter ..........................................$1,865 Teranex Mini 12G Converters .............................................................. $699

INTRODUCING PAVIRO Public Address & Voice Evacuation System with Professional Sound Quality Flexibility right from the start

PAVIRO is a new breed of Public Address and Evacuation Systems. Not only does it provide Professional Quality Sound, it makes specification and installation faster, simpler and more efficient than ever before. Consultants will save time and define a complete system with just a few parameters. Installers will avoid unexpected costs thanks to the systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extreme flexibility. Building owners will benefit from the low power consumption resulting in lower energy costs and fewer less-expensive batteries. To find out how you can take advantage, contact your Bosch representative today or visit: www.boschsecurity.com

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Issue 49 REGULARS NEWS AV industry and product news highlights from the AV website.

INDUSTRY UPDATE News from the AV associations: InfoComm and AETM

TERMINATION Worse that a trip to Mars.

FEATURES

This Changes Everything

2015 AVIA WINNERS The wrap from this year’s AVIAs.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Derek Powell examines the industry impact of the Harman purchase of video-over-IP specialists, SVSi.

DATA PROJECTION COMES FULL CIRCLE The UTS Data Arena takes audiovisual immersion to a new level.

SCALING THE HEIGHTS Te Papa’s AVIA award-winning Gallipoli: Scale of Our War Exhibition.

TUTORIAL DRESSED FOR SUCCESS InfoComm tutorial regarding verifying AV cable performance.

REVIEWS DIGITAL PROJECTION EVISION 6800 WUXGA 3D Installation Projector

CASIO XJ-UT310WN Ultra short-throw laser/LED data projector

HITACHI CP-HD9321 Full HD digital presentation projector with FL-900 ultra short-throw lens

BOSE F1 FLEXIBLE ARRAY Portable PA system with adjustable horizontal coverage pattern.

U O Y 4 E R MO 08

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SENNHEISER IS ‘DAVID BOWIE IS’

FLAT PANEL TRIO FROM CHRISTIE

HK AUDIO LINEAR

The ‘David Bowie is’ exhibition has been a worldwide smash, and has had a Melbourne stopover at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). The immersive audio experience at the exhibit comes via a Sennheiser GuidePort system that automatically plays back the music and soundtrack when visitors approach the exhibits and screens. Some 48 indoor identifiers are placed around the exhibit area to trigger the audio that accompanies each display. The several mini-features include footage from David Bowie concerts and films, stands displaying photos, hand-written letters, stage costumes, album covers, even the keys to Bowie’s Berlin apartment. Norbert Hilbich, Sennheiser Application Engineering, assisted in the setup of the GuidePort system. “This is a fully automated yet entirely personal tour, as the exhibition can be explored in whatever order and at any pace whatsoever. The audio is always played at the right time for each visitor.” 550 guidePORT bodypacks were employed at ACMI, along with 1000 headphones, 55 charging units and 34 active antenna modules for the cell transmitters. Sennheiser: (02) 9910 6700 or en-au.sennheiser.com

Christie has announced the official launch of its Christie FHQ552-T, Christie FHQ842-T and Christie FHQ981-L flat panels, suitable for meeting rooms, offices, lobbies and architectural displays. The Christie FHQ552-T features 10-point touch capabilities, built-in speakers and an Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) slot. The Christie FHQ842-T is the replacement for the FHQ841-T. It’s a versatile 84-inch display with built-in speakers and 10-point multi-touch capability, making it ideal for presentation and collaboration applications. The FHQ981-L 98-inch flat panel delivers ‘exceptional’ image quality, contrast and colour-rich images for business, education, houses of worship, small control rooms and digital signage applications. The 98-inch flat panel is compatible with digital signage devices and media players including Christie Spyder and Christie Pandoras Box. All three Christie flat panels have a threeyear warranty backed by Christie’s service and support. Christie Digital: www.christiedigital.com

HK Audio’s new Linear 5 LTS and Linear Sub 4000 loudspeakers have hit the market. The Linear 5 LTS A is a mid/high unit with with a maximum of 138dB SPL. HK says it’s the first speaker to deliver genuine long-throw performance in an ultra-compact format, making use of HK’s proprietary Multicell Transformer technology to provide full-range sound up to 50m away. The design of the Linear 5 LTS A allows it to be stacked on the ground or on its head, or clustered. The Linear Sub 4000 A is an 18-inch subwoofer delivering a frequency response of 30-100Hz, high maximum SPL, and clarity in signal peaks even when pushed hard. Built with a robust wood housing, the sub is made to withstand the wear and tear of daily use, making it suitable for professional gigs and installation applications. CMI Sound & Music: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au www.hkaudio.com

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Gearhouse Broadcast has announced that it has launched a specialised Events Communications Division to specifically handle the communications needs of broadcast, corporate and community events, concert touring and festivals. Offering both wired and wireless solutions, there’s the option of a managed delivery or dry hire. The comms inventory is comprised of equipment from manufacturers including Riedel, Hytera, ClearCom, Kenwood and Peltor amongst many others. Gearhouse Broadcast: www.gearhousebroadcast.com

Video conferencing company Yealink has announced the appointment of Addcom Contact Solutions as the authorised distributor of its video collaboration solutions in Australia. Craig Alvarez, Managing Director of Addcom, says, “We’re excited to work with Yealink as we promote their compelling range of VCS to the Australian market.” Yealink’s innovative VC series offers full HD video conferencing features designed specifically to help enterprises achieve a perfect balance across quality, ease-ofuse and cost-efficiency. Yealink: www.yealink.com Addcom: www.addcom.com

Audinate announces Ultimo 2.2, a firmware update to the Dante Ultimo audio networking chipsets that adds enhancements for OEMs building audio products with Dante Ultimo. Dedicated four-channel input or output configurations at 96kHz are supported on the Ultimo 4x4 chipset, and minimum device latency has been reduced from 2ms to 1ms for both versions. Ultimo is part of Audinate’s portfolio of high-performance Dante devices and is a family of single-chip Dante solutions for low channel-count networked audio products. Audinate: www.audinate.com

• Get your daily news fix at www.avapac.net

Exhibitions company, Diversified Communications, has announced that the existing partnership between Integrate Expo and Infocomm International will continue for another five years. Announced on the first day of Integrate 2015, Diversified’s Managing Director Matt Pearce said that the partnership shows the importance of trade events like Integrate for not only the local AV industry but also the wider international community and the need for training and education in the Asia Pacific region. Integrate: integrate-expo.com

High Lumen Projectors

Designed for Exceptional Performance Epson G, Z and 4000 Series Installation Projectors are powerful performers in virtually all venues including lecture halls, bars & restaurants, houses of worship and more. These projectors utilise advanced display technology such as Edge Blending, 360 degree and corner projection and short throw lenses for flexibility. Features include: • 10,000 lumens and WUXGA resolution for bright, colourful, brilliant images • 24/7 operation for continuous and reliable use for almost any application • Versatile connectivity including HDBaseT • Easy integration with Crestron, AMX and Extron compatibility For more information vistit www.epson.com.au/installation *Compared to leading 1-chip DLP business and education projectors based on NPD data, July 2011 through June 2012. Colour brightness (colour light output) measured in accordance with IDMS 15.4. Colour brightness will vary depending on usage conditions.

012

NEWS

EXTRON XTPII 4K MATRIX

OPTOMA SHORT-THROW

LSC’S NEW MANTRA

Extron’s new XTPII CrossPoint 6400 matrix switcher is built with a 50Gbps digital switching backplane that enables the deployment of an AV system infrastructure with a switching bandwidth that exceeds the data rate required to distribute 4K/60 video with 4:4:4 chroma sampling at 16 bits per colour… what’s more it has the bandwidth to accommodate anticipated future video resolutions and formats. These matrix switchers can be configured with a variety of boards, including any of the existing products in the XTP Systems family and the new series of XTP 4K fibre optic boards and endpoints. XTP Systems provide a completely integrated switching and distribution solution for multiple digital and analogue formats. Extron: 1800 398766 or www.extron.com.au

Optoma has released a new 1080p ultra-short throw projector. The EH320UST is well suited to a range of commercial applications where space is at a premium. Full HD images are brought to life by 4000 ANSI lumens and 20,000:1 contrast ratio. Its 0.25:1 throw ratio enables up to 100 inches of visual content to be displayed from only 55cm from the screen. Weighing 4.78kg, the EH320UST is a compact solution that can be easily installed close to a screen, making it practical in areas with space limitations. The narrow gap between projector and screen reduces unwanted shadows cast on presenters. The Optoma EH320UST sells for RRP $2999. Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or www.ambertech.com.au www.optoma.com

LSC Lighting Systems announces the release of its latest lighting controller, the Mantra Lite. Designed to control any type of fixture including LEDs and moving lights, Mantra’s App-like user interface and simple programming platform enables any novice to make a great lighting show. The ‘Animate’ function is a powerful FX engine allowing the user to create complex colour, intensity and position chases in seconds without having to understand or manipulate any of the technology ‘under the bonnet’. With 10 Playbacks over 10 pages, dedicated Flash buttons and 250 Cues per Cuelist, Mantra provides everything needed for a great production on tighter budgets.  LSC: (03) 9702 8000 or www.lsclighting.com/mantra-lite

VIDEOCONFERENCING ADDS $46b TO ECONOMY

and more likely to improve profit. The benefits of a collaborative workplace also extend to employees, who on average work 15 percent faster in a collaborative environment with the majority producing better quality and more innovative work and experiencing a greater overall job satisfaction. The shift in the approach to video collaboration technology within the workplace means that complex and sophisticated systems need to be extremely intuitive and simple to operate for the end-user in order to achieve business process efficiencies. AMX Australia’s Peter Swanson makes this observation: “Working with the end-users and avoiding

many hours of resources every week,” Mr Swanson said. “Technology has been both the enabler and the barrier to video collaboration in the past. If you create a system that is hard to use, people won’t use it. If you create something that is intuitive and minimises the amount of actions it takes for people to communicate, collaboration can take place from any room in any office throughout the world.” Reference: Deloitte Access Economics’ ‘The Collaborative Economy’ Google Report 2014.

Videoconferencing technology and real-time electronic document management are the most effective drivers of collaboration within workplaces, according to a Deloitte Access Economics report on Australia’s collaborative economy. The Collaborative Economy report estimates that collaboration has a net value-add to the Australian economy of $46 billion and suggests that with improved strategies towards better collaboration it could be worth an additional $9 billion a year, with technology the most influential factor in making improvements. Businesses with a collaborative working strategy are twice as likely to outgrow competitors

• Get your daily news fix at www.avapac.net

a technocrat-led approach, which can often result in spaceship-like operating consoles and many wasted hours in technology support and training, is key to businesses implementing the right technology.” Integrated systems also allow businesses to collect meeting data, such as what technology and tools are most frequently used, initial and final actions while in the meeting room and how often meetings run under or over time. “The collected data enables you to improve the performance and management of the meeting rooms, which in the case of buildings such as NAB’s or BHP’s, can alone save the business

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NEWS

ALLEN & HEATH QU CHROME Allen & Heath has launched new Chrome Editions of its Qu series digital mixers to mark the launch of Qu v1.8 Chrome firmware in mid-October, which adds major new features like Automatic Mic Mixing, a Spectogram and additional monitor mixes. The new Chrome Editions Qu-16, Qu-24 and Qu-32, all have the same metallic finish rotary controls and fader caps as the GLD Chrome series. The new Automatic Mic Mixer coming in v1.8 firmware helps the engineer manage multiple mic levels simultaneously, but with priority settings to establish an order of precedence. The Spectogram tool helps you quickly locate and deal with problem frequencies. The Qu-Pad app also receives enhancements with the inclusion of new controls, views and functions, such as remote control over AMM settings. Qu v1.8 firmware also allows Stereo Groups to be switched to Mix mode, increasing the maximum number of discrete monitor sends on the Qu-32, Qu-24 and Qu-Pac mixers. Technical Audio Group: (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.au www.allen-heath.com

FREEMAN BUYS STAGING CONNECTIONS – COMPANY BOSSES TALK TO AV

“We don’t have to worry about any bankers, we can be totally focussed on our employees and our clients.” It’s official. Staging Connections is now debt-free and safely in the bosom of the Freeman family. Things could have been very different. In June an agreement was signed for PSAV to buy Staging Connections, but Freeman rode in on the white horse. AV Asia Pacific spoke with Staging Connection’s MD, Tony Chamberlain and the Freeman President of AV Services, Ken Sanders, to learn more about what the acquisition means for both businesses. Tony Chamberlain: “We’re excited. It’s a giant step forward for our business and it’s great for our employees. We’re part of

CRESTRON DMPS3 PRESENTATION

POLYCOM REALPRESENCE

Crestron is shipping its new DigitalMedia Presentation System (DMPS3-300-C-AEC), a complete HD presentation control and signal routing solution for boardrooms, video conference rooms, and classrooms, featuring built-in Crestron 3-Series Control System, acoustic echo cancellation, and onboard SIP and POTS diallers. The DMPS3300-C-AEC delivers all the features of the DMPS series and then adds the Crestron 3-Series Control System. IP technology is at the heart of the 3-Series Control System, so its networking abilities are highly developed. And like all DigitalMedia technology, the DMPS3-300-C-AEC is designed to meet the HDBaseT Alliance specifications, ensuring interoperability with third-party HDBaseT products. Via DM, the DMPS3-300-C-AEC can be connected directly to any HDBaseT-compliant source or display device without requiring a DM transmitter or receiver. Crestron Asia: www.crestronasia.com Hill SVL: 1800 685 487 or www.hillssvl.com.au

