AV Issue 50 by Alchemedia Publishing

ASIA PACIFIC

Presents

Rewarding Excellence Celebrating Innovation

BACK IN 2016 AV Asia Pacific’s Audio Visual Industry Awards return in 2016 Submissions will be soon be invited for projects completed in 2015, with a return of the categories: Commercial/Government, Exhibition/Display, Production and Education. Again, the focus is on excellence and innovation — bigger isn’t always better. Even being shortlisted will provide your firm with a big slice of desirable free publicity, not to mention the visceral thrill of a will I/won’t I awards night in front of a room full of your peers. So if your company has what it takes, get prepared. Head to the AVIAs website for more details on previous winners, judging criteria and more.

www.avias.com.au

AETM the association for managers of audiovisual & educational technology

ALIA

ASIA PACIFIC

Dante Ready Switches with Visual Network Monitoring

• Optimized for Dante digital audio networks plus V-LAN presets • etherCon/RJ45 network connectivity • opticalCon multi-mode fibre connectivity (SWP1-8MMF and SWP1-16MMF) • Redundant external DC power supply input • Network visibity with the Yamaha Audio Network Monitor application For more information, go to yamahaproaudio.com or contact Mick Hughes, Commercial Audio Sales & Marketing Manager at mick.hughes@music.yamaha.com VISIT US ONLINE yamahaproaudio.com

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Editorial SpaceX Factor & The Live Stream

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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 © 2016 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. 27/1/2016

write this particular column advisedly as I’m aware we have a good smattering of space nerds among our readership. I watched a SpaceX webcast. It’s hard to believe there are so many goodlooking young MIT grads who by day may be the lead software launch automation engineer and once a year transforms into a webcast presenter with more polish than a veteran Fox News anchor. Eloquent, perfectly coiffed, snappily dressed and with a brain the size of an exo planet. Sickening really. For the non space geeks among us, SpaceX is Elon Musk’s space business. His contention was that sending satellites into space (and even people into space) needn’t be so prohibitively expensive. Mr Musk would apply his big brain and some of the $165m he made from the sale of PayPal to eBay to the conundrum of establishing an affordable space taxi/freight company. Ultimately the aim is to get his ass to Mars. Elon Musk is charismatic and smart. He knows about marketing. He understands the importance of having the general public ‘rooting’ for him and his company. People want SpaceX to succeed; they want Tesla (his electric car project) to succeed. The people he surrounds himself with, or at least the ones who make it to camera on the SpaceX webcast, are super-bright and superenthusiastic. Australians are rather more laconic and there’s part of me that would wish ‘cheery chick with the 165 IQ’ would go away, but ultimately the ‘gee whiz’ tone of the SpaceX ‘broadcast’ is infectious. This issue we chat to three innovators in this region’s webcasting field. Brett Dwyer (Lemac), Tim Chapman (Staging Connections) and Paul Rumble (MCEC) have all been fully blooded in this emerging market. Yes, webcasting has been around a while, but only recently is it truly coming of age. I use the SpaceX example because it’s a such a big target. Here is a high profile company that’s working on something lots of people are interested in. Not so long ago, SpaceX would need to court the major TV networks to come and do a piece on the launch. A news crew

would sit in a field and watch the rocket blast off and it’d be ‘back to the studio’. Not so long ago, there’d be a webcam in the corner of the control room. Geeks would log on and take in the action like flies on a wall. It’s only comparatively recently that organisations like SpaceX and others can produce a high quality package that combines pieces to camera, live crosses, computer graphics, professional looking screen overlays, remote camera feeds and more. The good news is the market will be asking you about webcasting. The bad news is, they’re going to expect something pretty darn good. The good news is, getting that polished package is now imminently attainable, at least from a technical point of view. Like I mention in the Gently Down the Stream article this issue: the internet is a big TV station and there are a million channels – there’s something for everyone, no matter how niche. Anyone staging a live event will now be considering live streaming. As for the SpaceX webcast? It went pretty smoothly. Saying that, not everything went to script. The Falcon rocket attempted to land on a platform out to sea but spectacularly came to grief. Never mind, the attempted landing was only ‘experimental’ and nothing was going to dint the smiles of our Ivy League SpaceX Cadets. And I’ll be back. As far as an hour of ‘TV’ goes, I’ve sat through a lot worse.  Christopher Holder Editorial Director, chris@avapac.net

Next generation mini converters with advanced 12G-SDI and support for all SD, HD and Ultra HD formats up to 2160p60! Teranex Mini converters feature a revolutionary design which for the first time allows you to use the same converter rack mounted, on a desktop or hidden in cable ducts! With 12G-SDI and award winning Teranex quality you get the world’s best converters that work in all SD, HD and Ultra HD formats up to 2160p60. Now you can do production in high frame rate Ultra HD but still use the same converter in SD and HD!

Teranex Mini Smart Panel The easy to install optional front panel adds push button controls and bright color display so you can quickly change settings and see the video and audio levels. You also get on screen menus for all settings. Plus you can administer the converters remotely via the built in ethernet connection on Mac OS X and Windows computers!

Advanced 12G-SDI Teranex Mini converters feature advanced 12G-SDI technology that’s 8 times faster than regular HD-SDI. The 12G-SDI connections are multi rate, automatically detecting and changing between all SD, HD and Ultra HD video formats up to 2160p60 instantly, making them compatible with all of your existing SD and HD equipment.

True Broadcast Connections Teranex Mini features extremely high speed BNC connectors for fast 12G-SDI rates plus professional XLR connectors for balanced analog or AES/EBU audio and timecode. The built in power supply uses a standard IEC AC power connection. Teranex Mini also supports power over ethernet (PoE+) so you don’t even need to plug in AC power!

Legendary Teranex Quality Patented Teranex algorithms, along with 12-bit image processing make Teranex Mini the highest quality mini converters available! You also get SDI re-clocking and extremely low jitter for longer cable runs, along with professional XLR audio with a low noise floor of -115dBFS so analog audio background noise is virtually silent!

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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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Feb/Mar 2016 REGULARS NEWS AV industry and product news highlights from the AV website. Including news from ISE 2016.

INDUSTRY UPDATE News from the AV associations: InfoComm and AETM

TERMINATION Merrily down the stream.

FEATURES

TUNNEL VISION Duran Audio’s tunnel horn loudspeaker brings intelligibility to Ballina road tunnel.

OFF THE HOOK: TELSTRA CIC Telstra’s no-holds-barred insight centre is shaking up the industry.

SMART BY NATURE The AVIA Award-winning Jeffrey Smart Building at the UniSA is smart in more ways than one.

EXPLORE THE SPACE Geelong Grammar School’s new $20m performing arts centre.

TUTORIAL

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM We convene three industry pros to discuss webcasting.

IMAGE TO PROTECT How to verify video system performance.

NEWS

Features: • Super low running cost • Up to 20,000 hours without lamp replacement • Brilliant, natural colour reproduction • Long term projections in daylight possible Tiebreaker question: What would you use the Casio XJ-V1 for?

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· Day and night frame synchronizer. · Vitalizing 10G MediorNet high speed links for smooth ﬂexibility and redundancy

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NEWS

ISE 2016 News

PHOENIX CONDOR MICROPHONE ARRAY

CHRISTIE’S LASER MOVE

POLYCOM CLARITI

The new Condor Microphone Array from Phoenix Audio Technologies is an all-in-one audio system, positioned on top or next to your conferencing monitor, that uses a multi-microphone array to create audio beams that ‘zoom in’ and pick up any voice from distances up to 10m. Equipped with analogue, USB and optical interfaces, it easily connects to any video conferencing system, and uses any type of loudspeakers, including external sound bars or your screen’s internal speakers. The Condor encompasses Phoenix's latest audio technologies, including direction finding, beamforming, echo and noise cancelling, and adaptive gain control. The system has a built-in SIP phone that can be operated and controlled using a dedicated application that runs on most mobile devices. Phoenix Audio Technologies: www.phnxaudio.com Australian Distributor: 1800 788 889 or www.madisontech.com.au

Christie Digital has launched its HS Series: what it calls the world’s brightest 1DLP laser phosphor projector. The series consists of the D12HD-HS and D12WU-HS projectors which deliver HD and WUXGA resolution, respectively. Both are housed in a compact chassis that is among the quietest 10,000+ lumens laser phosphor projector on the market. The Christie HS Series is capable of 360° orientation and portrait mode with colour matching and advanced blending, warping and stacking software built in. The Christie HS Series also offers a full lens suite covering 0.84:1 up to 7.2:1, 3GSDI and DVI-D loop thru connections so signals can be daisy chained without external boxes, and optional fog filters. It is well suited to those needing bright and rich images including rental stagers, corporations, hotels, public spaces, and entertainment venues. Christie Digital: www.christiedigital.com or www.vrs.com.au

RealPresence Clariti is simple, cloud-ready collaboration infrastructure software with support for a variety of collaboration ecosystems and a licensing system that now includes subscription and perpetual models. Customers can deploy the RealPresence Clariti solution in a number of applications including on-oremises, though hybrid or hosted Internet as a Service (IaaS) offerings from partners, or directly in their own cloud network. Clariti includes Polycom RealConnect capability, allowing Skype for Business users and other platforms to seamlessly connect without altering each native experience. Hybrid cloud bursting is also added to RealPresence Clariti. Should existing network resources become insufficient to meet collaboration needs, meeting participants are seamlessly and automatically transitioned into secure Polycom cloud resources with no interruption to the collaboration experience. Polycom: www.polycom.com.au