Polycom has three new additions to its RealPresence Group Series solutions offering. The Polycom RealPresence Touch solution is an easy-to-use, nextgeneration touch control designed with ease of use in mind. Users will now have the option to simply ‘click to dial’ right from the home screen calendar, enabling connection at the push of a button. Second, the Polycom RealPresence Group Series 5.0 software will feature direct interoperability with both Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync environments, giving end users an enhanced voice, video and content collaboration experience. Thirdly, designed for rich collaboration, Polycom RealPresence OTX Studio users can easily share content from their own device and engage in interactive annotation and whiteboarding with Polycom VisualBoard. RealPresence OTX Studio will feature full HD video and content sharing quality, ‘best-in-class’ eye contact, and Polycom 3D Voice technology. Polycom: www.polycom.com.au

something much bigger and a company with very strong position in the US market. Freeman’s objective is to grow internationally, and we’re the perfect entree into South East Asia. We have a ‘beach head’ in Singapore and China. The last five years have been turbulent for Staging Connections. It was hit hard by the GFC, which forced it to rationalise and focus on the core operations of its venue (in-house AV provider) business and it’s staging business. But it’s come back leaner and, crucially, is growing. For its part, Freeman has been experiencing a rich seam of revenue and profitability. Freeman turns over some US$2.5b a year, and is best known for providing general events and exhibition services, but it’s the AV side of

mistakes others have learnt from. And when you look at a well run company like Staging Connection, we’re not just buying revenue we’re buy ing the chance to work with some great people. “Our company culture is very family and employee oriented. It’s a culture developed over 88 years that we feel is unmatched anywhere in the world. People are the biggest part of the formula of success for us. Which is music to Tony Chamberlain’s ears: “Is it like shackles been removed? Many of us in the business feel that way. We can now focus on employees and the clients. That’s terrific.” Finally, AV Asia Pacific put it to the two events specialists bosses that the days of hiring out gear as a revenue model are over. Tony Chamberlain: I don’t see

Freeman that’s been the source of some incredible growth. Ken Sanders, Freeman’s President of AV Services: “AV represents a surprisingly large part of what we do – US$800-850m. It’s not something we’ve traditionally pushed. It’s snuck up on us. “In-house AV services now represents US$400m a year, which is significant, and has come from a zero base seven years ago.” AV Asia Pacific put it to Ken that Freeman surely has the clout and know-how to move into South East Asia without Staging Connections’ assistance. “We’ve learned over the years it makes sense to buy a company that has local expertise rather than build it ourselves. We’re big but we don’t claim to know everything. We try not to make the

us as a technology company. What we’re great at is facilitating fantastic communication. In other words, it’s not about the technology, it’s how you use it. We have competitors with the exact same technology as us but we know how to get the best from it. We think about the outcomes the clients are looking for and we’re always looking at new technology that improve the event experience and the return on investment for the client. And that’s what it’s all about: ROI. Ken Sanders: “Live events aren’t going away. They’ve been around since the Romans. Live events keep people engaged, trained and doing business and it’s based on the kind of communication that can’t be replaced by technology.”

CORIO®master & CORIO®master mini All-In-One Creative Videowall Processors

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NEWS

SENNHEISER SPEECHLINE

RIEDEL SINGAPORE COMMS

P.A. PEOPLE ADDS FREESPEAK II

While there are plenty of versatile wireless microphones on the market, Sennheiser felt the need to design SpeechLine Digital Wireless — a digital microphone system optimised exclusively for speech applications. The microphone operates in the 1.9GHz band and makes the technician’s job easier during the set up process as it has an Automatic Frequency Management feature that searches for free frequencies on-site, saving the need for frequency planning in advance. Integrated Audio Level Management automatically adjusts the system to the application scenario and the speaker. The lithium-ion battery provides a battery life of over 15 hours, and can be charged via USB. Selectable sound profiles and sound processing algorithms are available, with presets optimised for different voice types. SpeechLine Digital Wireless is available as a handheld or lavalier microphone, or as a headset. Sennheiser: www.sennheiser.com.au

Riedel Communications equipment supported all communications for technical and production-oriented coordination of Singapore’s 50th Anniversary National Day Parade celebration in August. Supplied and deployed as a complete solution, the Riedel Artist digital matrix intercom system, Performer digital partyline intercom system, RockNet real-time audio network, and a variety of keypanels, beltpacks, and radios supported cueing of the cast members, as well as the light, sound, pyrotechnics, and other departments contributing to the celebration. Three Riedel Artist intercom systems, connected via a redundant ring of fibre cables, supported audio communications via 30 intercom panels, 22 belt-packs, and 40 four-wire connections. The Riedel solution also supported 300 handheld radios via eight radio base stations. The RockNet system connected the OB van compound with event-related intercom positions over standard 4-wire connections, and it also supported the transport of program, playback, and other signals during the event. Riedel: www.riedel.net

As part of delivering the world’s largest Ceremonies Communication system for the Baku European Games (see our story last issue), Sydney’s The P.A. People acquired a substantial quantity of ClearCom’s FreeSpeak II DECT-based full duplex wireless communications system. The FreeSpeak II system is available for rental from The P.A. People in either a stand-alone configuration with a 1U base station, or fully integrated with the company’s extensive range of Clear-Com Eclipse HX matrix systems. Essentially FreeSpeak II with EclipseHX integration provides users with a wireless keystation. “Our deployment of over 80 wireless beltpacks in a single RF space in Baku was flawless straight out of the box. This provides a whole new world of full duplex communications and we are extremely pleased with our investment,” said Chris Dodds, Managing Director of The P.A. People. “This system will provide our large scale event and corporate customers a great sounding full duplex solution they can actually rely upon.” FreeSpeak II is the second generation full duplex communications platform from Clear-Com. It is a cellular system that delivers on the promise of extending the functionality of a keystation to a wireless platform. (Photo: Jo Nisbet) The P.A. People: (02) 8755 8700 or eventcomms@papeople.com.au

TEDX FUKUOKA LIVE STREAMING WITH BLACKMAGIC

from a computer which is fed to a projector, so we were looking for a switcher that can connect to VGA or HDMI, not just HD-SDI. There are not many switchers like this, and are usually very expensive. Then we found ATEM Television Studio, and we started building our system around ATEM switchers,” said Takeo Noda, who looks after the technical side of TEDx Fukuoka and is one of the event’s many volunteers. Around the stage where guest speakers present, four Studio Camera 4Ks were installed. Each camera’s output was recorded by a HyperDeck Shuttle, with its loop output sent to the ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K. The program output from the switcher

TEDx Fukuoka relied on a bunch of Blackmagic Design gear for its live streaming and recording. Here’s the inventory for the conference: four Blackmagic Studio Camera 4Ks, Blackmagic Design ATEM 1 M/E Production Studio 4K and ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel for live switching, ATEM Television Studio for switching the presentation, ATEM Camera Converter and Studio Converter, four HyperDeck Shuttle recorders, HyperDeck Studio Pro recorder, UltraStudio Express Thunderbolt I/O devices, Teranex 2D Processor, SmartScope Duo 4K and SmartView 4K monitors, and Blackmagic Audio Monitor. “When we started TEDx we often needed to switch visual images

was recorded using HyperDeck Studio Pro, sent to an UltraStudio Express for capturing and then streamed via Livestream. Also, video clips and Keynote were output from different computers, sent to an ATEM Television Studio, which output the media to the event’s main projector. “I used the ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel for switching the recording and streaming, as it required more accurate switching. On the other hand, I did not need such precise switching for the screens in the presentation area so I used the ATEM software control,” said Noda. Noda spoke about SmartView 4K and Audio Monitors which he used for monitoring: “I could

visually confirm the output, so if there were any glitches I would notice it right away, which is a great advantage. We did not have enough devices or interfaces for monitoring before, so it caused delays in fixing any problems or

we would realise the problem only after the event. With SmartViews and Audio Monitors, we could improve the efficiency and quality of our event.” Blackmagic Design: www. blackmagicdesign.com/au4.

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NEWS

JUST DRIVE Never thought we’d feel sorry for a global automotive behemoth, but after VW’s recent ‘Emissions-Gate’ woes we thought it our civic duty to give them a pat on the back for a crackingly good AV install. ‘Think New’ is the name of the second exhibition in its ‘Drive.Volkswagen Group Forum’ — a Berlinbased brand experience centre, I guess you’d call it. Amptown System Company (ASC) was responsible for the system integration of the fixed install components of the centre, which was opened on the 1st of May this year in the presence of high positioned politicians, celebrities and… Robbie Williams. The event location works for a wide range of particular uses: exhibitions, press conferences, vehicle presentations, cultural events, and live musical performances, all the way to corporate conferences and events, in which the location is rented out to others. Here’s a brief tour of the AV elements: Video: In the entrance area, visitors are greeted on 40-inch displays vertically installed on six pillars, after which they can have fun finding out all about the Group’s 12 brands. Interrelated videos are played by a networked Pandoras Box Server combined with Coolux Compact players, and an Eyevis LED video wall of more than 40sqm which represents the central element of the exhibition is supplied with content by a Coolux Quad player. Audio: Over a 100 custom made GAE (German Audio Engineering) loudspeakers were installed, designed to fulfil the requirement for a reverberation time extension system with implemented 3D sound. The audio concept incorporates wavefield synthesis (lots of speakers, lots of DSP, lots of surround sound possibilities). The speakers are positioned discreetly on special mountings in the ceiling and walls. This allows the event room to be used for all kinds of

functions, from panel discussions all the way to chamber music performances. Permanently available Shure’s ULX-D series digital wireless microphones allow short addresses and discussion sessions to be played out over the sound system at any time. Volkswagen are big on encryption, which was a key reason for the ULX-D choice which provides AES256 encryption and interception security compliant with the BSI standard. The 12 radio channels are freely configurable within the Dante network and all of the microphones can be operated simultaneously via the automatic mixer. The sound system is controlled using a Crestron touchscreen. There is a Yamaha CL3 mixing desk for more complex sound tasks; it is connected to the audio network via Dante and enables differentiated access to players, microphones, and sound transmission routes. Display: The centre of attention in the main room is a permanently installed, monumental Eyevis LED wall consisting of 30 x 8 EyeLED modules with a total size of approximately 15m x 3m. The modules, each 480 x 360mm, fit together smoothly and seamlessly. With a pixel separation of 2.5mm, each module offers 192 x 144 pixels (for a total resolution of 5760 x 1152 pixels) and produces stunningly sharp images. VW is pleased with the uniform reproduction of brightness and colours of the Eyevis system. An image wall system has been embedded into the ceiling cutout between the entrance area and the brand presentation; it separates the spaces and can be projected onto. The 15m-wide megascreen is fitted with Gammalux projection film and is 7.5m high. Amptown System Company: www.amptown-system.com

(Main Image) Visitors are welcomed by Samsung displays at the entrance. (Top) The Sport Coupé Concept GTE points the way to the future with its ’plug-in hybrid drive‘. ETC Source Four Studio HD LED Profile spotlights provide finely modulated exhibition lighting and show the vehicle off in the best possible light. (Above) The ‘Think New’ Volkswagen campaign is presented in high resolution on an Eyevis LED wall consisting of 30 x 8 EyeLED modules.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF AV E CELLENCE NEWS

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Taking IP Video Beyond the LAN Harness the power of video to inform, educate and motivate your organization – anywhere, on any device. As a natural enhancement to an IPTV installation, Exterity ‘Beyond the LAN’ solutions extend the reach of video distribution. Deliver high quality content optimized for a range of mobile devices via multiple networks including WAN, Wi-Fi and the Internet. Please contact your sales representative to arrange a beyond the LAN technology tour…. Joshua Brown, NSW/ACT Sales Representative

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NEWS

AVIAs 2015: The Industry’s Awards

veryone brought their A Game. We’re so proud of these awards. Not because of a big gala dinner and a red carpet, but because they’ve become part of the region’s pro AV landscape, and because they mean something – to win an AVIA is something genuinely significant. Which is why the finalists really did have to bring their A Games. Each and every short-listed submission was truly outstanding and worthy of being showcased. The 2015 AVIAs were presented at the end of Day One of the Integrate expo in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in August. The awards follow the InfoComm International reception, and saw our biggest turn out yet – and we thank InfoComm and to this year’s sponsor Samsung. AV IN EDUCATION $500K+ Winner: Umow Lai Project: Jeffery Smart Building, University of SA

The is Umow Lai’s first AVIA, richly deserved for its work on the Jeffery Smart Building at the University of South Australia. Whether it’s the collaborative space, the digital signage, the automated room booking or the outdoor cinema, there’s a 100% adoption rate of the technology provided. The judges considered this groundbreaking project a positive investment that has produced an overwhelmingly positive outcome. The project has been built from the ground up to incorporate innovations in both the architectural and academic environment through the uses of a range of AV technologies in both the teaching spaces and the entire student connection and interaction with the building. The judges were not surprised to learn that the success of this project is leading to the rollout of similar approaches in the refurb of other buildings and future projects.

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AV IN EDUCATION SUB $500K Winner: InDesign Technologies Project: University of the Sunshine Coast’s Learning & Teaching Hub

InDesign Technologies took out this award for its work on the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Learning and Teaching Hub – the Tiered Teaching Space. The new space affords the academic the freedom to move around the room and collaborate with students. Students sit in workgroups of five to six rather than individually. Each desk is a fully-equipped technology hub, allowing students to collaborate with the group, sharing content from either the fixed PC, or their own mobile devices, onto their local monitor. Students can also share their content with the rest of the class on the two Full HD projectors, which have been designed to simultaneously show content from the lectern, or from any of the 75 students. The judges consider this project to be a step into the future of learning as it is having a profound impact on the technical, academic and student practices at USC. The judges commend the creation of both a practical and enjoyable space to undertake the processes of blended collaborative learning.

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NEWS

COMMERCIAL OR GOVERNMENT Winner: Parity Technology Consulting Project: Library at The Dock

The highly coveted Commercial or Government category was taken out by AVIA debutante, Parity Technology Consulting, for its work on Library at The Dock for Melbourne City Council. Much more than a place to borrow books, the Docklands library design encompasses all aspect of AV, including a 120-seat 7.1 surround sound performance space, Dante-connected recording studio, interactive floor projection system, large LCD touchscreen, digital signage, interactive touchtables, meeting rooms with video conferencing, LED video wall, satellite TV-overIP and more. Working closely with the client and the integrator, Pro AV, Parity designed the AV of a library thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the envy of the world. The judging panel saw this project as representing everything that good AV is about.

AV IN AN EXHIBITION OR DISPLAY Winner: The Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa Project: Gallipoli: Scale Of Our War Exhibition

The Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa won this award for the exhibition Gallipoli: Scale Of Our War. The exhibition packs a full bag of AV tricks for a modern museum exhibit. Each of the 11 spaces has surround-sound immersive audio playback. There are 97 channels of audio played back from 16 Tascam 7.1 surround sound amplifier/receivers, with the video content playing back through Brightsign media players. A technical standout is the innovative use of the Robe MiniMe moving head video projection system. You can read all about the job elsewhere this issue in our full feature story.

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AV IN PRODUCTION Winner: 32 Hundred Lighting Project: Paint the Town & Harbour Bridge

32 Hundred Lighting took out this award for Paint the Town & Harbour Bridge lighting at Vivid Sydney. 32 Hundred employed its own proprietary software and hardware, including GPS technology developed to coordinate moving ferries and boats to interactively light 14 city buildings and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The spectacular Vivid Festival installation included an on-site touchscreen to enable the public to interact with these displays. The judges were impressed with the immense scale of the projects across vast areas of the Sydney harbour precinct covered by a complex network of predominantly wireless lighting control to achieve spectacular and innovative live and interactive applications that blend coloured lightscapes and audience engagement.

JUDGES’ COMMENDATION: PROJECT EXCELLENCE

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Winner: Rutledge AV Project: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Winner: Gilfillan Soundwork and Steensen Varming Project: Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial

The commendation for Project Excellence was presented to Rutledge AV for its work on the digital vision upgrade to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The judges were impressed with the management and engineering expertise required to successfully bring off a project of such scale and difficulty in an operating venue.

Receiving the commendation for Innovation in AV was Gilfillan Soundwork and Steensen Varming, for their innovative approach to the Roll of Honour lighting and sound system at the Australian War Memorial. The judging panel was impressed by the detailed and creative approach to resolving what to most of us appears to be an intractable problem.

KEEPING THE FAITH

The Audio Visual Industry Awards program was established in 2010 by AV Asia Pacific with the intent of promoting excellence and innovation in this region’s professional AV sector. The awards are chosen by an independent panel of expert judges, with the selection process free of commercial interference. The focus is not so much on the products themselves, but rather on the application of AV. Five years on from its inception and the AVIAs continue to gain respect and momentum, with each year yielding an impressive pool of entries showcasing outstanding work in the industry. It is with much gratitude that we acknowledge the hard work of the AVIAs judging panel — Terry Coe and Scott Doyle representing the AETM, Matthew Loupis and Paul van der Ent representing InfoComm International, Wally Eastland and Marcus Pugh representing ALIA, and the non-voting chairman of the panel, Andy Ciddor. The expertise and experience of these gentlemen is what makes an AVIA more than just a pat on the back, and we thank them for taking their roles so very seriously. It wouldn’t be an AVIAs without the odd surprise and this year didn’t disappoint. And it does demonstrate that you don’t need to be responsible for the biggest AV job in the country but if you have solved a curly problem with real ingenuity then you owe it to yourself and the industry to get involved. Stay tuned for news on the 2016 AVIAs and how to be a part of it. 

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FEATURE

This Changes Everything Harman buys AMX, then video-overIP wunderkinds, SVSi, marketing it as SVSi by AMX, radically changing its business and the AV business in the process. Forget about the introduction of HDMI â&#x20AC;Ś this changes everything.

The Integrator: Shane Cannon, Director of Sales & Marketing, Rutledge AV

INDUSTRY VIEW

Text:/ Derek Powell

The Consultant: Peter Hunt, Group CEO, Hewshott International

FEATURE

n 2007 Apple introduced a new product: the iPhone. It not only changed its business but forever altered the course of the personal computer and telecommunications industries. Millions of eyes migrated from monitors to mobile screens. Now iPhones represent the lion’s share of Apple’s income, far eclipsing its traditional desktop and even laptop products. In 2015, AMX bought SVSi, which gave them a ready-made range of class-leading videoover-IP products. This makes AMX the first of the Big Three to take a real plunge into IP video distribution over the LAN as well as the WAN. Make no mistake, the conditions are ripe for audiovisual to migrate to the network. As that migration happens, it will eclipse many staple and familiar AMX product lines (switchers, extenders, controllers and more) and may forever change who designs, buys and installs audiovisual products. BUT IS THIS NEW?

Let’s immediately acknowledge that SVSi (now ‘SVSi by AMX’) is not the only company with capable and well regarded video-over-IP products. For example, AV Asia Pacific reported on a big deployment of AdderLink video-overLAN at the University of Sydney back in 2012, while the category of KVM (keyboard/video/ mouse) extenders has a galaxy of suppliers in the IT and digital signage world with more videoover-IP products than you can count. Waiting in the wings is AptoVision with its newly announced BlueRiver NT chipset – a packetised solution that claims to provide 4K/60Hz/4:4:4 transmission over Cat cable or fibre and switching using standard (though currently expensive) 10Gb IP switches. If you add to these the array of H264 encoders that were already available in the audiovisual arena from (amongst others) Crestron, Extron, Kramer, Gefen and AMX itself, you may wonder whether this is really news. It is – and here’s why: Now, we have a major supplier touting a complete and capable new range of equipment that may, in time, replace most of its own flagship products. The ‘convergence’ of AV and IT is no longer something that might happen, it has happened. AMX, and its new parent Harman, know this and is shifting both its products and the way it goes to market to suit an IT-centric world. So let’s jump on board and learn more about what AMX sees as the products of the future. SVSI: FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET

To get a better background, I spoke with Andy Whitehead – formerly SVSi CEO and now President of SVSi-AMX. I discovered the new network video products had an unexpected genesis. “We started out building high-speed video cameras for manufacturing and packaging,”

Andy recalled. “These could record 17,000 frames a second. It was the only device in the world that you could actually fire a bullet through the field of view and the camera would track its passage with high-speed video.” SVSi sold those cameras up until around two years ago. But it noticed that many customers were more interested in the fact the camera had a network port, so it could transport stored video across their network – even to the other side of a large campus. From the level of enquiry, it was clear there was another market for this technology. So SVSi took its very clever back-end of the high-speed camera, added analogue and digital inputs and created appliances that compressed and packetised high-resolution video, audio and control and enabled switching and routing across any standard data network to any appropriate destination. That product line matured over the intervening seven years, driven by demand in the US defence, government and corporate markets. 1200 X 600 VIRTUAL MATRIX ANYONE?

The SVSi line includes videowall processors, a network recorder and even audio-over-IP products. But most interest has been in the N-series encoders and decoders that allow video, audio and control to be transported and switched by simply plugging into an existing network – bypassing the need for audiovisual matrix switchers and extenders. There are three product families, which between them can cover any network link – local, LAN or WAN (including internet) transport. Andy described the N1000 range of products as an “inroom, or single-switch solution”. He claims that its high bandwidth of 800 Megabits per second (Mbps) and proprietary 4:2:2 colour-space compression provides near-lossless transport that is visually indistinguishable from wired Cat6 solutions such as HDBaseT. The advantage he stresses is that the SVSi encoders and decoders are true IP devices that can be part of the client’s existing gigabit data network, monitored and controlled using standard IT toolsets. Expected to cause most interest is the N2000 line up, based on cinema-grade JPEG2000 4:2:2 compression. The compression is user-adjustable between 20 and 200Mbps, making them suitable to carry video, audio and control signals through multiple switches to anywhere on a typical LAN. These could prove enormously flexible solutions for meeting rooms, collaborative classrooms and in a range of overflow applications. Rounding out the N-series is the N-3000. These products extend the reach of networked video all the way across the WAN and out onto the internet. The 3000 series use the H.264 compression codec and offers user-adjustable bit rates from an internet-friendly 50kbps right up to 10Mbps.

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There’s no doubt that IP switching makes possible certain applications that otherwise would either be impossible or stratospherically expensive using conventional matrix switchers. SVSi’s largest installation to date is a 1200 x 600 virtual matrix for Juniper Networks’ massive new corporate headquarters in California. Video, audio and control to every projector, display, videoconference codec and DSP across 300-plus conference rooms in the campus is transported and switched on the network, with the savings from cabling alone reportedly paying for all the SVSi encoding equipment used on the job. Not surprisingly, Andy Whitehead sees the future of audiovisual very much through an IT lens. He regards the migration of video onto the network as inevitable, just as voice-over-IP has almost completely replaced the corporate PABX. “IT has never lost a convergence war,” he insisted. “I don’t believe they are going to lose this one. It’s just a matter of time until network architectures are seen as the distribution platform of choice.”

“IT has never lost a convergence war. I don’t believe they are going to lose this one. It’s just a matter of time until network architectures are seen as the distribution platform of choice.” MAKING THE TRADEOFF

While agreeing that networked video will play a huge role in all our futures, AMX head of product management for Australia & New Zealand Graham Barrett sees the new products as very much complementary to conventional audiovisual solutions. “SVSi has positioned itself as the product which bridges the two technologies, or the two worlds, of AV and IT,” Barrett says. He believes the education market in Australia is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the lower cost and increased flexibility offered when the IP network takes on the role of switching and distributing video to multiple destinations. “Most universities have a very large, robust and well maintained network,” Barrett explains. “Along with that, there are new forms of

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FEATURE

Will AV-Over-IP Predominate? Shane Cannon: “At this point in time there are applications for both circuit switching and packet switching. We’ve done plenty of packetised IPTV systems and digital signage systems that have sat on the network. And equally there have been other projects that require AV matrix switching. For example, in a large ‘live'’ venue facility, latency could be a deal breaker. However, saying that, a venue which records video from the event, and has overflow screens and digital signage may be able to accommodate a small amount of latency. And, in those circumstances, it’s possible that we could use a combination of circuit switching and video-over-IP.

Will AV-Over-IP Predominate? Peter Hunt: Without a doubt, the answer is yes. The technology is there, the manufacturers are pushing this and integrators are gearing up quickly – it’s inevitable that it will happen. Users, however, are less predictable in this area because the more that’s on the network, the more network management there needs to be and this is where the issues lie. Add in security, possible input points for viruses and other Trojan software, what seems a simple and straight forward decision suddenly becomes complex and time-consuming. Combine this with important AV matters such as latency and quality of service, and it can all easily fall into the ‘too hard’ basket. Fortunately, these matters have been addressed and they are rapidly becoming a thing of the past and, like many of the world’s leading consultants, Hewshott has successfully managed implementation of entire solutions where the use of IP is well over 70% of the total solution by getting in early and having a seat at the table.

teaching, like collaborative classrooms, with the requirement to get video economically from lots of places to lots of other places. Many of those applications are ‘un-square’ – you’re talking about one presenter and lots of displays, or lots of student-generated input coming back to a single switching point at the lectern. “So with a large distribution system based on, say DGX [the premium AMX hardware switcher] you are generally constrained by a square matrix – 8x8, 16x16, or whatever. The beauty with a network-based solution is it can be completely non-square – it can be 1:16, it can be 2:16, etc. And you’re not paying for the full 256 crosspoints – there’s a huge benefit there. In those situations, things like a small loss of video fidelity and latency are perfectly acceptable compromises.”

the further the reach of the video distribution system.” Graham Barrett certainly sees a continuing role for dedicated audiovisual distribution and switching hardware alongside these new options. “When you compare a compressed solution to something like AMX’s Enova platform or Crestron’s 8G platform or the Extron XTP solution, all of those are designed to deliver content that is pixel perfect, with full resolution and zero latency. So in quality terms, that’s the starting point. The downside with those solutions though, is cost and flexibility.” Diving a little deeper, it is crucial to consider the other benefits provided by a modern matrix switcher, such as end-to-end EDID management. SVSi has some quite capable EDID management integrated within the solution but acknowledge it is nowhere near as powerful as you will find in the case of the AMX Enova or competing hardware solutions. Right alongside EDID comes the need to consider scaling to cope with varying end points. There is certainly scaling capacity built into SVSi products, but the considerable investment AMX has made into Smart Scale technology in its DXLink product makes it a much more capable and flexible solution in demanding applications.

KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS

While there is plenty of optimism about the benefits of using an existing data network to provide flexible and relatively inexpensive switching, no-one is shying away from the limitations either. “You need to be fully informed of when you consider a networked distribution system,” Barrett points out. “The reality is that SVSi is, by its nature, a compressed video solution. So as with any compressed video solution you have loss of fidelity and in just about any compressed video solution you have latency. Now depending on the level of compression, the loss of fidelity and latency will be more or less important, relating directly to the type and level of compression,” Barrett continued. Andy Whitehead is also quick to acknowledge the trade-off compression inevitably brings, noting it is important to understand the proper application for each of the N-series products. “Compression costs money; it adds latency; and degrades video quality, so an optimised system will only compress when it has to,” Andy notes. “But depending on your platform and bandwidth you absolutely have to compress for certain applications and the more you compress

GAME CHANGER?