ATEN HDMI HDBASET LITE MATRIX SWITCH

ANALOG WAY 4K FORMAT CONVERTER

BARIX SOUNDSCAPE

ATEN releases its first HDMI HDBaseT-Lite Matrix Switches, the VM3404H and VM3909H. The new additions extend uncompressed video, audio, power and control via HDBaseT through a single LAN cable up to 70m. The versatile switches support video wall, Seamless Switch and Power over HDBaseT (PoH) functions when used in combination with a selected ATEN receiver. “The VM3404H and VM3909H can deliver video content over large distances which can be displayed using various screen layouts, making ATEN’s new product range ideal for more challenging digital signage and video wall applications. Additionally, the VM3909H fills the current market demand for an easy-to-install, 3x3 video wall solution,” said Kevin Chen, President of ATEN International. The VM3404H and VM3909H offer flexibility through their choice of control methods, such as front-panel pushbuttons, IR channel ports, RS-232 and Ethernet connections. Bi-directional IR channel ports support control of AV sources locally at the switch or remotely at the display. ATEN: www.aten.com

Analog Way’s VIO 4K multi-format converter is designed to be the ultimate video processing toolbox with seven inputs and digital connectivity enabling the conversion of a multitude of signals — great for non-standard signal management, notably LED video walls. The NeXtage 08 is Analog Way’s latest highend Seamless Switcher added to the LiveCore series. It offers 28 input plugs and is equipped with eight scalers, eight seamless inputs and two main outputs. The device can handle any source from composite video up to 2560x1600 (DVI Dual-link available). It also outputs a variety of formats up to 2560x1600. Full 4K resolution I/O is available as an optional feature. The next firmware version (V03) for the Vertige widescreen/multi-screen configuration remote console was showcased at ISE 2016. The new firmware version supports the latest LiveCore features: 4K inputs, Layer Cut & Fill, advanced layer management, and monitoring widget layout customisation. Analog Way: www.analogway.com Australian Distributor: www.axisav.com.au

Barix’s SoundScape is an ideal platform to help retail, hospitality and other businesses — and the service providers that manage playlists and audio delivery — to get shoppers in the right mood. The company has introduced a cost-efficient starter package, which includes licenses for the first 50 audio players, eliminates expensive annual contracts in favour of monthly credit card payments. The starter package allows businesses up and running at multiple locations to enhance sonic branding, with nominal fees for additional single player licenses as business needs to expand. Based on Barix’s WAN-based audio-overIP approach, the package is well suited to systems integrators seeking a multi-site audio distribution and management system that accelerates launch, and minimises labor and materials. SoundScape is quick to deploy thanks to its self-discovering architecture across its central management portal and remote audio players. Barix: www.barix.com Australian Distributor: www.hills.com.au

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

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.

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NEWS

TVONE: ONERACK ATTACK

ATLONA 4K PUSH

REVOLABS' STATE OF FLX

tvONE has launched CORIOmaster and CORIOmaster mini video wall processors, offering ‘anything in, anything out’ capability, fully covering 4K. Also new is the tvONE 1T-MV-8474 4K Multiviewer, allowing simultaneous display of up to four video windows via 16 different fixed layouts. CORIOgrapher v2 software speeds up the creation and set up process of custom video walls. The new MultiView II Dual DVI-Tx Morph-It Card is a dual digital video transmitter card compatible with the MVII-DVI-Rx-1k receiver, plus the entire MultiView product family. The tvONE C2-2855 high-performance scaler now has an auto-switching feature enhancement, simplifying BYOD connectivity by detecting the incoming video’s resolution. tvONE's new 1T-CL-322 control panel was introduced as a userfriendly, cost-effective Ethernet-based solution for system automation and remote control. The company has also announced ONErack, a universal rack mounting system allowing up to 32 devices from any manufacturer to be mounted in just 4RU. ONErack accommodates for different device sizes and voltages, so say goodbye to wall warts. Comes in three sizes; 4U, 5U and 6U. tvONE: www.tvone.com Australian Distributor: www.corsairsolutions.com.au

Atlona’s new HDVS-200 Series is designed to provide comprehensive and automatic control of AV systems and expand the input capabilities of Atlona’s 4K/ UHD matrix switchers. The company’s plans include a continued focus on commercial and educational collaboration solutions, increased selection in the category of 4K/UHD distribution amplifiers, and significant feature enhancements for new software and 4K hardware platforms launched last year. Ronni Guggenheim, GM of Atlona International, said that Atlona will introduce a new collaboration system for huddle spaces and classrooms; the company’s first 4K-capable line of HDBaseT distribution amps for distance applications; new multi-format commercial switchers; and updates to the new AMS system management software. “Integrators will also see that we’ve listened to what additional features they wanted on the 4K products we launched last year and that many of those enhancements, like advanced display control, are being included,” said Guggenheim. Atlona: www.atlona.com Australian Distributor: www.midwich.com.au

Revolabs demonstrated the entire FLX UC family of IP and USB conference phones, which offers a complete portfolio of UC solutions with crystal-clear audio and stand-alone communication capabilities. The FLX UC 500, UC 1000, and UC 1500 conference phones feature powerful, high-fidelity audio capabilities that combine premium tweeter and midwoofer elements, four integrated microphones, and audio technology such as acoustic echo cancellation and full duplex support. Revolabs also demonstrated the latest enhancements to its flagship Executive Elite wireless microphone systems, including selectable LED behaviour to indicate microphone status, fast-connect AVB, a new web interface, and over-the-air synchronisation. The new Elite Wired Microphones were on display, with Local and External Control — ideal for environments that use wired, wireless, or a combination of the two microphone types. New this year is a five-wire microphone which offers local mute control — meaning that muting can be controlled both remotely and on the mic itself. Revolabs: www.revolabs.com Australian Distributor: www.hills.com.au

DPA UP FRONT

VBRICK REV ENHANCEMENTS

ZEEVEE VIDEO ZYP

DPA showed off a range of microphone solutions at ISE 2016, ideally suited to the conference and AV install markets. These included elegant microphones for hanging, podiums, table or floor stands, versatile bodyworn microphones (including d:screet miniature microphones and d:fine headset microphones), and barely visible miniature microphones — all delivering DPA’s acclaimed audio and build quality. "In any conference, lecture or meeting situation, ensuring that speakers can be clearly heard and understood is vital for the success of an event," says Anne Berggrein, DPA's VP of Marketing. "The microphone is the first link in the audio chain, so it makes perfect sense to introduce the highest possible quality at that point.” DPA Microphones: www.dpamicrophones.com Australian Distributor: www.ambertech.com.au

VBrick revealed exciting new capabilities at ISE 2016 that give organisations new flexibility and simplicity to use the video sources they already have for scalable, secure webcasting for communications and knowledge sharing. 2015 saw VBrick add several enhancements to the Rev enterprise video platform including UI enhancements, enterprise video distribution capabilities and Cisco integration. Rev now includes an enhanced rich media creation tool that fully integrates with Rev’s video management and distribution capabilities to empower subject matter experts to publish rich media presentations that can be shared organisation-wide. VBrick also displayed how Cisco Spark users can scalably share video within Cisco’s collaboration platform. VBrick: www.vbrick.com Corsair Solutions: (03) 9005 9861 or www.corsairsolutions.com.au

ZeeVee demonstrated its new video distribution solutions, ZyPer4K CATx and ZyPerMX, at ISE 2016. The new ZyPer4K CATx expands upon the ZyPer4K platform that switches and distributes uncompressed Ultra-HD video, audio and RS232/ IR control signals leveraging off-the-shelf 10GB Ethernet switching products, with support for CATx infrastructures. The ZyPerMX HD IP video encoder uses H.264 encoding technology and provides a bridge between the current high definition iSeries and the 4K/UHD ZyPer4K products. It represents an affordable IP video encoding solution, enabling customers to deliver live TV and archived content over their Ethernet networks. ISE visitors were also able to see demos of ZeeVee’s extensive product family of RF/Coax encoders and modulators. ZeeVee: www.zeevee.com Midwich: 1300 666 099 or www.midwich.com.au

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

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NEWS

d&b AUDIOTECHNIK

DIGITAL PROJECTION

EXTRON

d&b audiotechnik’s new B22 is a multipurpose omnidirectional subwoofer that’s a new take on the brand’s well known and loved B2-Sub. The B22Sub houses two 18-inch neodymium drivers in an efficient bandpass horn design producing high SPL and an extended frequency response. Intended for ground stacked applications, the omnidirectional B22-Sub promises increased performance, a modern appearance and improved internal cabinet bracing. d&b also released the DS10 audio network bridge, designed specifically for d&b amplifiers. It provides 16 AES3 output channels via Dante through Ethernet, four AES3 input channels, and an integrate five-port network switch. In use, the DS10 allows multiple channels to be sent from the console to amplifiers using a single network cable, where it distributes the audio signals to the AES3 inputs within the d&b amps. d&b audiotechnik: www.dbaudio.com Australian Distributor: www.nationalaudio.com.au

Digital Projection’s next-gen Highlite Laser II maintains the original’s 20,000 hours of illumination (without lamp replacments), and now the secondgeneration product boasts an impressive 13,000 ANSI lumens of brightness. Other key features include the introduction of all-new electronics that offer improved video processing and a full 120Hz processing path from DisplayPort Sequential 120Hz or 60Hz per input Dual-pipe HDMI. Image Edge Blending is included as standard, along with advanced geometric correction. HDBaseT, DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI ensure that the connectivity is comprehensively future-proofed. The HIGHlite Laser II ships mid Q2 2016. Digital Projection: www.digitalprojection.co.uk Australian Distributor: www.ambertech.com.au