So could this be the iPhone moment for AMX? If video really does migrate to the network as quickly and completely as HDMI replaced VGA, then an awful lot of current traditional Pro-AV product is on shaky ground. While acknowledging there are some mission critical applications that certainly warrant direct video and audio connections, it seems likely there are many really large installations (such as the Juniper Networks example cited earlier) and absolutely huge numbers of relatively simple meeting rooms and collaboration spaces will find the scalability and plug-and-play promise of video-over-IP irresistible. Matrix switchers, both large and small could disappear altogether and the vast range of HDMI

Selling Services vs Selling Gear Shane Cannon: We’re proud to have worked on some great projects that require us to be at the forefront of technology and through that we sell our skills as much as we resell gear. We also have the Rutledge Care program which is an ongoing support service, so we’re already in the business of selling services. That said, clients are going to need specialist AV equipment. There are always going to be endpoints — screens, projectors — and source equipment, such as microphones and media servers. From there we could be leveraging off a specific AV network or a client network.

IP VIDEO VERSUS HDBASET Despite using the same blue Cat ‘x’ cables, video distribution over IP is fundamentally different from HDBaseT, something which causes customers persistent confusion. Both systems carry video, audio and control signals but HDBaseT cannot travel across a standard data network. HDBaseT is a continuous digital signal that must use dedicated cables from an HDBaseT transmitter directly to another HDBaseT device – either a receiver or an HDBaseT capable matrix switcher. The audiovisual distribution in a facility using HDBaseT is completely separate from the data network. Video-over-IP travels across the same data network that provides email, file transfers and internet access. Once encoded, the video, audio and control data is split into chunks (called ‘packets’) which are routed over existing data switches and routers to their final destination. There are no dedicated cables just for video. Conventional audiovisual-style matrix switchers are generally not needed and not used. At the destination, a decoder converts and re-assembles the IP packets back to continuous baseband video, audio and control signals for input to the display.

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Does AV-over-IP Make it Easier or Harder for a Systems Integrator? Shane Cannon: There are a number of disciplines you need to be across to create an exceptional AV experience. You’ve got your regular AV product knowledge, then you’ve got to know your acoustics, lighting, environmental, room layout; then apply the AV gear to the task of echo cancellation, control systems and the like, and overlay that with packet switching or IP streaming; solution-architect that as well. Pulling all that together and having the right people to deliver on all those pillars of a great AV solution requires us to have a specialised and committed team.

extenders won’t be needed either. We may even find that encoders start to be built-in to many source components. Any PC-based equipment or networked storage devices are prime candidates to have an extra network port replace their HDMI socket as the primary video and audio output. On that score, we are likely to see many more displays plugging directly into a network feed (smart TVs already do!) just as many projectors are already appearing with direct HDBaseT inputs. HOW LONG HAVE WE GOT?

Pundits from both sides of the AV/IT fence at least agree the winds of change are beginning to howl. But taking a quick straw poll of the industry, I found (as you might expect) a diversity of opinion as to when the change will arrive. Some operators of very capable data networks have said privately that they will be testing network video product as soon as they can get it and don’t intend to be investing in audiovisual matrix switchers ever again. Others are more cautious, agreeing that streaming video for motion pictures is a no-brainer but pointing out that content even as mundane as spreadsheets can quickly degrade under even light compression. For them, HDBaseT still has plenty of legs. The official line from AMX with its new owner Harman, could best be summed up as “Keep Calm & Carry On”. Here’s what head office wrote when I asked them about the potential for networked video to supplant much of the traditional audiovisual product line. “We do see a significant trend towards the delivery of video-over-IP networks and the SVSi product line and development team positions us

FEATURE

Does AV-over-IP Make it Easier for Electrical or IT to Cut AV’s Lunch? Peter Hunt: The answer is: it probably won’t help. And this is the bugbear of almost every professional in the AV industry. This industry is full of very skilled individuals and organisations worldwide who are passionate about the user experience – visually and aurally. Others from allied fields get into this space with no pedigree or depth of knowledge in the entire process of delivering a solution that meets their clients’ needs. There are more than 100 types of microphones and ceiling speakers out there, and easily the same combinations of screens and projectors. Which one is correct in what situation, and why? Has anyone examined the acoustics and lighting? AV is to technology as what architecture is to building sites, and I find it disturbing at best that a sizeable investment by a client is chanced with advice from non-core specialists, who invariably deliver a mediocre solution, usually at a cost that could have created a much better user experience. No other area of industry is implemented without the right expertise advising, and there are too many people that jump on the AV bandwagon. All this does is damage our integrity, and in my view is a major contributor to the fragility of AV’s future.

well for the future, however, the tipping point for technology trends sometimes takes longer than we think it will. Having both distribution technologies in the portfolio allows us to effectively meet our customer’s needs both today and into tomorrow.” It’s a fair point and I don’t want to be seen as some kind of audiovisual prophet of doom. However, AMX has just invested heavily into this each-way bet and my guess is that others will be quick to follow suit. When that happens, the tipping point might shift rather rapidly. The point is that every audiovisual consultant, designer and buyer that I spoke to is now keeping a very close eye on video-over-IP products. We are certainly not yet at a situation where video over the network is the right answer for every – or even most – new designs. And it’s really important to understand up front that there are compromises – both the obvious ones of quality and latency but also the less obvious limitations where it comes to sophisticated EDID management and the subtleties of scaling – and that’s without even mentioning HDCP! But from 2015, for each new corporate, education or even residential audiovisual system, every designer must now consider whether videoover-IP is the right option. That’s what’s new. That’s what’s important. We are a long way from the end game, and there’s going to be plenty of new product to wrestle with from all directions. But AMX’s decision to embrace disruptive technology gives all audiovisual professionals new opportunities – and new challenges. 

Got IT on Staff? Shane Cannon: We made sure early on that we had IT skill sets in the business. Obviously you have to make sure you keep people skilled up. But we’ve got some great IT skills in our team which allows us to deliver on the projects and the whole team is across it.

Got IT on Staff? Peter Hunt: Hewshott has full-time, in-house IT consultants that design and deliver network related strategies and architecture. When combined with our AV consultants, we are making significant inroads into projects where the seamless use of AV over networks is paramount to the final outcome.

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FEATURE

Data Projection Comes Full Circle The UTS Data Arena takes the idea of an immersive experience to a whole new level. Text:/ Derek Powell

o considerable industry and public acclaim, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has opened a world leading Data Arena facility. Most people would think of an arena as a place of spectacle and excitement – a Colosseum where the audience gets to experience the kind of entertainment that is just too big to be staged anywhere else. While the UTS facility might be better suited to just thirty people (rather than 30,000); its 20,000 by 1200-pixel active 3D display can put on quite a show. Once you step inside the 10m-diameter arena, you are enclosed within a seamless 4m-high cylindrical screen. From high above, six perfectly matched, edge-blended projectors create a flawless 3D image, complemented by 14.2 channel surround sound. But you’re not there for entertainment. Think of a data arena as an enveloping stage that allows colossal datasets to be brought to life and be visualised in their entirety. Its bank of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) can generate an interactive visual representation of anything from microscopic germs invading the body to the movement of entire star systems. The unique perspective that the data arena gives, allows scientists and engineers to fly through their data and make discoveries that aren’t

possible any other way. It’s a serious research tool, though it has a strong movie industry pedigree, as we’ll discover. HAPPY FEAT

Ben Simons, technical director of the UTS Data Arena, has an unusual CV for a researcher. His expertise is in CGI for cinema and, prior to joining UTS, he was head of visual effects on the movie Happy Feet II. He has discovered that the kind of skills he used to animate 3D models of, say, dancing penguins, are not dissimilar to those needed to visualise the movement of molecules during a chemical reaction, the propagation of cracks in underground pipes, or any one of a thousand scientific or engineering problems. Ben explained the basics of turning data into 3D video. “It’s geometry,” he said. “There’s no one magic way but we use a program called Houdini that’s typically used for visual effects in feature films.” Ben has worked on 15 features in the last 10 years so he’s learned a thing or two about bringing the impossible to screen. “To start, we really need to go back and think about what the data represents and how you want to see it. It might be topographical data, like a map; or financial data; or data from a microscope where we are looking at bacteria. If it is bacteria,

do you need to see the shapes of the bacteria or do you want to think about them as particles in motion and look at their speed. Each researcher will think about their data in a different way and what we’re trying to do is capture that idea, that visualisation, and actually generate it for real”. NUMBERS TO VISUALS

To transform numbers to visuals, the streams of numbers that make up the raw data are organised into channels within the software. Each channel is then mapped to either a geometric attribute such as its position in 3D space (using x, y and z axis) or perhaps a colour by assigning the numbers to RGB attributes or even to 3D sound. The data sets that researchers use may have been gathered from many kinds of digital device. While data may be generated by scientific instruments such as microscopes or LIDAR mapping devices, other researchers may aggregate data from mobile phones, public transport cards or even fitness apps. There’s some serious IT behind the Data Arena display and Ben and his team are breaking new ground in real-time rendering. A typical animated feature film would create 3D character models and then render each scene overnight into a movie sequence before it could be viewed.

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“strapping a television to your head is an inherently isolating experience. The group experience of the Data Arena is completely different”

Backstage at the Data Arena, Ben uses a bank of NVIDIA K6000 GPUs to render and display his models in real time. There’s some serious graphics grunt with the equivalent of 26,000 CUDA cores on tap but as you might expect, it is the software architecture that is crucial to the real-time processing. “The two key things we are doing is parallel rendering and load balancing,” Ben confided. “We can give the graphics problem to the seven networked computers and they can divide up the calculations between the nine GPUs.” PIXEL PERFECT

Creating the pixels in real-time is one huge step but presenting them perfectly on screen is another hugely complex challenge. After carefully researching the available immersive simulation platforms, UTS shrewdly decided to develop the physical environment for the Arena using the Advanced Visualisation Interactive Environment (AVIE) developed as part of the iCinema project at UNSW. The audiovisual installation was overseen by Damian Leonard of Immersive Realisation and involved some serious new technology. Six projectors are mounted on a circular truss suspended above the massive 10m-diameter

screen. Damian explained that while previous AVIE installations had used Projectiondesign F series DLP projectors, for the Data Arena, the specifications were more demanding. Barco, which had taken over the Projectiondesign product line, had just released the F-85, which had the brightness and resolution to meet the demanding UTS requirements – but what about a lens? “Wide angle lenses are essential to ensure that the light path of the projector is kept short and to minimise the casting of shadows from viewers standing in the main viewing region,” Damian noted. “Barco had had just developed the EN29 wide angle lens which looked like it had the specs we needed – but we weren’t sure it could meet the focus requirements on the curved screen.” Only four of the new lenses had actually been manufactured – but in a stroke of luck, they had all gone to a special project at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. MCEC’s Paul Rumble provided one of the precious lenses for a test on the curved screen and it came up trumps. The project quickly locked in six of the Barco F85 AS3D WUXGA projectors along with 12 Barco WB1920 for signal warping and edge blending. WUXGA signals are output from the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 cards as a separate left and right signal at 60Hz and converted using the

Barco DCC120 module on the F85 to an active 3D 120Hz signal for projection. Viewers within the arena use Optoma Active Shutter glasses that feature reliable RF synchronisation. BIG DATA, BIG SCREEN

The 4m-high micro-perforated screen, installed by Pollard Productions, is an engineering marvel. Most other simulation designs simply provide a gap for the audience to enter, which doesn’t allow the full 360° immersion. The Data Arena goes one step further. A steel ring anchors the one-piece screen to the floor and a special door covered in screen material is set into the screen framework. Once closed, it is virtually seamless. Ben Simons remarked: “Once you’ve been inside for five minutes and are looking all around, you can lose the exit completely!” The centre of the elastic screen surface actually bows inward toward the audience by 20 centimetres – like the inside surface of a doughnut, which makes the projector line-up process even more demanding. Fortunately, Ben reports that the geometry has remained rock solid so far. INTERACTION & CONTROL

There’s even more going on with an array of 12 Optitrack Prime 17W cameras above the arena

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screen. These can track infra-red motion capture markers within the arena with a precision of one millimetre. Ben is already experimenting with the use of multiple 3D ‘mice’ that allow viewers to simultaneously and co-operatively take control of the display. Ben Simons is very clear that the potential of the Data Arena lies in its ability to render the complex scenes it creates from raw data in real time. At any time, you can stop, go back, move around, filter out certain aspects of the data or look at things from a different viewpoint. Participants in a session can potentially interact with the data and the display using smartphones, 3D mice, PlayStation controllers, Virtual Reality Wands, or a range of other Wi-Fi, MIDI, OSC, USB, and Bluetooth input devices. Ben pointed out that while there are other 3D viewers, like the Oculus Rift goggles, strapping a television to your head is an inherently isolating experience. The group experience of the Data Arena is completely different. “We are creating a collaborative space,” he explained, “where people can meet and discuss data and not just be a passenger.” HIGH VIZ

It is clear that UTS have caught the vision and are working to create new possibilities. Although located in the faculty of Engineering & IT building, the Data Arena is a shared resource, like the University Library, reporting to the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research. It is available to students and staff from all faculties and UTS is also encouraging industry and government users to bring their data to the Arena. Ben Simons is energised by the prospect of new applications for the massive display. He sees his role as helping to build bridges between the visual effects industry and high performance computing. “We’re just beginning,” he says. “The next year is going to be very exciting.” 

FEATURE

EQUIPMENT LIST Image Generators: Cluster IG configuration Dell PCs fitted with NVIDIA Quadro K6000 card Single IG configuration Xenon PC fitted with 3 x NVIDIA Quadro K6000 cards Warp/Blend Processing: Barco WB1920 Image Processors Signal Distribution Gefen 32 x 24 DVI Matrix Gefen FM 500 DVI over fibre extender / receivers Projectors 6 x Barco F85 AS3D WUXGA Projectors (3-Chip DLP 10,000 ANSI Lumens) fitted with EN29 Lens and DCC120 Xport modules Audio: RME FireFace UFX Behringer Ultragain ADA8200 14 x Genelec 8020C Powered Monitors 2 x Genelec 7060B Powered Subwoofers Camera Tracking System 12 x Optitrack Prime 17W cameras

WHY WE NEED A DATA ARENA Some things just have to be seen in their entirety to understand what is going on. You can’t really grasp the importance of the annual migration of wildlife through Africa’s Serengeti plains by simply following a single herd of gazelles on foot. But fly over the endless plains in a light aircraft and you could instantly see the importance and effect of the seasonal movement of millions of animals. Think of trying to watch a football grand final if the only view you had was a close up of a single player. You need wide shots to see the whole team so you can understand how the game is being played out. Big data sets pose exactly the same problem. Let’s imagine a meteorologist who has a set of rainfall and wind speed readings taken from hundreds of observatories across the Pacific Ocean. Looking at a dozen observations from each station in turn they might see that some kind of storm had passed over, but it might take hours, days or weeks of comparing climatic

TEAM DETAILS: Immersive Realisation Project Manager: Damian Leonard System Architect: Ardrian Hardjono System Engineer: Robin Chow System Engineer: Rob Lawther (iCinema) UTS Project Manager: Hugh Cranswick Technical Director: Ben Simons Software Developer: Darren Lee Pollard Productions Project Manager/Head Rigger: Alex Griffith Barco Systems Australia Service Engineer: Peter Cito Account Manager: Jason Coy

data to deduce what a particular weather system was and where it might be headed. However if those readings could be represented as images of moving clouds – like a satellite photo from space, they could instantly see the rotating pattern of a cyclone, and be able to issue an immediate warning. Sometimes, there is no equivalent to that ‘wide shot’ from space or from an aircraft. The software used at the Data Arena allows massive sets of data – think of hundreds of pages of spreadsheets – to be transformed into graphics as a snapshot. Combining individual graphics into an animation shows how each variable changes over time and where each data point is in relation to every other data point. Displaying data like this can provide a picture of things we can measure but never actually see, like how cancer cells travel through the body or how an infectious disease spreads across a city.

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FEATURE

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FEATURE

Scaling The Heights Ingenuity wins the battle against tight budgets and rapid turnaroundsâ&#x20AC;Ś bagging an AVIA award in the process. Text:/ Christopher Holder

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FEATURE

ar stories? We’ve had a few. Already this year we’ve visited the Australian War Memorial’s World War 1 (Issue 47) exhibition, and we’ve gone behind the scenes of IEC’s travelling WW1 Centenary Exhibition (Issue 48). This issue we travel to New Zealand to join the queue waiting to experience Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War in Wellington’s Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. It’s a big WW1 centenary year and, of course, the exhibitions share a theme, but Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War demonstrates how each executes the brief very differently. The AV staff of Te Papa, ably led by Andrew Bruce, applied considerable ingenuity to the installation, getting it completed in a truncated time frame and within a modest NZ$400,000 budget (modest, given the ambition of the project). It was enough to turn the heads of the AVIA judges who handed Te Papa the gong for Best Application of AV in an Exhibition or Display. 360° CAMPAIGN

The Gallipoli: The Scale of our War exhibition is designed as an immersive experience which takes the participant on a journey through the ANZAC campaign and focusses on the experience of eight New Zealanders who found themselves amidst this extraordinary and horrific experience. The visitor is taken through six circular ‘Bell Jar’ spaces and five ‘Annex’ spaces. The Bell Jar spaces feature the eight people as larger-thanlife statues (2.4 times normal size) frozen in a moment of time. They’re a ‘bell jar’ because of a 360° curved wall that encompasses the space, creating an immersive ‘silo’ to tell the story of one digger in his own words. JARRING IMPACT

The Bell Jars immediately presented Andrew Bruce with a serious challenge. How to portray visuals into/onto the cramped curved real estate: “We started looking at curved LED options. We looked at Nanolumens and did a few tests but unfortunately it would have blown our tight budget out of the water. “We then looked at edge-blending projectors. Our problem is we have a giant 4m-high sculpture in the middle of the space, which precluded the use of multi-projection, and meant we were looking at ultra short-throw units, but they don’t play nicely with curved surfaces. Still, we conducted a few tests with some lenses, but it wasn’t cutting it. “Next, we started brainstorming any ideas we could come up with. We even had a go at bouncing an image off a curved mirror. “Then we found the MiniMe moving head projector from Robe. It was a brand new technology. We contacted the manufacturer and

had one of the first samples sent over for testing. All fingers were crossed.” MOVING HEAD PROJECTION

Using the MiniMe was a very smart piece of lateral thinking. They’re small enough to be retrofitted into a ceiling cavity in the dead centre of the space, allowing it to pivot around and project onto all 360° of the screen space. The video content was produced to play across the frame from right to left. The MiniMe projectors were programmed to sweep across the curved wall from left to right at the same speed. This gave the appearance of the text being hand written (or inscribed) onto the backdrop before fading away. There are multiple videos and playback sweeps per Bell Jar with variable playback times, which all required individual DMX programming via a Whole Hog lighting console. The video and DMX playback also needed to be synchronised with the audio playback in each Bell Jar. To achieve this the AV team sent a UDP command from the appropriate Brightsign player to trigger a Go command in the corresponding CueServer channel. The video content is loaded into the MiniMe units and is triggered to play as part of the DMX cues.

CONTACTS Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa: www.tepapa.govt.nz Weta Workshop: wetaworkshop.co.nz EQUIPMENT HIGHLIGHTS 6 x Robe Minime: robedigital.com/minime or ulagroup.com 43 x Brightsign media players: Brightsign.com or midwich.com.au 11 x JBL Control Series loudspeakers & subwoofers: jblpro.com or jands.com.au 52 x Sonance in-ceiling speakers: sonance.com 4 x Panasonic laser projectors: panasonic.com.au 33 x Turbosound Impact loudspeakers & 12-inch subs: www.turbosound.com or www.australismusic.com.au 4 x QSC 1600W amplifiers: qsc.com or tag.com.au 2 x CueServer controllers: interactiveonline.com or barbizon.com.au 16 x Tascam PA-R200 surround receiver/ amps: tascam.com or cmi.com.au

SOUNDSCAPE IMMERSION

The other standout feature of the exhibition is the remarkable audio – a fully immersive soundscape throughout the exhibition, featuring an emotive soundtrack recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, voice recordings and sound effects. Each of the 11 spaces has surround sound immersive audio playback. There are 97 channels of audio in total played back via a mixture of speaker solutions (in the main, JBL Control series and Turbosound Impact surface mount, and Sonance in-ceiling loudspeakers). From there, 16 Tascam 7.1 surround sound amplifier/receivers feed the speakers, with the content playing back through 15 Brightsign media players. All of the Brightsign players are programmed and synched so the whole soundscape plays sympathetically with other zones… not a trivial matter as it turned out. Andrew Bruce: “One huge challenge was dealing with the lack of acoustic isolation between the spaces. We had quite a lot of acoustic panelling installed but there was still considerable bleed between adjacent Bell Jars. To minimise the acoustic intrusion between the 11 zones we synched the peaks and troughs as best we could. It was quite a puzzle to solve for our head audio guy and the composer, and all achieved in the final weeks of the installation in the dead of night, without the distraction of power tools.”

ROBE MINIME The MiniMe is an effects lighting luminaire with the addition of full video output – it is a small, neat and fast moving fixture that is LED driven with a 20,000 hour lifetime source. Colours, gobos and beam shapes are all digitally generated by the on-board micro-media server. Custom artwork, still photographs and video content can be simply uploaded and used for projection, and live video can also be streamed through the HDMI input. Price: A$5300 + GST. Robe: robedigital.com/minime or ulagroup.com

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The surround sound audio sits as encoded 5.1 AC3 files on Brightsign players — one per amp — in the comms room. To achieve 7.1 surround, an additional stereo Aux mix from the Brightsigns’ stereo output was synched with the 5.1 AC3 and sent to the amplifiers. The amp/receiver is a 7.1 Tascam device, chosen because the price was right and the fact they have an RS232 input for remote power up/down. Some 5km of speaker cable does the rest. NAILED IT

It’s perhaps a little hard to convey just how high the stakes were for the successful completion of this exhibition. As soon as Sir Richard Taylor was appointed as creative director and his worldrenowned Weta Workshop engaged, there was a Lord of the Rings-level air of expectation – this was going to be something truly awesome. The statistics speak volumes, as it is set to become the highest attended exhibition ever in New Zealand – 12 weeks after opening there were still queues each morning waiting to get in (often up to 1.5 hours in length and remembering this is in a city of only 250,000 people and a country of 4 million). The original queues in the opening weeks could stretch 3-4 hours. By the time Gallipoli: The Scale of our War finishes its ‘tour of duty’ in four year’s time, it’s expected that a staggering one quarter of the New Zealand population will have attended. In other words, this exhibition truly is something special; it’s a touchstone of a nation. Richard Taylor puts it this way: “Only by understanding the pivotal and critical place Gallipoli holds in the history and heart of our country is to understand how this exhibition has transcended a display within a museum and become a cenotaph for the memory and acknowledgement of the men and women who gave everything for New Zealand’s place in this war.” For the Te Papa AV team (that includes Mark Roxburgh, Piet Asplet, Scott Abernethy, Andrew Allison and Tony Parkinson), there’s a palpable sense of national pride that they nailed it, and nailed it against some pretty formidable odds. Gallipoli: The Scale of our War is awesome, and in no small part to some awesome, AVIAwinning AV. 

The Annex’s 27 AV interactives including: Projected dioramas, AV displays, video playback, a 3D slide show and audio interactives. A range of solutions have been used including lamp-free laser projectors, a further 28 Brightsign media players – including 4K players, touch and non-touch monitors, computers, PIR sensors and some local audio playback solutions. (Photos: Colin McLellan)

FEATURE

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REVIEW

Digital Projection E-Vision 6800 WUXGA 3D Installation Projector Text:/ Stephen Dawson Price: $14,349 Warranty: 2 years (first of 90 days or 500 hours on lamp) Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 Web: www.ambertech.com.au or www.digitalprojection.com

n its website, Digital Projection emphasises, properly, the brightness capabilities of its E-Vision 6800 projector. But it would do just as well to advertise the long operational life before a lamp needs replacing because, with this projector, you can trade-off between the two attributes. A FRESH VISION

The E-Vision 6800 is a largish installation projector. At over 16 kilograms, it clearly isn’t intended for carting around, even though it does have a fold out carry handle. It’s wider than long and has its connections on one edge. These include legacy analogue inputs, but more importantly HDMI, DVI-D and HDBaseT. The projector delivers a resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels – WUXGA – and can of course support various lesser resolutions, including the full HD of Blu-ray and the like. The engine is DLP, using a single DarkChip Micromirror Device. Single chip DLP projectors require a colour wheel to filter the lamp light to the correct colour in rapid sequence to produce the desired on-screen colour. Here is a departure from the norm: this projector has two colour wheels

SPECIFICATIONS Display Technology: 1 x 17mm DarkChip Digital Micromirror Device, 1920 x 1200 pixel (WUXGA) resolution Lamp: 2 x 280W High Intensity Discharge Lamp Life: 2500/3000 hours (Normal/Eco mode, dual lamp); 5000/6000 hours (Normal/Eco mode, lamp sequential) Brightness: 6500 ANSI lumens Contrast Ratio: 2400:1, Dynamic, 1000:1 native Inputs: 1 x HDMI, 1 x DVI-D, 1 x HDBaseT, 1 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x RGBHV (D-SUB15), 2 x component video (3 x RCA/5 x BNC). Outputs: 1 x RGBHV (D-Sub15) Control: 1 x Ethernet, 1 x RS-232C, 1 x 12V trigger, 1 x service port, 3D sync out Dimensions: 505mm(W) x 209mm(H) x 385mm(D) Weight: 16.1kg (plus lens)

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REVIEW

available. The standard one has the basic four colour segments (RGB plus white) for a high brightness result. The optional one ($699) has six segments – RGBCMY – which is more like the kind used in home cinemas for smoother colour performance. They are user changeable (kind of… more on that shortly). The projector also has two lamps. That gives it four principal operation modes because you can run both lamps simultaneously for highest brightness – with a rated lamp life of 2500 hours in normal mode, 3000 hours in Eco mode. Or you can run a single lamp – sequential lamp mode – doubling each of those ratings, albeit at the cost of maximum brightness. Thus the tradeoff I mentioned. You have a choice of seven lenses, six of them zoom, offering the ability to focus at ranges from 0.81 to 54.8 metres. The zoom ranges vary for each lens up to a maximum of 1.65:1. There are way too many options to start talking about range-to-screen size amounts. I’d suggest using the very extensive calculator on the Digital Projection website. The lenses range in price from $3449 to $6899. The projector supports 3D, should an installation require it, by the addition of a couple of options. Specifically a 3D sync emitter is required (cost $549) and as many pairs of 3D eyewear as there are users ($119 each). The eyewear and emitter are linked in RF rather than IR, so no line-of-sight is required. LENS & COLOUR WHEEL SWITCH UP