Extron Electronics announced the immediate availability of the DTP CrossPoint 86 4K, a presentation matrix switcher featuring an 8x6 I/O configuration. It joins the highly versatile product lineup of the DTP CrossPoint 4K Series that include a matrix switcher with 4K inputs and outputs, built-in 4K scalers, seamless switching and logo insertion, integrated DTP and XTP signal extension, comprehensive audio DSP and AEC capabilities, and a high performance mono or stereo amplifier. The DTP CrossPoint 86 4K includes four built-in scalers that are paired to the DTP outputs and enable independent scaling up to 4K. DTP CrossPoint 86 4K IPCP models feature an integrated Extron IP Link Pro control processor, with the advanced features, processing power, and breakthrough technologies found in the standalone Extron IPCP Pro 350 control processor. Extron Electronics: www.extron.com

RIEDEL DOES THE TANGO

SYMETRIX LOOKS TO PRISM

TERACUE EYEVIS IS STREAMING

The Tango TNG-200 from Riedel represents its first network-based platform supporting AES67 and AVB standards. With its own dedicated intercom application, the platform can be turned into a flexible solution for a variety of communications scenarios. The RSP-2318 Smartpanel boasts a unique feature set that includes three high-resolution, sunlightreadable, multitouch colour displays; high-quality stereo audio; a multilingual character set; and 18 keys in just 1U. Riedel’s first app for the RSP-2318 turns the Smartpanel into an innovative and smart intercom panel. MicroN from Riedel is an 80G media distribution network device for Riedel’s MediorNet line of media transport and management solutions. It is a high-density signal interface with a complete array of audio, video and data I/O. MicroN is available as a fully networked MediorNet device, as well as in a point-topoint edition. Riedel: www.riedel.net

Symetrix has announced the launch of its Prism digital signal processing platform, available immediately. Symetrix Prism is comprised of four products, varying only in I/O count and form factor. Prism 4x4 features four inputs and four outputs, power over Ethernet (PoE+), and a compact half-rack format. Prism 8x8, 12x12 and 16x16 utilise an external power supply along with a 1U form factor. DSP, analogue audio, and converter technologies are identical in all four products. Prism features the same digital signal processing power, mic preamps and AD/DA converters as Symetrix’s Radius and Edge products, while providing expansion via 64 channels of bi-directional Dante networking. An embedded web server enables remote audio metering and diagnostics of Prism hardware. Symetrix: www.symetrix.co Production Audio Video Technology: (03) 9264 8000 or www.pavt.com.au

Teracue Eyevis has released the new ENC-400 H.264 fanless video encoder and recorder. It is able to deliver multiple streams in multiple bit rates and protocols to multiple destinations. The built-in frame synchroniser guarantees stable signal processing, and the input-tooutput loops can be used for redundancy switching or as two sources for individual encoding. The company has also announced ICUE-GRID, a decentralised IPbased multi-room video wall solution. It offers flexible positioning of videos in any resolution up to 4K on a video wall, using the IP network to distribute signals. Every display has its own processing unit mounted at the back, all of which are managed by the web-based ICUE-GRID controller that can be installed anywhere on the network. Karl-Heinz Wenisch, CTO of Teracue Eyevis says: “Both ENC-400 and ICUE-GRID products are perfect examples of our effort to bring our many years of experience in high quality video distribution over IP to new application areas.” Teracue Eyevis: www.teracue.com

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

Rack it. Power it. Cool it. Do it with the ONErack! Mount up to 32 devices from any manufacturer in just 4RU

ons. ti a ll ta s in e e fr s s e ick & str u q to y a w w e n e Th M60 1 th o o B n o lf e rs you Come and see for Hey rack builders and service engineers! How much do you like power supplies and small devices? How much do you love it when you have one small device like a transmitter, scaler, DA, etc. fail and in order to get it out of the rack you have to cut 50 cable ties, wipe the blood off of 4 new scratches and pray that you haven’t unplugged anything by accident? tvONE has developed a universal rack mounting system for all manufacture’s small devices – different sizes and different voltages! Throw away the power supplies! And even cool them! Comes in three sizes, 4RU, 5RU, 6RU. It’s called the ONErack.

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NEWS

VISION HDMI SPLITTER

MOVI: MULTI-CAM SHOTS FROM ONE CAMERA

AVOLITES AIR APPARENT

Vision has released a new 1-to-4 HDMI splitter which uses a new 4K chipset. It has a much smaller chassis and lower price than the model it replaces. The Techconnect HDMI14 distribution amplifier has a fully revised design with faster 10.2Gbps bandwidth. It supports 3D at 1080P (but not 4K), Deep Colour, and Lip Sync. It has automatic EDID management and noise reduction circuitry. Vision says it supports a signal transmission distance of up to 15m at 4K/12bit colour when used with a standard Vision 15 metre cable. The Techconnect HDMI14 is shipping now and goes for A$259. Vision: www.visionaudiovisual.com Hills SVL: 1800 685 487 or www.hillssvl.com.au

Movi is a nifty, pocket-sized camera recently released by Livestream. Designed for real-time sharing, the Movi features a single, 150° all-glass lens with a 4K sensor, yet its picture can be broken into multiple ‘virtual’ shots to generate an on-the-fly multi-cam setup. What’s more, you can edit these shots while you film using an iOS device. Live editing includes the ability to pan, zoom, and cut between multiple live shots from a single camera, providing the same storytelling capabilities used in professional live TV productions. Built-in people detection and movement tracking features even allow Movi to make editing decisions for you. Movi works with Livestream Studio and Livestream Platform. Movi: www.getmovi.com Corsair Solutions: (03) 9005 9861 or www.corsairsolutions.com.au

A highlight of the Avolites stand was the new Ai R Series — Avolites’ most powerful Ai servers yet, utilising a six-core i7 processor running at 3.5GHz with 16GB of fast RAM, solid-state drives throughout, 1.2TB of media storage and benefits from up to 25% increased performance from the AMD W7100 due to twice as much GDDR5 memory and a significant increase in bus speeds. Visitors were also among the first to get a sneak preview of the much-anticipated Titan V10 software which enhances the best loved features of V9 including even more pixel mapping functionality, fully custom Key Frame Shape engine and fully featured theatre functionality. Also on show was the new Arena console with Optical Titan New Switch (TNS), both of which are shipping now, and Avolites’ complete Titan Net solutions. Avolites: www.avolites.com Australian Distributor: www.shsglobal.biz

NEW CRESTRON TOUCH

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The Crestron family of intuitive touchscreens continues to grow. The new TS-1542 features stunning metal construction and a brilliant 15-inch capacitive touch screen with striking Crestron Smart Graphics that enables integrators to deliver a large-format interface at an affordable price. The TS-1542 boasts the feature-set of the TSW touchscreen line, as well as flexible installation options for in-wall applications or a stylish tilt table-top stand. The high-definition streaming video capability of the TS-1542 makes it possible to view security cameras and other video sources over the network right on the touchscreen. Native support for H.264 and MJPEG formats allows the display of live streaming video from IP cameras, a streaming server, or a DigitalMedia switcher. One wire is all that is required for installation, with a standard Ethernet cable handling power, control, and media. Crestron: www.crestronasia.com

Kramer’s VP-558 is a powerful 11x4 ProScale presentation scaler/matrix switcher that can output four independent scaled images with embedded audio via both HDMI and HDBaseT. Featuring Kramer’s own scaling technology, VP-558’s four independent scaled outputs are ideal for applications that require multiple screens of various sizes and resolutions at different distances from the cabinet or rack. The product’s HDBaseT inputs and scaled outputs offer the flexibility to use a variety of input and output devices that are far away from the switching unit. The versatile VP-558 features six HDMI and four HDBaseT inputs along with an analogue VGA input. The unit includes a 4x1 USB switcher, independent stereo audio outputs and a line output. VP-558 also has a microphone input, an amplified speaker output and audio DSP. VP-558’s control options include extensive built-in web pages, OSD and RS-232. The presentation scaler/matrix switcher’s combination of features makes it flexible and cost-effective for a wide variety of installations. Karmer AV: www.krameraustralia.com.au

Tripleplay has unveiled a variety of new products. Aimed at the sports industry in particular, the Tripleplay HD Encoder is a super low latency encoder delivering 250ms video, glass to glass. Tripleplay’s new Mobile Media App allows off-network video streaming, content upload, live TV recording, chat and secure encrypted download of video files for off-network playback. Using patent pending technology, Tripleplay has developed the High Density Wifi Video Streaming solution using a mix of forward error correction and live reporting to deliver a smooth video experience for the user even among densely packed audiences and many mobile devices trying to access rich media from communal wifi. The Tripleplay BART software platform brings new features to the table including 4K, Samsung SSP and interactive touchscreen support, as well as improved server efficiency, load management and scalability. Tripleplay: www.tripleplay-services.com.au

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

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018

Tunnel Vision Duran Audio horn tames Byron Bay tunnel.

“I

much prefer a cathedral, this is far worse.” Acoustic Directions’ Glenn Leembruggen has been called into some hostile acoustic environments before but this may well be the most brutal. It’s the Syria of sonic spaces; it’s the St Helena road tunnel just north of Byron Bay in northern NSW. “There’s not even any bitumen, the road is concrete.” In an environment that’s unremittingly hard and reflective, a layer of asphalt is blessed (absorptive) relief. According to Leembruggen’s measurements the 400m tunnel has a reverb time of around 8s at 250-500Hz, which falls gradually to 4s at 8kHz. Ouch. Suffice it to say, installing any kind of PA into this kind of environment (let alone an emergency announcement system that could potentially save lives) is difficult. Savage acoustics aside, road tunnels have a couple of other factors that adversely impact on the performance of a loudspeaker system. Traffic noise is the most obvious contributor. If you have an emergency situation where a collision is blocking traffic you need the public address system to be heard inside every vehicle’s cabin over the ambient engine noise of hundreds of cars and trucks.