As it happens, the projector was delivered without a lens installed – the lens came in a separate carton. Installation was surprisingly easy: remove the cap over the lens cavity, plus the caps from the lens itself, press a button, insert, and rotate a part turn clockwise. Click, and it’s done. (It turned out, after I had completed the review, to be just as easy to remove.) The lens sits well back in the projector body, not protruding at all, so it’s quite secure. All adjustments – lens shift, focus and zoom – are powered and controlled by the remote control or keys on the projector surface. The adjustments were easy to make thanks to welljudged sensitivity of the controls. It was easy to get the focus spot on because I could stand right at the screen and use the remote to make fine adjustments. A range of test patterns are provided to help you get things right. I installed the projector on a sturdy ceiling mount. In addition to image flipping for this orientation, it also supports rear projection leftright swapping. The manual included grim warnings about permitting only ‘suitably qualified personnel’ to change the colour wheel… right next to the well-illustrated instructions on how to change the colour wheel. After using it for a couple of days with the standard four-colour unit, I took a chance and switched over to the six-colour

variation. The switch was simple, involving just four screws plus the one securing the access panel. Just take care to keep your fingers off the wheel itself. There’s a die-caste body with a convenient finger hole to allow you to handle it cleanly. No setting changes are required. There must be something in the colour wheel module that informs the projector about which one is installed. The RJ45 socket doubles as the HDBaseT input and a network connection for control. If connected to your network, you can dial up the projector’s IP address from a web browser and see information, enter an address and log-on details so the projector can email alerts to you. You can also operate a limited range of controls and set up security for PJLink. PICTURE QUALITY & PERFORMANCE

The projector is bright. Screens up to 150 inches under full room lights should remain very clear, except for the washing out of dark details. Using in light-controlled circumstances, especially with a smaller screen, it’s begging to go to oneat-a-time lamp mode for good brightness and economical running. The higher lamp output modes result in the cooling fan running at a higher speed. It was a bit too loud in my comparatively cramped office, but ought to be fine in a commercial setting where it is some metres away from passers-by. There was also a very low-level, high-frequency whir (the pitch seemed higher for the four-segment colour wheel than for the six-segment one). Again, this shouldn’t be a problem in most settings. With the RGBW colour wheel there was a fairly strong tendency for the DLP rainbow effect to be produced. That might be off-putting in a commercial environment where people tend to glance at things, sliding their eyes over the screen, which is precisely what invokes this effect. The colours produced and the dynamic brightness was very effective. It was fine for computer screens, but also for movies and such. Changing to the six-segment wheel perhaps added a touch of added subtlety to colour transitions and

seemed to reduce the rainbow effect somewhat. In both cases, the black levels were serviceable, although not outstanding. The brightness of the image, though, tended to keep blacks subjectively strong so long as there was a bright element on the screen. The projector had a go at handling interlaced video – I tried 576i50 and 1080i50, which is what we mostly get in Australia – but the results were so-so. It used motion adaptive deinterlacing – static portions of the frame were created from woven fields, while moving portions were constructed by the fields being shown in sequence. This is as it should be, but there was no apparent ‘film’ mode in which whole frames would be woven, regardless of movement. As a result, some film-based interlaced material generated noticeable moiré distortion. With 576i50 material, it occasionally very subtly sketched horizontal lines at this resolution across objects such as human faces. If you’re planning on using this projector for video, I’d suggest feeding it a high quality progressive signal. START UP & COST OF OWNERSHIP

The projector typically took 33 seconds to splash up its logo, followed, a dozen seconds later, by the signal from the selected input. By the time another 30 seconds or so had passed, the picture was virtually at full brightness. The projector is switched off by two presses of the power key. The fan took another 90 seconds to switch off. The unit is rated to consume 715W during operation – that would be with both lamps running. A replacement lamp is priced at $1099. Assuming electricity costs 20 cents/kWh, operation costs are going to range from less than 21 cents per hour running in Eco, lamp sequential mode through to more than 48 cents per hour, running in Normal mode with both lamps going. The Digital Projection E-Vision is an exceptionally flexible projector given the lens, lamp and even colour wheel options. I can imagine many installations where it would be just the thing. 

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REVIEW

Casio XJ-UT310WN Ultra Short-Throw Laser and LED Data Projector Text:/ Stephen Dawson

Price: $2750 Warranty Standard: Three years (five years on light source) Education, Government, Corporate: Five years or 10,000 hours (five years on light source) Shriro Australia: 1300 768 112 Web: www.casioprojector.shriro.com.au

amp-free projectors are muscling in on the installation market and for good reason. With the promise of a 20,000-hour lifetime on the light source, in all likelihood you’ll be replacing the projector before you're replacing the ‘lamp’. Casio may not be the first name you think of in projection but it’s most certainly the first name in lamp-free projection, having pioneered the use of a laser and LED hybrid light source since 2010. In fact, its entire Japanese-manufactured range is lamp free. While more-vaunted competitors are releasing their first generation ‘laser’ projectors, Casio is into its fifth generation. Which bring us to the subject of this review, the 3100-lumen XJ-UT310WN – Casio’s first lamp-free ultra short-throw data projector. And even before its unpacked, there’s no ambiguity as to where this product is aimed: classrooms and business meeting rooms. But before we spark up the XJ-UT310WN, let’s have a quick recap on Casio’s laser/LED hybrid light source. LASER & LIGHT SHOW

The hybrid laser and LED light source is based on a red LED and a blue laser. Apart from providing blue light, a fluorescent element converts blue laser light into green light. The red, blue and

green colours combine to form white light. The advantages of ‘laser’ are compelling in the sub 4000-lumen market. They run cooler and can be switched on and off without a major hit on life expectancy. These type of light sources are also greener (no mercury to dispose of in old bulbs). What’s more, adding a laser into the light source provides superior brightness to an LED-only alternative, which currently remain quite feeble. All up, you have a superior total cost of ownership (TCO) proposition, when you factor in lower power consumption and lower maintenance costs. To put that quoted 20,000-hour figure into perspective: in a typical school scenario (200 school days, five hours a day = 1000 hours use per annum) you’re looking at up to 20 years of service. Little wonder, then, that the education sector, in particular, is demanding ‘laser’. The projection engine is DLP, with a Texas Instruments Digital Micromirror Device. This is a WXGA unit (1280 by 800 pixels) in a 16:10 aspect ratio. A small angled window on the top protects the final projection mirror which reflects the image upwards towards the screen. Or downwards. Casio supplies the projector as standard with a wallmount (see image). This keeps the projector up out of harm’s way and has the added advantage of reducing the amount of dust settling on the light window. In fact, dust is largely eliminated as a problem thanks to a closed

structure and three-stage filter construction – that’s right, no more filter changes. The main digital video connection is the single HDMI input. It also has two D-Sub25 inputs, and an S-Video socket for legacy gear. You can also connect the projector to a computer using the USB-B port to transfer image and movie files to the projector for display, or to mirror a computer screen. Audio inputs feed a 16W built-in loudspeaker, plus there’s a microphone socket so it can be used as a mini PA – a handy inclusion for classrooms, conference rooms and smaller lecture theatres. In addition to Ethernet, the projector comes with a WiFi dongle which plugs into a USB port. Or you can use this for USB storage for documents and pictures to be displayed by the projector. READY FOR THE CLOSE UP

Since I only had the unit for a short time I didn’t use the wallmount, but it went nicely on a low bench near my screen. Even though ultra shortthrow projectors are notoriously fiddly to place precisely, the XJ-UT310WN’s light weight made for easy handling and fine tuning. The focus and evenness of brightness over the whole screen were excellent. Focus was easily set using the slider control (see main photo). There was really nothing more to the set up, other than software installation. You can install

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“tap an icon on the screen and draw on the tablet display in four different colours. A second later they appear on the projected image” your own startup logo if you like, and running the projector as a display over the network or USB requires you to run applications on your computer (see the screen grab opposite). ECO FRIENDLY

With the XJ-UT310WN plugged in via HDMI, and with my computer’s screen resolution set to that of the projector the results were very good indeed. If you run your PC at another resolution – say full HD – then the projector’s scaling is perfectly acceptable, although there’s an unavoidable tradeoff in sharpness. I did most of my testing with the default brightness setting, straight out of the box. I was later pleasantly surprised to learn that the default brightness setting was Eco Mode. Actually, there are five levels of Eco but even in Bright Eco mode the fan noise is whisper quiet and the brightness of the image is quite impressive – even under office fluoros. I’d go as far to say that in all but the most extreme circumstances, Eco at the highest level should be sufficient. The unit’s Dynamic Brightness control automatically adjusts the brightness to suit the lighting conditions, which goes some way to saving power. There are a bunch of cool network features that worked smoothly, at least as far as I took them in the time I had with the unit. You can install software on your Windows or Mac computer to feed a screen over the network. You can also control the projector using a web browser interface from any computer on your network. And of course the unit can be managed via a Crestron control system. One useful screen allows you to upload various files – photos, documents and videos (same as for USB) – to the projector’s internal memory. You can display these by choosing ‘Viewer’ as the input and then follow a menu to access them.

in this space will use pens or finger touch. Casio has pursued an entirely different, app-based approach. Download the free ‘C-Assist’ app from Google Play or the iOS Appstore and you’re away. I had the Android version working quite happily on my tablet. Currently, the main facilities are for presenting files – PDFs and JPEG photos, for example – on the screen, mirroring the tablet’s camera, or displaying web pages. When you bring these up you can tap an icon on the screen and draw on the tablet display in four different colours. A second later they appear on the projected image. You can even save them for re-use. The app approach to interactivity frees the presenter and it also means the XJ-UT310WN can be teamed with any screen rather than a whiteboard. UP & AT ‘EM

Upon power up, the projector flashed up a logo after just six seconds, and by 10 seconds it was displaying the image from the HDMI input. At full brightness. There was no need to wait for it to warm up to the correct colour – 10 seconds and you’re right to go. Two presses of the power key and it switches off instantly, fan and all. If you change your mind, hit the key again and start it up straightaway, back to your picture in 10 seconds. The unit is rated to use up to 230W maximum, or as low as 110W in the most parsimonious ‘Eco’ mode. Since the light source is effectively good for the life of the projector, your running costs are all-but limited to power usage – less than five cents per hour according to my calculations. LONG VIEW

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this projector is that once installed, you don’t really have to think about it again for a decade or so. No maintenance… not even a filter replacement. And it’s this total lack of maintenance that will INTERACTIVITY: APP FUN prove very compelling to its intended classroom/ With ultra short-throw projectors there’s a meeting room market where it distinguishes itself growing expectation of some level of interactivity. as a strong, bright performer with a suite of In fact, for a projector pitched at the classroom, innovative audio, video and BYOD interactivity interactivity is all-but assumed. Most projectors features. 

SPECIFICATIONS: Display Tech: 1 x 16.5mm Digital Micromirror Device Resolution: 1280 x 800 pixel (WXGA) Light Source: Casio Laser & LED hybrid Lamp life: Up to 20,000 hours Brightness: 3100 lumens Image Size: 50 – 110 inches Inputs: 1 x HDMI, 1 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 2 x RGBHV/YCbCr/YPbPr (D-SUB15), 1 x USB-A (for WiFi dongle), 1 x USB-B, 3 x stereo audio, 1 x mic Outputs: 1 x RGBHV (D-Sub15), 1 x stereo audio Control: 1 x Ethernet, 1 x RS-232C, 1 x Micro USB-B Dimensions (W x H x D): 415mm x 153mm x 333mm Weight: 5.7kg

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REVIEW

Hitachi CP-HD9321 Full HD Digital Presentation Projector with FL-900 Ultra Short Throw Lens Text:/ Stephen Dawson

ome projectors are designed to throw their image at the screen from a great distance, while others can be sited close to the screen. The Hitachi CP-HD9321 can do both depending on the lens you choose. While it looks like a large, conventional installation projector, fitted with the FL-900 lens that was provided for review, it becomes an ultra short throw projector. DOUBLE TIME

Before getting into that, let’s look at the projector proper. As implied, it’s fairly large. In part that’s to hold some impressive internal duplication. Not only are there two lamps, there are two colour wheels. The projector uses single-chip DLP as its operating principle (as the use of colour wheels implies) and offers a full HD display (ie. 1920x1080 pixels in 16:9 aspect). There are five digital video inputs: two HDMI, one DVI-D, one HDBaseT and one SDI, so you can run cables a long way. There’s also old-fashioned computer analogue and composite video, plus standalone Ethernet (you don’t have to share the HDBaseT port) and a USB socket for a WiFi dongle. The unit is Crestron automation-compatible and has an RS232C socket. A small LCD display

on the side near the connections and controls shows the projector and signal status. The twin lamps can be set to Dual mode – both operating – or Alternate mode, which is one at a time. Or you can select either Lamp 1 or Lamp 2 to run solo. With Alternate mode, the projector will generally load balance the lamps upon power-up, but you can set it to cycle between the two at a time that you set: 6, 12, 18 or 24 hours, or one week. This is in case of a permanent-on operation. The lens is, of course, rather more complicated than the usual projector lens because it must cast the image sharply upwards (or downwards, or indeed sideways in portrait mode) against a nearby screen. And that means a mirror in addition to a lens. Most of the FL-900 lens is actually outside of the body of the projector, quite wide and acts as a housing for that mirror. The image is reflected up and back, through a transparent cover to protect from dust and such, over the top of the projector to a screen mounted behind it. Keystone distortion and inconsistent focus would be out of control from a normal projector with such a placement, and digital correction would severely degrade image quality, so all the correction is done optically: the lenses contained within the lens body adjust the geometry of

the picture so that after being reflected from the mirror (which itself is heavily curved) the picture will be squared and evenly focused. Once in position, final digital adjustments can be made using Hitachi’s Perfect Fit feature, which compresses the image slightly to compensate for screens that aren’t perfectly flat. Should it not meet your requirements, there are seven other lens options, including other shortthrow lenses, through more or less regular zoom models, through to an ultra long throw lens, with prices ranging from $1589 through to $6659. The projector is designed so that you can use two units together. ‘Instant Stack’ allows the two images to overlay for special purposes. The edge blending function allows two side-by-side projectors to produce a seamless wide image. INSTALLATION: MILLIMETRE PERFECT