The other X factor is the extraction fans. During an emergency where there may be a fire and smoke, huge jet fans kick in, sucking out as much of the smoke and fumes as it can. The fans are noisy. Traditionally, hundreds of daisy-chained 100V constant voltage speaker boxes would line a tunnel all set to the same time-zero. The STI from such a system would be miserably low. STI stands for Speech Intelligibility Index. A score of 1 is perfect and a score of 0 perfectly dreadful. A score of 0.5 is the sort of benchmark you’d find specified for an emergency message system in a tunnel. Scoring 0.5 with a conga line of 100V speakers is just not going to happen. Duran Audio gave this some thought and introduced the AXYS ABF-260 tunnel horn. The product is based on a 100W single compression driver with a two-inch voice coil, but the trick is in the horn. The ABF-260 is installed onto the ceiling of the tunnel, pointing down the length of the tunnel and between each lane of traffic. The official dimensions of the horn is 1391mm(L) x 892mm(W) x 345mm(H) but the ceiling of the tunnel actually serves as part of the waveguide. The bright idea means you decrease lateral (sideto-side) reflections quite considerably by using the ceiling as part of the baffle.

The next part of Duran’s cunning plan is to time delay each bank of speakers back to the opening of the tunnel. This approach results in a constant coherent wavefront down the length of the tunnel. Duran’s constant voltage amps pack delay and EQ onboard and are the two main levers acousticians, Glenn Leembruggen and David Gilfillan, have to pull during the commissioning process. The distance between the of the speaker banks are measured (Duran Audio recommend around a 50m spacing) to assist in setting the optimum delay. From there they sweep the space to determine the best EQ curve that’ll provide the best possible intelligibility outcome. The result is a big, acoustically ugly space that’s brought to heel. It’s not magically transformed into the concertgebouw, but the emergency messages are easily comprehended.  Head to the AV Asia Pacific YouTube channel for our video on the commissioning of the Duran Audio system. Go ‘youtube.com/avmagazinetv’ CMI (AXYS by Duran Audio): (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au Duran Audio: duran-audio.com Acoustic Directions: (02) 9568 4684 or www.acousticdirections.com

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020

FEATURE

Off The Hook

Telstra Customer Insight Centre This isn’t so much a story about an AV ‘Disneyland’ as it is about who designed and integrated it. Text:/ Christopher Holder

elstra is the 300-pound gorilla at the AV dinner party. Up until now it was contentedly doing it own thing — munching on telco bananas in the corner — but now it’s decided it wants a place at the table and it stands to reason some other ‘guests’ will have to make way. If you want proof as to just how serious Telstra is about moving into the AV space then look no further than the Customer Insight Centre (CIC). No other integrator or supplier in this region has the wherewithal to come close to the ambition of this showpiece. There’s nothing quite like it — certainly not in Australia; not in the Asia Pacific region; and it’s in elite company worldwide. What’s more, it’s all the result of Telstra expertise. Sure, specialist know-how has been brought in for various aspects (like any ambitious project) but Telstra has designed, integrated and installed everything you see at the CIC.

DON’T WASTE MY TIME

The CIC is not Telstra’s first rodeo — there have been other customer ‘inspiration’ and ‘experience’ centres before it — but this centre is a result of Telstra’s most recent market feedback. Mostly what they’ve been hearing from clients is: “don’t waste our time”. “Our customers’ feedback has been: we want value for time,” noted CIC General Manager David Woodbridge. “So when a client says they’re going to spend some time with Telstra — an hour, a day or three days — they want to ensure they’re getting value out of it. And looking at the traditional demonstration spaces, they just weren’t cutting it. Effectively we are now competing with Google search: it’s easy to look up a product or watch a demonstration video, find information and pricing. We needed to provide something more.”

And thus the Customer Insight Centre was born. More than an ‘experience’, more than a provider of ‘inspiration’, the CIC is a veritable blank AV canvas to paint a story specifically designed and researched for Telstra customers in their market sector. From the moment the client arrives on Level 2 of the George Street building, they embark on a bespoke journey. The Telstra team has already prepared a ‘playbook’ to ensure the customer’s experience is relevant to them; that the centre addresses the questions pertinent to their business. At the back end, the playbook is driven by a purpose-built CMS that allows Telstra to push content to the right screen at the right time. Content is also triggered via beacons communicating with tablets provided to delegates, and/or via RFID in the client’s name badge.

FEATURE

021

Quite the Reception: The reception screens play an important welcoming role. Upon arrival, guests have a photo taken of them which appear on their personalised tablet along with the fully-interactive Planar display wall. The screens can also display live (curated) Yammer and Facebook feeds pertinent to the group.

BOARDROOM Telstra’s vision of a modern boardroom is hi-tech, high-design and just a little bit playful. A QR code is designed into the carpet (yes, it will take you to the Telstra site) and a LED curtain provides some colour-changing life. From a technology standpoint, the Cisco camera tracking system is a drawcard, with its ability to triangulate whoever’s holding the floor, and via facial recognition recall and track a presenter’s position around the table. Although ClearOne’s microphone beamforming systems are used elsewhere in the CIC, the boardroom advocates table-embedded microphones, while Extron laptop interfaces are neatly integrated into the table as well. Automation reigns supreme, everything from the lights to the blinds, the VC and the presentation facilities, via AMX touch and Telstra’s distinctive control GUI.

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FEATURE

PARTNERSHIP HUB Welcome to the Partnership Hub. It’s a zone for delegates to be wow’ed by the breadth of strategic partnerships and subsidiaries Telstra has in its worldwide corporate orbit. For example, Telstra recently acquired PacNet, and the Hub can graphically demonstrate how its reach has increased markedly in the Far East. “It goes back to shifting expectations,” noted David Woodbridge. “We want to have a conversation with clients, we don’t want to stand in front of a presentation, and the Partnership Hub provides the inspirational environment to have that conversation.

EXHIBITION SPACE This flexible exhibition space can be easily reset to demonstrate how a business might ‘go digital’. The team can highlight a certain solution — from signage, to interactive touch, to payment gateways — and allow delegates to literally ‘walk through’ a concept. David Woodbridge describes the thinking behind the ‘blank canvas’ nature of the space: “We’ve learnt from previous centres not to build anything permanent — they quickly get dusty and uninspiring. We had a Big Four bank through here, we’ve had a surf shop, we had a school, and in each case we put the sets in, then overlaid them with technology. It tells the customer engagement story. So rather than the space being a permanent hospital or school, it’s a supremely flexible environment.”

Even the most hard-headed CFO will get a little bit excited and a little more engaged. Much more than if you clicked through a PowerPoint.” The Stonehenge-like assembly of three 3m-high 4.5mm pixel-pitch NanoCurve displays from NanoLumens go from the floor to a reflective ceiling and create an immersive space where product and services solutions take on both intimacy and immediacy. It's also a great area to play PlayStation (apparently!). The subwoofer concealed in the centre seating works a treat.

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023

024

FEATURE

Off The Hook

Telstra Customer Insight Centre

DREAM THEATRE With its Meyer Sound Constellation variable acoustics surround sound system and huge NanoLumens 4K LED screen on stage, the CIC 300-seat Theatre is truly one of a kind. “There’s actually one other like it in the world,” demurred CIC Manager David Woodbridge, “that has the Meyer Constellation system and a 4K video wall.” Meyer Constellation addresses a problem most performance venues suffer from: the need for multifunctionality. The problem is, multi-function venues often end up being ‘no-function’ venues — at least from an acoustical perspective. Aside for the likes of the thoroughbred opera house or concert hall, most performing arts centres need to be as adept at hosting theatre, one-man comedy shows, cinema and rock ’n’ roll as it might be staging deb balls or travelling opera shows. The staging and lighting might be able to cope with the diverse roster, but the acoustics don’t. A concert hall needs around 12 cubic metres per patron to achieve anything like an optimal acoustic for a symphony orchestra to bloom, while spoken word

is best appreciated in a smaller/deader space with a commensurate ~5 cubic metres per patron. The ‘happy medium’ acoustic of most performance venues is not happy at all. Constellation’s pitch is that it can electronically provide you with the perfect room acoustic, best suited to the application. It’s a seriously tech-heavy solution. It’s certainly not just a fancy surround sound system — there are far cheaper ways of setting up a hi-spec multichannel audio system for flying sound around a room — Dolby Atmos or Barco Auro for a start. No, multichannel surround is more of a byproduct of the setup rather than the main game. To be clear, constellation is not an artificial reverberation system, yet Constellation can change the apparent acoustics of the room, electronically. Here’s how: a matrix of dozens of DPA reference microphones ‘sniff’ or ‘sample’ the room in real time, feeding into a powerful Meyer D-Mitri DSP mainframe (the brain of Constellation). A newly-generated soundfield, created in a natural manner by adding many finely-tuned delays to the input, is output through a multitude of criticallyplaced Meyer Sound loudspeakers.

It’s enormously DSP-intensive but the results are truly spectacular. Constellation’s synthesised delays interact in a way that mimics real-world audio and become a natural component of the room’s resulting reverberant field, as treated audio blends with the room’s original audio. It’s not simply about hearing the performer in the right environment, you as the patron share that same space — rustle your packet of Jaffas, or sneeze, and you hear yourself in the same ‘concert hall’ or ‘cinema’. The microphone and speaker positions, together with processing calibration ensure that feedback and phase cancellation are not issues. In fact, such is the sensitivity of the system that the theatre’s AV team mostly don’t bother with a lav or headset for on-stage presenters, rather, they’ll rely on the Constellation’s microphones to capture speech, which will be happily output to the system in a way that sounds utterly natural. Saying that, Anthony Lorraine, the Chief Theatre Technology Manager can virtually place the gathered delegates into a bathroom, the Grand Canyon or the acoustics of anywhere in between with the click of a mouse. Constellation’s CueStation control software has a Space Map feature that allows Anthony to map the theatre

025

FEATURE

and draw in a custom panning curve — something impressively evident when he allowed the speakers and subs to stretch their legs with a thunderstorm location recording that rippled dramatically around the room. In audio terms, Constellation is the showstopper, it’s up there with the master conjurer making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Credit must go to the consultants, Arup — initially led by Nathan Blum and then Ben Moore, and to the system designer (the audio luminary, Bob McCarthy). You have to hear it to believe it, and even when you do, you’re left shaking your head in amazement. The hugely impressive NanoLumens NanoSlim Engage 2.5mm native 4K on-stage display (NanoLumens’ new hi-res, large-scale visualisation solution), is forced to play the role of technical bridesmaid. But there’s no doubting the 8.5m x 6.2m display is the room’s visual focus. For events such as the 2015 ARIA nominations announcement the display comes into its own. It’s impossible to pull your eyes away from the stage. An Analog Way Ascender 32 vision processor makes it easier for the theatre staff to drag ’n’ drop as many as eight PIPs on screen. There are some 30 inputs

including SDI, the rarely used VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, and the six in-house Sony BRC-H900 PTZ cameras, with up to 12 inputs selectable at any one time. Any of those sources can then be moved around the screen with a mouse. A Lightware 4K matrix switcher does more of the heavy lifting in the machine room. The simplicity of the Ascender 32 interface belies the grunt required to ensure glitch-free operation. Anthony Lorraine: “We have to be versatile. I had a simple videoconference this morning with five or 10 sites. In those circumstances there may only be three of us: a stage manager, myself, and someone else on the mixing console manning the lapels. At the other extreme we might have a whole-day bump in, 30-odd people on crew, we might be producing broadcast feeds, a different operator on cameras, media, lighting, sound etc.” It’s one helluva fancy video conferencing space. But with the Sony PTZ cameras, ClearOne VC systems and BSS echo cancelling DSP, the theatre happily slums it for ‘townhall’ meetings and the like. There are DVM capabilities, which means Telstra can share content with as many as 70 possible broadcast destinations,

including Fox, free-to-air channels, Chief and others. The DVM capabilities also mean Telstra can set up super-high bandwidth video conferences between its main offices.

CONTACTS Meyer Sound: (07) 3267 7800 or www.meyersound.com.au Digital Place Solutions (NanoLumens): 0412 339 489 or gerry@digitalplacesolutions.com Arup: (03) 9668 5500 or www.arup.com PAVT (ClearOne): (03) 9264 8000 or sales@productionaudio.com.au Lightware: www.lightware.com.au Sony Professional: (02) 9887 0586 or amanda.aldridge@ap.sony.com Axis Audio (Analog Way): www.axisav.com.au Jands (BSS): (02) 9582 0909 or info@jands.com.au

026

“So if Coca-Cola came in here, all of the screens would change to Coca-Cola,” explained Woodbridge. “Ten minutes later you might have Qantas coming through and all the screens instantly change to be Qantas-focussed. It means we don’t have to spend the time managing the screen content; the playbook can be prepared in advance.” The in-house AV team is constantly on a Defcon 1 state of alert. The stakes are high, as are the standards — if you’re relying on your AV to blow people away, a dead display or a glitchy touchscreen interface means much more than an embarrassed quip and a “technology is nice when it works” rejoinder. It could potentially scupper a million-dollar deal. The in-house team has invested heavily in its own AMX programming. The new interface is instantly recognisable as ‘Telstra’ but stripped of all but what’s necessary for that room. A boardroom video conference will be ready in no more than three minutes, for example. That’s the guarantee. The CIC is Telstra’s way of saying to blue-chip CTOs: “We know your business. We know technology. We can do this. We’re your end-to-end solution provider.” Andrew Calov is Telstra’s lead AV architect and a man unwilling to endure the AV status quo for any length of time. Whether you knew it or not, Andrew and his team have been doing highlevel integration work for some time now. Up to this point you may not have heard about the job because it’s more often than not servicing key Telstra clients and it didn’t go out to tender. But trust me, he leads a force to be reckoned with. (SYSTEMS) INTEGRATION

The CIC is undoubtedly impressive but is it really more than the plaything of a corporate giant? Does it really pay for itself? Andrew Calov is adamant it does: “Take the example of our CIC boardroom. Prior to visiting, the conversation quite often doesn’t go much beyond: ‘how much for a boardroom?’. But that changes when people are here and quite spontaneously they start thinking of ideas. We had one of the big banks in here recently discussing activity-based working, and they had an idea, where we could install a CO2 sensor to determine how many people were in the meeting room. Then they could send an email saying ‘please don't book this room with only three people attending’. It’s becoming a science and the results are a more efficient use of space.”

FEATURE

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FEATURE

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029

FEATURE

Off The Hook

Telstra Customer Insight Centre

RING TONE The Insight Ring is a remarkable piece of display technology and design. It dominates the floor. Impossible to ignore, it immediately puts customers on high alert: this session is going to be much more than ‘death by Powerpoint’ and ‘these guys clearly know technology’. The ring beckons, you just want to get inside it. It’s like some sort of ‘stargate’ — an alien space/ time portal — promising a glimpse into another dimension, which isn’t so far from the truth. In it Telstra can accommodate a single delegate or 20+, with the media team providing industry insights pertinent to the client’s industry. The experience is truly immersive, with the NanoLumens 4mm pixel pitch LED working with a multichannel audio system. The Telstra team approached NanoLumens with the original concept — a circle tilted at 17° — designed to appear as if it was hanging in free space. The drawings were sent to NanoLumens HQ in Atlanta for a detailed engineering solution. Doug Price, Director of Systems Engineering: “The tilt places a lot more stress on the structure than a regular ‘flat’ ring — with the 17° tilt it can distort under its own weight. Any distortion would cause a misalignment in the pixels. And at a 4.5mm pixel pitch it only takes half a millimetre before you see a distortion.” Part of the answer was to keep weight to an absolute minimum and be utterly precise with the rigging — Doug and his team managed to pare down the number of rigging points from eight to two while maintaining the structural integrity. In fact, a last-minute curve ball — the outer shroud ended up being supplied quite a bit heavier than anticipated — was absorbed by the engineering. One of NanoLumens’ hallmarks, as a specialist indoor LED provider, is how cool its panels run, which was a crucial consideration in this case — a dozen business suits will warm up quickly but noise from cooling fans would detract from the experience. Without a lot of ambient light the screens’ output need only tick over at around 25% of their possible output. Combine that with NanoLumens’ 82% efficiency and you have a display that’s cool to the touch. Another key aspect of Nanolumens winning the job was in its colour rendering. As you can imagine, colour is everything in corporate branding, so not only must the panels represent the specific Pantone with accuracy, that accuracy must be maintained from panel-to-panel and at virtually any viewing angle. Remarkably, as you stand inside the 4m-across ring with LED in all directions, there’s no discernible colour shift. Digital Place Solutions (Nanolumens): 0412 339 489 or gerry@digitalplacesolutions.com

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FEATURE

STUDIO The CIC Studio is a fully 4K-ready broadcast studio, and a Sony Professional showcase, of sorts. One headturning product is the Sony NXL-IP55 IP Live Production Unit. The NXL-IP55 enables multiple video data streams to be transmitted over an IP Local Area Network (LAN) — up to four video streams (three downstream and one up, or two down/two up). The system maintains broadcast quality full HD video over the IP network. There are 2 x NXLIP55 deployed in the project installation. One is located in the CIC, the other is at Chief Entertainment studio across town. The pairing meets Telstra’s requirement for a direct link

between the two studios. It also allows remote control and communication at full broadcast quality. Two types of Sony broadcast cameras are being used: 4 x HSC300R and the HDCP1 ‘box’-type HD camera that can be used standalone as well as part of an integration. A Yamaha CL series digital mixer takes care of audio. The CIC theatre and broadcast studio are linked via a comprehensive Riedel comms system, comprising two Riedel Artist digital intercom matrices and an Acrobat digital wireless intercom system. Within the theatre, one Artist digital matrix intercom system facilitates production team communications during presentations.

Like any good showroom, the CIC gets people to buy with their eyes, what’s more, it reveals the extent of Telstra’s expertise: “Let me get this straight; you can do all this?” And it can — from initial consultancy services through to needs analysis, change management and transition, with technology and integration in between. Andrew Calov again: “I’m very passionate about the AV industry. I would like to see everyone doing better work — that’s good for the whole industry, everyone going beyond what they’re currently doing. It’s my opinion that the AV industry has been really quite stagnant in the last five years or more. We haven’t seen a lot of innovation but now we’re definitely encouraging some thinking outside the box.

“We are moving towards an internet of things, which sounds a bit odd in the AV world but that’s where the AV industry is going, integrating all sorts of unconventional devices — recently we were asked to integrate a fridge. In fact, the AV will soon be taken out of AV Integration, it will soon just be integration. It’s all about the built environment and whatever has an IP address and an API, we’re going to be asked to talk to it. “Quite often our competitors are reactive rather than proactive; only doing what’s asked and no more. Telstra is more about ‘what can we do with the technology?’ and exploring the future path with our clients — testing the boundaries and challenging people’s perceptions.” 