It turned out that installing the lens was extremely easy. It was a simple matter of pulling out a foam plug, sliding up a lightly spring-clipped panel, removing a lens cap and inserting the end of the lens into the body of the projector. A push up of a locking lever and a replacement of the removable panel, and it was done. Setting up was fairly straightforward aside from the inherent care one must take when

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positioning a short throw projector. The shorter the throw, the finer the tolerances in getting the projector-to-screen geometry spot on. Just the smallest nudge can throw things right out. For example, my regular screen hangs from the ceiling and the laws of gravity dictate that it leans a degree or so inwards at the top. That resulted in a quite marked keystone effect, with a narrowing of the image at the top (with the projector throwing its image upwards). And because of the internal optical adjustments of picture geometry, it also meant a slight bow out to the left and right. I applied some counterweights to the screen to make it exactly vertical and that corrected the problem. The nice thing about an ultra short throw projector is that you might be able to get away with a desk top installation rather than ceiling since it can be quite close to the screen. That was my approach for this review. There are limits, though. The FL900 focal range will happily deal with 100-inch to (an impressive) 350-inch screen sizes at a throw ratio of 0.38:1. The manual has tables for the various placement dimensions. For a 100-inch screen, the rear of the projector (ie. the end of the lens assembly) will be slightly over a metre back from the screen. At 200 inches, it’s nearly two metres. I tried for an out-of-spec 70inch image to see what would happen, and found that while the centre and bottom of the image were fine, focus could not be achieved for the top one third of the image. The projector will go smaller, but not with this particular FL-900 lens. All the adjustments are powered: focus, zoom and lens shift. There is a wide adjustment range for them all, but the lens shift was somewhat limited. The image lens needed to be in the top quarter or so of the range of travel, otherwise a shadow was cast over the centre bottom of the picture by some internal working of the lens. The controls are two speed, starting off slowly for fine adjustment, and then speeding up for quick adjustment when held down for a while. The projector recognised the lens as containing a mirror and automatically mirror-imaged the picture so that it presented correctly. COLOUR & MOVEMENT

The network connectivity provided lots of functionality, once I got it working. For some reason the DHCP automatic network address allocation wouldn’t work – some incompatibility with my router I guess – so I had to manually enter in network, gateway and DNS server addresses. That done, I could enter its IP address in a web browser on my network and control the unit in quite a bit of detail. In fact, just about everything except for the lens functions (focus, etc). It’s also fully Crestron e-Control compatible. In use, the projector’s remote worked well from a distance and at extreme angles. The menu system was sensibly laid out and well organised. The projector delivered a very bright image when running with both lamps in normal mode,

and a more than adequately bright image with just a single lamp. This should be judged by potential purchasers, though, by testing on site to ensure that it will deliver what you want with the site’s level of ambient light. The picture was impressive in a number of ways. First, there was no apparent rainbow effect – always a good thing in public installations – regardless of the colour wheel in place. One of the wheels is optimised for brightness, so it’s likely a four-colour wheel with one white/grey panel, while the other is for natural rendition of colour, so it’s probably a six-colour wheel. Switching between them is also powered, with the picture going black for a few seconds while this takes place. The unit has a dynamic iris that seemed to modulate light output according to overall picture brightness. So it did a good job with black levels. Indeed, for movie-type showing it was very home theatre-projector-like in performance, aside from significantly higher brightness. With computer graphics the results were extremely impressive. As always, single-chip DLP ensures that colour alignment is perfect, so even at the corners black and white characters were presented without any colour fringe around them. I used the projector mostly in the dual lamp, normal mode, and while the cooling fans were audible, they weren’t particular intrusive. Using lower output modes lowered the sound to near insignificance.

Web interface Crestron control panel

COST OF OWNERSHIP

After I powered up the CP-HD9321, the projector briefly flashed up a logo after 42 seconds, and then 10 seconds later displayed the selected HDMI signal. The image started a touch dull and slightly discoloured, but after another 15 seconds it was watchable and well within a further minute it achieved full brightness. The projector is switched off by two presses of the power key. The fan instantly dropped down to a much quieter level, and whirred away for another 77 seconds before switching off. The unit is rated to use up to 990W maximum. Each lamp is rated at 365W, so I’ll assume that running in a single lamp mode consumes 625W. New lamps cost $699 and each lamp is rated at 2000 hours life in normal mode, 4000 in Eco mode. Assuming electricity costs 20 cents/kWh, operation costs are going to range from just under 30 cents per hour running in Eco, alternate lamp mode, through to nearly 90 cents per hour, running in Normal mode with both lamps going. WHO’S IT FOR?

Obviously this projector is for serious installations given the near $30,000 overall cost (including the FL-900 lens). But Hitachi has clearly thought it out very thoroughly for its intended purpose, so it’s well worth checking out, especially if you have applications which require two projectors working together. 

Price: $19,339 + $9999 for lens Warranty: Three years Hitachi: 1800 448 224 Web: www.hitachi.com.au

SPECIFICATIONS: Display Technology: 1 x 16.5mm Digital Micromirror Device Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixel (FullHD) Lamp: 2 x 365W High Intensity Discharge. Lamp life: 2000/4000 hours (Normal/Eco mode, dual lamp); 4000/8000 hours (Normal/Eco mode, alternate lamp mode). Brightness: 8200 lumens. Contrast ratio: 2500:1 (Theatre Mode). Inputs: 2 x HDMI, 1 x DVI-D, 1 x HDBaseT, 1 x SDI, 1 x composite video (BNC), 1 x RGBHV (D-Sub15), 1 x USB (for WiFi dongle). Outputs: 1 x RGBHV (D-Sub15). Control: 1 x Ethernet, 1 x RS-232C, 1 x remote in, 1 x remote out. Dimensions (W x H x D): 537mm x 170mm x 438mm plus lens Weight: 16.6kg (plus lens)

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Bose F1 Flexible Array Portable PA System

“The ‘surprise and delight’ feature is its ability to control its vertical coverage angle”

Text:/: Mark Woods

ose does things differently. There’s lateral thinking behind many of the products in its large range of consumer and industrial products. Audio systems for live sound is only a part of what it does and Bose doesn’t release new offerings very often. When it does, Bose always seems to have a different way of finding new solutions to old problems. The popular 800 series from the late ’70s (and still going strong as Series III) had a processor and 8 x four-inch speakers. Light and easy to move around, they still do the job today. The L1 Series uses line array principles in a portable system. It’s been around for over 10 years and still finds favour with performers who enjoy its ability to cover both the stage and audience with clear, even sound. Not surprisingly the new Bose F1 system is different again. A hybrid approach, it uses elements of conventional powered speakers combined with line array techniques to create a specialist FOH system with a wide throw and enough power to fill a small- to medium-sized venue. The ‘surprise and delight’ feature is its ability to control its vertical coverage angle. CLICKING INTO GEAR

Much of Bose’s innovation is housed in the F1 system’s Model 812 full-range speaker. It’s a similar size and weight (20kg) to other powered speakers but the design is very clean with excellent recessed handles on the top and rear. Made from some tough composite plastic — in regulation charcoal-grey — the finish is subtly textured and patterned, but it’s the front of the speaker that makes you look twice. Looking past the perforated steel grille, instead of the usual horn/woofer configuration there’s a vertical array of 8 x 2.25-inch mid/high drivers in there. Closer inspection reveals a 12inch woofer mounted further back in the box. The array inside the laddered centre section and prominent centred Bose logo ensures a distinctive corporate look. Inside the cabinet there’s processing, protection and 1000W of amplifier power. Connections on the rear are all familiar with two inputs: one is a mic/line XLR, the other

a choice of stereo 6.5mm or RCA sockets. The 812 works on its own as a full-range speaker; it’s pole-mountable and provides good low frequency response (-3dB @ 52Hz) that’s more than adequate for speech and medium level music applications. But for music reproduction this system benefits more than most from being combined with its matching subwoofer. The F1 Subwoofer houses two 10-inch drivers and another 1000W amp in a cabinet designed to fit in a car. Like the 812, transport is made easier by good handles on the top and rear. It uses a timber construction with a composite plastic base and lid. It weighs in a little heavier than the 812 at 25kg but it’s still a manageable one-person lift. The low-end frequency response is strong from around 40Hz, this allows the 12-inch woofer in the 812 to be crossed over at 100Hz so it can concentrate on the low-mids instead of trying to reach down too low. A great feature is the built-in stand — ‘extension bracket’ in Bose-speak. Instead of the usual pole-mount on top of the sub, Bose has made a plastic frame that clips onto the rear of the sub cabinet for transport. At the show it slots into the top of the sub to support the 812 mid/ high speaker and before you know it you’ve got a time-aligned speaker stack standing two metres tall. Not only is it a unique look but it’s quite stable, the solid base is not as wide as tripod legs but it’s squarer and harder to trip over. You may never have to deal with speaker stands again and I bet you won’t miss them. F1 HAMMERS THE BENDS

Line arrays produce a wedge of sound that is wide horizontally but narrow vertically. The size of the array determines its pattern-control effectiveness at lower frequencies, so to be of a practical size, portable line array systems only deliver the array benefits at mid/high frequencies. The subs are usually conventional designs and omnidirectional. The F1 stack has a forward-pointing single 12-inch woofer above the sub so it’s a fairly normal, almost point source system up to the 600Hz crossover point

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where the mid/high array starts to do its thing. Dispersion is quoted as 100° horizontal and 40° vertical. Listening to the 812 up close, they sound good right on axis with a smooth quality that refuses to bite or feedback. As you’d hope, the mid/high frequencies roll-off strongly above or below the central axis compared to point source designs, although the woofer has a more normal conical dispersion. Arrays are weird up close anyway as the sound needs some distance to develop. That combined with the super-narrow vertical angle rules these speakers out for stage monitor duties. Bose has thoughtfully not provided a monitor angle in the design, and the cabinet looks better for it. Using powered FOH speakers as floor monitors is always a compromise, but a common one, so there’s some lack of flexibility here compared to regular powered box designs. These speakers do their best work as FOH speakers in small-to-medium rooms with low-tomedium volume acts. Arrays focus the sound and reduce reverberation by not throwing sound all over the room. The most noticeable benefit of this is mid-range clarity, right where the vocals are. GOT YOU COVERED

Sutton’s House of Music in Ballarat is a textbook case of a room that could benefit from a line array system and a good test for the F1. The 19th century building was a perfect piano sales floor; long room, high ceilings and naturally live. It’s a good-sounding venue but reverberant, and crucially, the bands play across the width of the room, requiring the speakers to cover a wide area. People eat and talk, others listen or dance to the solos/duos/combos and other non-rock acts that play there. The sound needs to be clear but not loud or piercing, with intelligible vocals throughout the room and enough low end power to get people moving. We set it up for a night featuring regular act B3 Breakout; a three-piece ensemble featuring a Hammond B3, drums, guitar and vocals. The F1 system was very quick to set up and sounded ready to go straight out of the box. The room had a boom that required some low frequency EQ but the mids and highs sat close to flat. The noticeable impression from the sound check was the F1’s ability to fill the room. The subs were strong and could have filled a much bigger space, but the mids is where you could hear the difference compared to horn-loaded boxes. The vocals surround you rather than come at you directly from the speaker. They’re not loud up close, but step back a little and it’s all there. The high frequency response is adequate for live sound, although somewhat lacking in transient

detail. They don’t want to feed back, they seem to find their own level and they’re very even around the room. The F1 system’s horizontal coverage of 100° was just wide enough. The high/mid clarity falls off sharply at the edges, but it is a wide room that normally takes four speakers to get adequate coverage. I found them easy to mix on and throughout the night, there was plenty of unprompted confirmation from customers and staff that the F1 was a superior solution. A narrow horizontal coverage pattern usually helps live sound but sometimes the audience is positioned above or below the speakers. Hornloaded boxes often throw high or low enough (or offer different angles for the pole mount) but to get similar benefits from an array it needs to be focused. The F1 812 addresses this by allowing the edges of the top and bottom sections of the front grille to be pushed in and out. This angles three of the eight little speakers up, or down in the case of the lower section. They snap into position with magnets and the internal processor makes some compensatory changes to the EQ. Between the top and bottom angled sections you can create four distinct vertical patterns that can be used in situations where the speakers are above and/or below the audience. It’s a neat approach and necessary too as they sound pretty dull if you’re not in line.

DETAILS Price $1699/piece Contact Bose: 1800 173 371 or f1.bose.com.au Pros Line array clarity Flexible vertical throw Portable design Built-in stand Cons Too smooth for hard rock Summary Bose has taken a typical point-source-looking cabinet and filled it with a mini-line array. With a horizontal spread of 100-degrees, variable array angles, 1000W on tap, and a companion sub; this portable package will fill rooms you never could with a plastic box.