The theatre’s Artist matrix is linked via fibre to a second Artist matrix installed in the broadcast studio. With clear, continuous communications, staff in either the studio or the Theatre can direct and call events and broadcasts. The Riedel Acrobat system provides wireless coverage to both the studio and the theatre so that production staff and crew can work across both venues simultaneously. Sony Professional: pro.sony.com.au Riedel: riedel.net Yamaha: yamahaproaudio.com

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032

FEATURE

Smart By Nature Astute audiovisual design helps the Uni of SA’s Jeffrey Smart Building deliver on its promise to promote student engagement. Text:/ Derek Powell Images:/ Sam Noonan

he University of South Australia’s new Jeffrey Smart Building embodies a lot of fresh thinking about teaching and learning. For starters, it’s not really the kind of building universities traditionally build. It’s a library and resource centre, but it is also much more than that, embodying key student services, multiple teaching spaces, many different kinds of bookable student learning facilities, a café, an art gallery and unique social facilities such as an outdoor cinema. It’s been described as a “technologically advanced learning centre” which is as close a description as any for this brand new hub located within UniSA’s city west campus. The building’s audiovisual fitout, designed by consultants Umow Lai was a deserving winner of an AVIA award for ‘Best Application of AV in Education (over $500,000)’. Awardwinning, innovative AV design is rarely easy or quick, and this time things really started with a blank page. “At the start of the project, the university said: ‘Don’t look at our current standards,’”,

Umow Lai senior audiovisual and ICT consultant Peter Kielan explained. “They told us that they were in the process of changing their pedagogy styles and this building was where they were going to implement it,” he continued. “So we needed to design new technologies that would work with the new style.” But there was also another challenge. With a three-year building program ahead, and the pace of technological change rapidly increasing, the audiovisual design had to allow flexibility so that at the ‘last minute’ (six months before fitout, in construction terms) the design could be updated based around the latest available technology, while keeping the functionality exactly the same. WILLING & CABLE

The two-step design process worked fantastically well for the university — as when they moved in, there was no outdated equipment in the fitout — but threw up a complex set of challenges for the designers. “The choice of cables was critical, since

the cabling infrastructure was one of the first things installed,” Peter noted. “We decided to rely on structured cabling for the whole signal delivery approach, which meant that we had the flexibility to deliver any kind of signal from any location to any location.” At the time the digital transition was well under way, but it was too early to be sure if VGA would still be needed, or which of the emerging digital formats would become a standard. “We knew that, in the worst case scenario — if we needed to run analogue — we could do that,” Peter Kielan recalled. “But if we wanted to run digital, we had structured cables that were able to support it — if IP was at a point where we could get it in at the right price point with the same functionality, we could actually do it over the same cables.” It was an inspired choice. At the second design stage, AMX DXLink signal transport and a combination of AMX DVX all-in one presentation switchers and DGX matrix switchers were chosen as the preferred solution and this active hardware merged seamlessly

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Uni Demo: The Technology Enhanced Learning suite is a demonstration and training space. It is fitted out with the same technologies as in the Type 1 and Type 2 classrooms. Formal training sessions help academics get the best out of teaching in these new collaborative learning spaces.

with the already installed infrastructure design. But there’s also a pathway to an IP future as Peter points out: “Even if the university now wants to upgrade something with new technology, they can be fairly confident that the cabling infrastructure is going to be able to handle it and they don’t need to change it. They just have to buy new devices to plug in”. TWO TYPES OF COLLABORATION

The nine main teaching spaces in the building were all built around collaborative learning principles with two main room types. Type 1 collaboration rooms are based around six-person rectangular tables. On the wall at the end of each table, a 46-inch monitor allows display of student BYO devices or the single PC (with USB document camera). There is a lectern, but the intent is for the academic to be able to roam freely while displaying content from a wireless tablet. The lecturer can send their own content to all screens, or choose student sourced material from any of the table screens and send that to all displays

in the room. Switching duties are handled by an AMX Enova DGX matrix switcher in the head-end rack. The Type 2 rooms feature round tables seating nine students with three resident PCs and an under-table rack with an AMX DVX all-in-one for switching and control. A 55inch Smart touchscreen panel with Meeting Pro software is wall mounted adjacent to each table. Again, a DGX matrix distributes sources switched at each table to any or all monitors. To make things more interesting, six of the rooms were designed to be joinable with an operable wall and had to be programmed to operate either individually, or as one. MOCK UP NOT MUCK UP

Since collaborative rooms were new to most of the teaching staff, the university made two decisions quite early in the process to ease the transition. Firstly, they prototyped the rooms by building full-sized mock-ups of the proposed collaborative tables and the lecterns. The prototypes were then demonstrated to

TEAM DETAILS AV Consultant: Umow Lai Architects: John Wardle Architects with Phillips/Pilkington Architects Building Services Engineers: Umow Lai Bestec Builder/Main Contractor: Hindmarsh Integrator: Electroboard

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Pick Me: Freely assignable switching in the Collaborative teaching room allows the lecturer to pick any student source to share with the entire class.

stakeholders to gain feedback on touch panel designs and general usability. Secondly, a dedicated training room, complete with Type 1 and Type 2 student tables, was incorporated into the design of the Jeffrey Smart building. This allows teaching staff to experiment with the operation of the technology before “going live” in front of a class, and provides a handy in-house training room for general purpose use. There’s plenty more, and one of the features of the project was the diversity of different kinds of audiovisual equipped spaces across the eight levels of the building. The smallest are two-person ‘huddle spaces’ and small project rooms equipped with a single, auto switching display; a resident PC; wall plates providing USB, power and BYOD connections; and a webcam for videoconferencing. Stepping up, the medium- and large-project spaces feature larger displays, a cable cubby for BYOD, and add a Ladybug document camera. These rooms are controlled by an

AMX button panel. Larger syndicate rooms are broadly similar but the LCD gives way to an 80-inch interactive whiteboard. These syndicated rooms also use the Extron IN1606 scaling presentation switcher, which were selected for its reliable switching capabilities. A special feature, designed specifically for law students, is the AV Practice room. This space is laid out as a mini moot court to allow student barristers to practice their courtroom addresses. The room is fitted with a 55inch flat panel, two AMX-controlled PTZ cameras and microphones. The configuration allows students to record their presentations (including content from the PC) directly to their own USB stick so they can review the mock trial later on. GET A ROOM

The Jeffrey Smart Building is deliberately student-centred and so, when not in use for scheduled classes, every space, from the

smallest to largest, can be booked and used (complete with AV facilities) by students. This is facilitated by a custom wayfinding system designed in-house at UniSA. From each touchscreen kiosk, students can access the wayfinding screen (actually a web interface to the back-end system) to book a room, find a service or locate an available computer. Statistics drawn from the booking system demonstrate just how well the Jeffrey Smart building has been accepted by UniSA students. On day one, within three hours building opening, virtually all the project spaces were booked and in use by students, along with 90% of the 670 student-use PCs. From the start, the building was designed to be a social hub for students, so along with the study spaces there is a café, kitchens for preparing snacks and even an outdoor cinema sporting a 10,000-lumen Panasonic projector with an inflatable screen, used for free nighttime screenings in the courtyard.

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Another Brick in the Wall: The Media Wall performs triple duties: displaying university artwork, hosting formal presentations, and allowing student use after hours for movie and games nights.

BRUSHING UP

Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the media wall. This jewel in the Jeffrey Smart AV crown is located in the ground floor Art Gallery space and features 16 x 55-inch Mitsubishi panels front-ended by an Extron Quantum Elite media wall processor fed by another AMX Enova DGX 32-input switcher. There’s a total of 11 inputs, including a TV tuner for those all-important World Cup dates and a command PC with a 4K graphics card that regularly displays student course work from the School of Architecture in UHD. Whew! Through a four-year gestation, prototyping cycles and a last-moment technology redesign, the Jeffrey Smart building has earned its stripes as a 2015 AVIA award winner and delivered on its promise of a student-centric set of spaces encouraging on-campus participation and providing an exceptional student and staff experience. 

FEATURE

EQUIPMENT LIST Flat Panel Displays (161 total) Mitsubishi Samsung 55-inch Smart Interactive Panels 70-inch Smart Interactive Panels Projectors (16 total) Epson EB-485W – WXGA Ultra Short Throw 3100 lumens Epson EG-G5750WUNL – WUXGA 4500 lumens Epson EB-8000WU – 6000 lumens 1 × Panasonic PT-DZ510XE – WUXGA 3x Chip 10000 Lumens Smart Interactive Whiteboards (9 total) AMX Controllers (56 total) Netlinx NI-700 Netlinx NI-3100 Netlinx NI-4100 iPads for AV Room Control (11 total) AV Switchers (140 total) 30 × AMX Enova DVX-3150HD switchers 5 × AMX DGX 32 enclosures 7 × AMX DGX 16 enclosures 8 × Extron IN-1606 switchers 33 × Extron SW2-HDMI switches

33 × Extron SW2-USB switches 82 × AMX DxLink HDMI extenders 77 × Extron Cable Cubbies with cable retractors Audio Digital Signal Processors 2 × Biamp Nexia SP 11 × Biamp AudiaFlex DSP chassis 23 × Australian Monitor 100V line amplifiers AKG Wireless Microphones Document Cameras Lumens Ladybug LM-DC120 for students at most desks with AV Ceiling-mounted Lumens LM-CL510 above lecterns and boardroom tables The Gallery Media Wall (4×4 Video Wall) 16 × NEC 55-inch video wall display panels Extron Quantum Elite Pro video wall processor AMX Enova DGX 32 chassis 4K graphics PC Multiple HDMI inputs 2 × digital signage players 2 × Blu-ray players Biamp AudiaFlex DSP Sennheiser IR hearing augmentation system Australian Monitor amplifiers

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FEATURE

Explore The Space Not just another school hall. Text:/ Christopher Holder

he time had come. Geelong Grammar’s previous drama studio had burnt down in the late ’70s and the department had outgrown the rebuilt digs it had found itself in. A larger, more modern replacement was required… and what a replacement! But this is more than a story about a well-resourced school erecting an impressive performing arts block. Yes, the facilities are excellent and it’s a good-looking building, but more than that it’s about ensuring you’ve got a usable design; a flexible design; and even more than that, a design that encourages experimentation and innovation. In other words, it’s actually the ‘boring stuff’ (the structured cabling/patching and the layout)

The foyer (above) has proven to be a vibrant aternative learning space thanks to some neat AV. The exterior (right) can be painted White Night-style thanks to permanently installed projection positions.

that is the star of the show, as impressive as the sound, lighting and control undoubtedly is. Crucial to a great performing arts centre is a great theatre consultant. Marshall Day Entertech, with Craig Gamble leading the charge, is one of the best. An architect may only design one or two such edifices in a life time, ditto the builder, but the theatre consultant brings together hundreds of combined professional years of expertise in knowing how a performing arts centre runs and the technical requirements to get it there. Also helps to have an AV integrator like MultiTek Solutions on board with plenty of theatre and technical operations experience among its staff.

1 VENUE, 3 SPACES… OR 4

The $20m Geelong Grammar School’s School of Performing Arts and Creative Education (SPACE for short) is a visually stunning modernist block designed by Peter Elliot architects. There are three key spaces: The David Darling Playhouse: A large, open-space venue with a flexible retractable seating system capable of seating up to 1000 people, orchestra pit, an L-Acoustics ARCS PA and motorised lighting and scenery grids to give extensive options for rigging lighting, drapes and other flown elements. The Bracebridge Wilson Studio: A black box-style space with retractable seating in

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banks on three sides to seat up to 270. It is equipped with flown motorised lighting and scenery grids and surround drape systems providing a very high level of flexibility. Multi-Purpose Space and Classrooms: Adaptable classrooms and a large multipurpose space. Actually, there’s a fourth; the foyer. What began as a conventional foyer space for pre-function and exhibition use finished as a full-blown interactive learning space. Craig Gamble: “During planning the question was posed: ‘what will this space be doing during the day?’ From there we were asked to come up with some concepts around interactive learning spaces.” Key AV elements that turn the foyer into the coolest classroom in the school include two video walls and interactive touchscreen ‘pods’. It was MultiTek Solutions that took the idea of a portable interactive display and turbo-charged it. Each Pod uses a Samsung DM series 75-inch commercial panel mounted into a custom motorised frame designed in consultation with Ultralift, which effortlessly switches the display mode (presentation or horizontally as a touch table) at a touch of a button. Each accommodates an Intel NUC PC and Crestron processing. A Crestron

KEY CONTRACTORS Architect: Peter Elliot architecture + urban design Theatre Consultants: Marshall Day Entertech Electrical Consultants: irwinconsult Builder: Shape Group Australia Technical Equipment Contractor: MultiTek Solutions & Jands MULTI-PURPOSE OR MULTI-COMPROMISE? Craig Gamble discusses how to get the best result for a client when they’re asking a lot of a venue. “From a design perspective, a multi-purpose space involves multiple compromises. First of all you decide with the client which application is the most critical and the least compromised. Prioritise it from there. It would have been lovely to build the school a traditional theatre with a fly tower but that wasn’t their critical need. From a theatre design and technical design perspective, it came back to structural loading: what we can hang off the roof and how the room’s going to be used and how we can best support those multiple uses with as few ‘bits’ as possible. We want to go into banquet mode? Okay, take out the theatre mode gear and bring in the 40-foot container to store it all in. Clearly that’s not acceptable. Operationally, things just need to be as easy as possible to do.”

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PLAYHOUSE: A FULL RETRACTION The Playhouse can seat up to 1000 people (800 retractible, 200 on flat floor). The seating can be partially extended providing a 500-seat and 300-seat mode as well as 800. It’s a ‘town hall’-style format with a flat floor and no raised stage. Mercifully it doesn’t have to accommodate basketball but with some clever design it can flip between amplified concerts, musicals and banquets. The client requested the L-Acoustics ARCS line source array and there’s no question it sounds impressive. “From an acoustics point of view, it was a challenge,” notes Craig Gamble. “Automated acoustic banners assist when they’re deployed in concert mode. The bare acoustics are assisted by the wall panels which are carefully designed with a certain amount of perforations and angles.

A nifty ‘rat run’ connects the control room to the dimmer/plant room without going though the theatre itself. “When you’ve got a problem it’s always 10 minutes before a show,” observes Craig Gamble, who has plenty of production experience. “And it’s a luxury to not have to fight your way though the people getting to their seats. Being able to duck out and throw a circuit breaker or satisfy yourself you did turn on the smoke machine… well, it’s priceless.” Automated roller shutters black out the room on the outside of the glass. Craig Gamble again: “That’s something you’re able to do when you have budget. It’s not absolutely critical, but gee it’s nice to go into show mode at 2pm as easily as you can at 8pm.”

wallplate-style I/O box completes the package. (Head to AV Asia Pacific’s YouTube channel to watch Multitek’s Gavin Hulme’s guided tour of a Pod. Go: /avmagazinetv) The Pods can be used anywhere and take video from any source when plugged into any of the patch panels dotted about the venue, or, when in the foyer, can shake hands with the video walls — throw an image from the screen to the video wall or mirror-display the video wall on the Pod. The flexibility is obvious: engage three to six students around a touch table; twice that with the Pod in vertical mode; a whole class in front of the video wall; and a whole year level with both video walls, using one or both Pods to control content. The video walls have a pair of Nexo PS8 loudspeakers neatly recessed alongside. They’re a powerful box and got Craig Gamble thinking: “This is a boarding school and these

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FEATURE

STUDIO: MORE THAN A BLACK BOX The Studio has three blocks of retractable seating. There’s a fixed pipe grid and three flown grids each suspended off one of the new Jands Benchmark hoists. Craig Gamble: “The flown grids mean everything is quick to rig and encourages people to experiment. When I do my handover talk to staff I encourage them to be brave — it’s industrial strength, you’re not going to break it, so use it creatively. For example, if you’re doing a little Kafka piece then use it to bring the grids down to make the space oppressive. I’m pleased to say, that so far they’re having a field day.” Around three edges of the room’s perimeter is a cat walk that serves to provide neat access to the bio booth, and plenty of other possibilities for techs (mounting follow spots or adding surround sound loudspeakers, for example), but also provides a balcony under which the retractable seating can live

(rendering it all-but invisible). Directors can also use the space for special purposes, as Craig Gamble puts it: “for the trumpets of Jericho or as an extensive Juliet balcony!”. The catwalk means the AV tech staff can gain access to the control room or backstage without running the gauntlet of the audience. Otherwise a sliding door connects the backstage/loading dock area. It’s central and large, ensuring props and scenery don’t need to be manipulated or shimmied about to get on stage. Craig Gamble: “No one knows the door is put there as a result of a 20-minute discussion with the theatre designer but in five years time there will come a time when someone has the bright idea of opening up the door and setting up a rear projector in the workshop and pointing it at the stage. Again, it’s about making things easy.”

are big screens with a kicking sound system. We should cable them so you can plug in an XBox or PlayStation. I’m not suggesting the school provides the equipment — the consoles are already in the recreation rooms — but these are the biggest screen in the school, after all.” In all, the AV has transformed a passive, occasional-use space into something far more useful, and keeps the building buzzing with activity. WHITE NIGHT

The example of the foyer gives you a sense of how the SPACE came together — collaboratively and with an eye for the best result. You might suggest the process is easy when money is no object; but Craig Gamble and MultiTek Solution’s Gavin Hulme are both quick to point out that, although the budget was generous, it wasn’t unlimited, and any variations in the spec needed to be

REVIEW

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FEATURE

PATCH PANEL SANITY With the prevalence of RJ45 it can be all too easy to attempt to connect conflicting data. Colour coding to the rescue! Each protocol flavour rocks its own colour: the technical data network, Dante/ audio, DMX, Pathport, Crestron DigitalMedia… all clearly laid out with colour-coded patch leads to boot. Are the patch leads identical? Of course, but it results in less confusion. Most of the patching is point to point, with the patching panels effectively acting as a tieline setup. The Dante digital audio is the exception, as it goes through the network. The SPACE has a couple of Yamaha QL series consoles with Yamaha Rio digital stage boxes. The install uses shielded Cat6 (or F/UTP) which helps the Crestron DigitalMedia safely travel the longer cable runs. Speaking of which, each patch is labelled with its attendant cable distance to allow tech staff to make a judgement as to whether you’re asking too much of a cable run.

SHARING DIMMERS

fully justified and savings made elsewhere. Or in the case of the outdoor projection setup, provisions were made and a benefactor sought. Craig Gamble picks up on the story: “Initially, the conversation was around whether it would be possible to use the building as a projection surface. We did some tests with the angle and throw, and, yes, it was possible, so we cabled for it. Quite late in the build process we were told the school was interested and to go ahead and set up for one as a proof of concept. After setting up the projector and the housing we had a good number of interested, invested people standing outside in the twilight waiting for the building to light up. As darkness fell it looked great. We demounted it and demonstrated what it would look like on the other facade — the school was so happy we were given the go-head to do both sides.” The high-brightness Panasonic projector can display anything on the school ICT network. The new centre is one of the first buildings any visitor sees upon entering the school grounds, so the projections can powerfully serve to theme the entire school. Undoubtedly, students in the multimedia course will be painting the SPACE ‘White Night’-style as well. Craig Gamble again: “The cost wasn’t obscene. Everyone knows how much projectors cost, the housing costs about the same, the cable and the trenching don’t cost the earth. The mounting’s a little more but the key point is: the cable was going in regardless. And with the infrastructure there, it was always going to be easy to make the projections happen later if needed.”