The Four F1 Coverage Patterns

WIDE APPEAL

Another place line arrays are well suited to is outdoors and the F1 system is powerful enough to cover medium-sized events. The wide, even coverage and long throw high-mids mean good intelligibility over a large area while the lack of harshness makes for a relatively easy listening experience. This is usually a good thing but it’s also the limiting factor with portable line arrays. If the going gets loud it can expose the relative lack of bite and body on offer. Point source, horn-loaded speakers are beamy and squawky but they will cut through a loud band. The Bose F1 System will appeal to AV departments of function and conferencing spaces as a versatile, high quality performer that will be just as suitable for a one-lavalier presentation, through to live bands and/or a DJ. Similarly, AV rental companies will appreciate how portable and easy to transport the F1 system is, especially considering a left/right pair will provide sound for over 500 people in the right situation. Bose isn’t necessarily known for its keen pricing, but the price is about on par with similar high-quality powered portable systems, but it packs some unique features and the high/mid array will allow it to out-perform point source systems in many audio environments. 

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Industry Update AV Association News

AV CALENDAR At the Integrate 2015 show in August, InfoComm International and Diversified Communications announced that its partnership will continue for five more years. “Developing these international relationships helps Integrate to provide the local industry with up-to-date training and knowledge, in addition to the latest AV products,” said Diversified Communications Australia Managing Director Matt Pearce. “In just seven years, Integrate has grown to become the most established commercial event dedicated to the Australian AV and systems integration marketplace, and extending our partnership with InfoComm cements its position as the must-attend industry event.” Said Jonathan Seller, InfoComm Senior Director of Development, Asia Pacific, “This partnership with Integrate means InfoComm’s Australian members have one annual event that provides them with the opportunity to see the latest AV and systems integration products and also maintain and enhance their skills through InfoComm’s education programs.”

products and network, in addition to lead generation,” Mr Norgaard said. “The calibre and steady flow of industry attendees through the door is testament to the fact that Integrate is a key annual event and we are certain it will be an even stronger event in 2016 and beyond.” Integrate will return to the Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park in 2016 from 23 to 25 August.

AETM Audiovisual and Educational Technology Management Inc.

2015 A RECORD YEAR FOR INTEGRATE Ultra high definition screens, holographic displays and the latest in unified communications, control systems and advanced building automation, Pro AV, Audio and lighting were just some of the technologies on show at Integrate 2015 last week as Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre became a hub of the latest AV technology. Held over three days and attended by more than 5300 industry professionals, Integrate 2015 was the most successful show in the event’s seven-year history, reinforced by two thirds of this year’s exhibitors already committed to returning in 2016. Integrate event manager Soren Norgaard said that the broad mix of new and innovative products on the show floor combined with education and training programs was what made Integrate the must-attend annual event for the AV and systems integration industry. “Our vision for Integrate has been to create a onestop-shop for key industry professionals where they can stay on top of the latest products and solutions across a broad range of areas while also enabling them to upskill and stay ahead of industry trends, network with industry colleagues and customers,” Mr Norgaard said. “Our partnership with InfoComm International, which we have secured for another five years, is testament to the fact that Integrate is an important event for the AV industry both locally and internationally.” More than 100 products were launched to the Australian market at this year’s Integrate, generating strong interest from visitors in several new products, including holographic displays, compressed signal distribution, touchscreen interactive solutions and digital content creation. Integrate 2015 was also used to pilot the latest in exhibition technology, the Konduko Reader, a wireless chip-based communication device, at the show. “Integrate 2015 attracted a high calibre of brands that used this event as an opportunity to launch new

AETM AT INTEGRATE 2015 Again in 2015 AETM in partnership with Integrate successfully ran the Integrate Education Programme (IEP). This is the sixth year AETM has been able to assist our members by awarding scholarships for most who apply to attend the Integrate Exhibition when organisations’ training budgets do not allow for it. With free access to a seminar and a self-guided programme to allow each scholarship holder the flexibility for scheduling meetings and professional development for themselves, the IEP has raised the bar again and we hope to bring you more exciting news about IEP 2016 at the AETM Conference in November. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Professional Development Sessions at AETM Conference – Monday 9th Nov: At the 2015 Conference in Melbourne, AETMfor the first time will be introducing Professional Development Monday. In the afternoon before the Conference Opening Dinner, AETM in collaboration with InfoComm have put together three wonderful sessions accessible to all AETM conference delegates and local members free of charge. • Design Coordination for Audiovisual Systems: By Ben Moore, Senior Consultant, Audio-Visual and Theatre Design, ARUP • How to Effectively Manage AV Spaces and Staff: By Rod Brown, Staff Instructor, InfoComm International • AV Systems Commissioning – Hands On: By Rod Brown, Staff Instructor, InfoComm International A synopsis of the sessions is <now> available on the AETM website – www.aetm.org If you wish to attendthe conference, please register by email: aetmcommittee@gmail.com

AETM CONFERENCE Melbourne, November 9–12 www.aetm.org/conferences ISE 2016 Amsterdam, Feb 9-12 2016 www.iseeurope.org InfoComm Las Vegas, June 8-10 2016 www.InfoCommshow.org

049

TUTORIAL

Dressed for Success Verifying AV Cable Performance

Consider the following: The human body consists of many parts, functioning in harmony to ensure healthy operation. The nervous system sends signals to body parts to spur action. Now consider: An AV system consists of many parts, functioning in harmony to ensure healthy operation. Cables send signals to these parts to spur action (and create an exceptional experience). See what we did there? Granted, your nervous system probably isn’t labelled, like properly installed AV cables should be, but you can recognise the ways an AV system functions like a life form, requiring organised and structured interconnects. Until the whole AV world goes wireless, in an AV system those interconnects mean cabling. While not as flashy as the visual and aural components, cabling is an important part of an AV system. It is, essentially, the backbone of the system (see the human analogy again?). Much like a system’s audio and video components, cabling requires verification to ensure consistency and reliability. In a well designed and installed system it will conform to the ANSI/INFOCOMM 10:2013 Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification standard. Here are five cable-related issues to check on your next project: BEND RADIUS

As flexible as cables may be, they have their limits. It’s important to verify that cables are not bent beyond the recommended bend radius, as per the cable’s data sheet. According to BICSI’s Information Transport Systems Installation Methods Manual the bend radius is defined as “the maximum radius a cable can be bent to avoid physical or electrical damage or cause adverse transmission performance”. If you have trouble determining the radius, look at the cable spool’s centre spindle, which should specify the value. To test and verify, visually inspect and measure the bend radius and determine if it satisfies the minimum value. LABELLING

With the amount of cabling used in modern AV systems, it’s easy to get lost in the sheer number of cables in a rack or a room. Therefore, you need to implement proper cable identification and organisation. Cables should be given a unique

• Supported by management rings, stress relief loops, lacing bars or other support structures • Properly grouped and organised, using appropriate cable ties where necessary (hook and loop, eg. Velcro, preferred) • Trimmed to length • Free of splices In the case of cables that enter or exit the rack make sure they have an appropriate jacket, sleeve or bundling. Throughout, don’t forget to identity and treat potential abrasion points to help prevent cable wear. TERMINATION STRESS

A major source of premature cable failure is stress on terminations. For example, if a cable is not properly supported, then the termination point can become stressed. Reduce stress on your terminations in one of several ways, including springs, properly tensioned clamps or cable supports. SERVICEABILITY

ID and labelled clearly. The labels should also be positioned where they can be easily seen and read. How do you verify good cable-labelling? Ask yourself: • Is the label easy to read and identifiable? • Will the labels withstand the rigours of time and wear? • Can the labels be identified without interfering with the equipment? • Does the label identify the correct component? Heads up: InfoComm International’s Standards Department is in the draft stages of a brand new standard for cable labelling. The standard is progressing through the same rigorous, peer-reviewed process as all InfoComm’s ANSI standards. It should be available for public comment by the end of 2015. CABLE DRESSING

You’ve heard the term “dressed for success”; don’t let your system’s cabling look dishevelled. To verify that cables are properly dressed within a rack, check that they are: • The correct length, particularly in the case of pre-made cables

Cable lengths should allow equipment to be removed easily for service. Bundles should be routed and sized in a way which allows a technician to remove devices from the rack without exceeding the bend radius of the cables. Inspect the cables to ensure that equipment is accessible, and that moving certain electronics doesn’t interfere with other rack devices. For example, if a cable needs to be disconnected, you should be able to move the equipment to allow visual identification of the disconnection point. In total, the ANSI/INFOCOMM 10:2013 Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification standard includes 17 verification items for cabling, termination and labelling. Download the standard and its accompanying guide from www.infocomm.org/cps/rde/xchg/infocomm/ hs.xsl/40440.htm and use the checklists to make sure your AV systems perform exactly as your customer expects. 

050

HUMOUR?

Termination Worse Than a Trip to Mars. Text:/ Graeme Hague

ave you ever been to jail? I have, and trust me, it’s worse than going to Mars. I was in Queensland at the time and, in my humble defence, I had a broken heart, prompting me to drink gallons of beer before getting behind the wheel. Some 50m down the road I was abducted by aliens using flashing blue lights (or so I thought) who turned out to be the coppers and I was nicked. This is where I hatched a cunning plan. I showed them my Western Australian driver’s license. My theory was that the Queensland legal system would be so utterly confused by my out-of-state license that the police would let me go. Unfortunately, instead of sending me home with (at worst) an appointment with the Beak next morning they decided I was a ‘flight risk’ who might flee back to WA and threw me in jail overnight. Bastards. They even took my shoelaces in case I tried to lynch myself. When I queried the logic that I was apparently incapable of controlling a three-on-the-tree Holden HQ panel van, but could figure out how to hang myself with a shoelace from a brick wall... well, let’s say no one appreciated my sense of humour. I shared a cell with an armed robber who was quite pleased he’d squirelled away $1100 before he got nabbed. A job well done, he reckoned. The next morning I discovered that it’s impossible to eat cold tinned spaghetti on cold toast with a plastic fork and paper plate. Next time, I’ll opt for the water-boarding – a lesser torture. Being in jail you start off thinking, “Wow, I’m in jail...” Later, it’s more like, “F**k! I’m in f**king jail!” until you quickly reach the point of “Get. Me. The hell. Out. Of. Here! I wanna go home!” Which, of course, is pointless. No amount of wailing, bashing on the door or promises of good behaviour will result in the wardens letting you out. That’s the thing about jail. You simply can’t get out no matter how much you want to. This is why I find it hard to take NASA’s latest HI-SEAS experiment seriously. HI-

SEAS is a try-hard acronym for Hawaii Space Exploration Analogue Simulation. A crew of pseudo-astronauts have been locked inside a fake spaceship on the side of a Hawaiian volcano – presumably because the outside world is the closest thing to a Mars-like environment, but they obviously didn’t consider Bondi Beach – and they’re to pretend it’s a real, live trip to the Red Planet. When things go wrong they’re absolutely on their own. To make the situation even more diabolical, NASA has chucked in a ukulele player.

“To make the situation even more diabolical, NASA has chucked in a ukulele player. No one’s allowed in or out for a whole year.” No one’s allowed in or out for a whole year. Bollocks. Can it possibly work? What can NASA really do about that tiny voice in the corner of each astronaut’s mind that they’re not really, really on Mars? That if stuff goes seriously pear-shaped, then the jailhouse door will open. It’s a flaw in the experiment. A small speck of corruption in the psychological Petri dish. The answer will be blanket AV monitoring to ensure everybody is obeying the rules. Yeah... but so what? We’ve had a decade of Big Brother series to figure that one out. Anyone can game that system. It becomes a tricky contest of trust versus privacy. For example, while NASA can swear on a stack of Isaac Asimov paperbacks there are no cameras in the toilet, is it honestly completely private? Which, in turn, presents a dreadful temptation to the astronauts, because who can

genuinely resist sneaking into the dunny for a quick fag, if you can get away with it? Especially on the way to Mars, which can be a pretty stressful experience. Within this conundrum is a more interesting problem for NASA. That massive amount of AV information that monitors the astronauts’ every move is manageable from the side of a Hawaiian mountain, but what about from Mars? Because when the genuine space-dudes finally do reach their destination, nobody back home is going to care about soil samples, atmospheric tests and growing limp lettuce. The punters will want to see Mars stuff – and hear it. We’ll want a constant stream of high-resolution vision and audio to make the whole project worthwhile. We want to look at the red mountains on the horizon and actually hear the alien’s claws scratching down the outside walls and the astronauts’ terrified screaming inside. That’s a lot of data to stream back to earth; a lot of AV technology on Mars recording and transmitting continuously and sending it 225.3 million kilometres to our Facebook newsfeed. We’ll accept nothing less. The entire world will be infatuated with the first live sound and vision coming from another planet for... oh, several days probably (the Moon isn’t technically a planet). Or at least until the next episode of The Bachelor. It’s fascinating to consider that the efforts being made at HI-SEAS now to stop the pseudoastronauts smoking in the toilet or stabbing the ukulele player to death are a significant step towards preparing for one of the most challenging AV projects ever – a constant Facebook feed from Mars. Awesome. By the way, would you want to be one of those astronauts? For me, given past experiences, it’d depend on the breakfast menu.  Graeme Hague failed the Mars Mission ukelele audition.

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The evolution continues. From next-generation Pro AV tools and Unified Communication and Collaboration peripherals, Vaddio enterprise-class products and solutions elevate AV from a tool for communication into an engine for collaboration. Thanks to those of you that visited Vaddio at Integrate 2015. If you would like to find out more information or to arrange a demonstration please contact a member of the Midwich sales team. Jason Coy, ANZ Sales Manager

Please call our sales team on 1300 666 099 or visit www.midwich.com.au to arrange a technology tour.

OUR E PERTISE IS YOUR ADVANTAGE ' E&OE. Trademarks are the property of respective manufacturers. Calls may be recorded for training or demonstration purposes. Midwich Limited 2015 ÂŠ Midwich Limited, Vinces Road, Diss, Norfolk, IP22 4YT.