Craig Gamble: “There’s a link bridge between the Playhouse and the Studio that crosses the foyer. It’s an enclosed space and the central core of the building housing all the services. The desire was to get the dimmers out of the way and behind a closed door so students couldn’t fiddle with them. Being so central, it did make us think: ‘Hang on, we’ve got a bunch of dimmers for the Studio and Playhouse and, sure, we can do a lot of channels as home runs — an individual channel per dimmer — but we could also make the other ~40% patchable. That once-a-year musical in the Playhouse where you might need an extra 36 channels of dimming and you’ve got nothing going on in the Studio… use the

OPS I DID IT AGAIN

It’s a theme that runs like a golden thread through the entire design: get the infrastructure right and you’ll find things not only get used but creative barriers are broken. “From an operational point of view, if things are easy to do, they get done,” notes Craig Gamble. “If they’re hard to do — if you need to hire in a special piece of gear or a special crew — then it won’t be done or it’ll be done badly.” Which brings us back to the cabling: “The critical thing is the cable in the wall,” continues Gamble. “Whether that’s audio, or ethernet, or stage lighting positions, or comms, or three-phase, you want to avoid cables across doors — temporary cable that ends up being semi-permanently installed because it’s gaffed and it’s ‘where we need it, so that’s where we leave it’. Trust me, no one’s going to fundraise to open the plaster and run a couple of extra lengths of Cat5. You’re always going to be hampered if you don’t do that cabling properly.” 

Studio dimmers. It’s only a matter of: there’s the patch lead, and there are the dimmers, change the DMX and away you go.” The LSC EKO dimmers feature the capacity for relay and/or dimmer output — using LED fixtures select Relay, and if you’re using traditional fixture select Dimmer. Once the EKO senses DMX from the console it will power up your lighting fixtures without having to come into the plant room to manually power up the racks. Craig Gamble is a big fan of LED in a fitout such as this: “Peak load comes down, electrical draw comes down, and cable costs come down. But you’ve still got to put cable and control in the walls!”

KEY EQUIPMENT L-Acoustics speaker systems Crestron Control & DM Matrix systems Panasonic projection (2 x outdoor & 1 x Playhouse) Hitachi projection (Studio) Samsung DM Commercial 55- & 75-inch displays MA Lighting grandMA2 lighting console Pathway Pathport lighting control ClearCom intercom systems Yamaha QL-1 & QL-5 audio consoles BSS London DSP Screen Technics motorised screens Custom-designed & built stage management consoles from MultiTek Solutions LSC EKO dimmers PTZ Sony camera systems Blackmagic video switching & capture

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REVIEW

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TUTORIAL

MOVING INTO WEBCASTING

Brett Dwyer, Lemac: We entered the live streaming realm about 2 years ago initially through our sales arm and with great support from Corsair Solutions, the Australian supplier for Livestream, we followed up with a series of demonstration events in large groups as well as privately for interested customers. It became clear through these events that there was significant demand for us to add the Livestream system via our rental fleet. Our brand is about solutions, service and support and Livestream’s products are a perfect fit for this model as our production package includes the streaming hardware, camera kits and system operators. All that our client needs to worry about is hosting their event. Paul Rumble, MCEC: A couple of years ago we looked into streaming, largely on the back of our recording services and clients’ desire to have them available online — mostly as a way to market upcoming events. From there, clients began to demand greater capacity, to reach a broader audience, and using streaming as a solution. Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: Like you

mentioned in your intro, for a while there, events organisers were concerned that live streaming was the enemy of live events. That lingering fear is slowly diminishing as brands like TEDx consistently fill audience seats, even though a webcast is a central feature of the event.

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Paul Rumble

WHAT ARE THE DRIVERS?

Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: The main one is a significant price drop. What once cost $9000+ three years ago, now costs on average $6000 for a full day with all features and functionality. For a simple live extension of the event, with video and slides side by side, and an additional live polling feature, we can offer a package for around $2500. This pricing trend is reflective of the platform fees reducing. Paul Rumble, MCEC: Agreed. The price of the bandwidth has dropped so considerably it’s allowing the clients to adopt a live stream and implement it at a reasonable cost. They’re seeing a higher level of production without the big price tag. What’s more, the technology has become so reliable and dependable that it’s taken much of the stress we once experienced. But the biggest contributor to growth is the available bandwidth, more so than any specialist hardware. Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: Paul mentions bandwidth and for several years, bandwidth stymied the growth of webcasting, however over the past 12 months there have been significant steps taken to improve bandwidth capabilities and enhance the webcasting experience as a result. The NBN rollout is significant — upload speeds are edging closer to 1Mb rather than the sluggish 128k. This bandwidth is necessary for multichannel communication and will see webcasting soar. Our webcasting platform includes new adaptive bitrate (ABR) technology that sends a low bandwidth stream (400–500k), plus a standard definition (800–900k) stream, plus a high definition stream (1.5Mb) out for every webcast. Depending on the viewer’s bandwidth capabilities, the ABR technology automatically repurposes the content to suit their connection, ensuring the best quality content available for them. Say goodbye to buffering, and hello to the super-sharp future of HD content.

STAGING CONNECTIONS

onference keynote presentations, sports events, church services, graduation ceremonies, music concerts, lectures, webinars… The internet is a giant TV network with a million channels and you can watch anything you want no matter how narrow the niche. The audience is there. From the ‘supply side’, event organisers are no longer fearful that webcasting an event will cannibalise their live audience. A live stream most often caters to an additional audience, and assists in generating online buzz around an event. The market is there. What’s more, the costs of the technology and bandwidth have come down to the point where live streaming is well within the means of just about anyone. The demand is there. That said, the market is looking to AV service providers to supply the know-how and the value-add fairy dust that can give an event the online buzz so desirable these days. In other words: the money is potentially there. AV Asia Pacific thought it was high time to pull some pros in for a chat about how to get on the live streaming horse while avoiding some of the pitfalls.

LEMAC

Three industry pros discuss the ins and out of live webcasting.

MCEC

Gently Down the Stream National Rentals Manager Whether it’s sales or rentals, Lemac is well known for being the Australian filmmakers’ best friend. Lemac has now added Livestream webcasting hardware to its rental inventory, with full webcasting solutions (a ‘gear and tech staff’ package) proving to be popular, securing work with several high profile corporate and event companies.

Senior Manager Technology Services The Melbourne Convention and Exhbition Centre has been the venue of choice for some of the world’s largest conferences (such as the World AIDS Conference, pictured) and has made webcasting a key part of its client services. Anything from a speaker with a Powerpoint through to sophisticated multi-cam streaming with voting and social is catered for.

Tim Chapman General Manager — Digital Staging Connections is Australia’s largest AV events company, and webcasting events is an everyday part of life for Staging’s digital czar, Tim Chapman.

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TUTORIAL

PRACTICALITIES OF THE JOB

Brett Dwyer, Lemac: It’s important to get the exact requirements of the job. From there, we’ll mock the system up prior to the event — ideally visiting the site to test the network we will stream via, ensuring everything works. Some of our corporate clients stage very large one-off events with thousands of people in attendance as well as thousands viewing the Livestream. We go the extra step of carrying a redundancy of most items in our kit — in case of emergency we can seamlessly switch devices and keep the show running. On the day, we’ll be carrying a Livestream HD510 console which comes with a switcher extension Livestream Surface Go, a reference monitor, signal converter, MacBook Pro laptop, and a bonded router in the event we need to establish our own network. Essentially it’s one big pelican case on wheels with set up taking about 20 minutes. Pull it all out, plug in power, a network connection, and a camera feed if there is one — the Livestream unit can take up to five inputs and we can do some mixing, but often we’ll take a feed from the vision mixer if

there is a third party like Staging Connections doing that. Audio lines in are also an option directly on the Livestream unit, though normally audio is already embedded in the SDI stream — all ready to go, and we’re up and away. GRAPHICS, TICKERS & OVERLAYS

Brett Dwyer, Lemac: The Livestream system is capable of running the graphics and overlays for productions as well and this is normally the case with the events we are crewing. Prior to the event we’ll work with the client to get the final list of presenters and use that information to type up the overlays. Another example: a live sports broadcaster we provide support for has its IT department keep the scores of various matches updated in a spreadsheet and we can automatically maintain those scores as a ticker overlay on the stream. Similarly, we could run a moderated twitter feed on a stream so conference presenters and attendees in different geographical locations can take part in a real-time Q&A. Paul Rumble, MCEC: With anything like running tickers for the webcast, we’ll do that

prior to putting it into any streaming device as it gives us more creative flexibility. Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: Staging Connections’ point of difference is that we offer the most customisable, yet easy to use webcasting platform in Australia. Clients are able to design what their webcast will look like. We build the webskin from scratch, using HTML5 to ensure an elastic webcast that finds the screen and pushes the skin from corner to corner, no matter what the resolution. A webcast is, after all, a reflection of the company’s brand. Much like you design your company enewsletter, website and ads, a webcast should align to all those brand guidelines. For clients looking to build revenue from the webcast, we see all space around the camera vision as usable ‘real estate’ that can be sold to sponsors, or have features added like social media feeds, branded questions, ads or downloadable documents. MONETISING THE STREAM

Paul Rumble, MCEC: Monetising is starting to come of age. There’s a shift in the market with the rise of the likes of Netflix — people are

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TUTORIAL

“What once cost $9000+ three years ago, now costs on average $6000 for a full day with all features and functionality”

Industry Update AV Association News

AETM Audiovisual and Educational Technology Management Inc.

coming around to the idea of ‘pay per view’. It’s still in its infancy, and there is plenty of scope for the market to develop. Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: If you’re able to offer something of value, like CPA points or downloadable information, industries like law, taxation or government are charging 100% of the live event’s day delegate fee for webcast participants. However, without the participation kickbacks, we’re seeing webcast viewers charged only 1020% of the day delegate fee. Our clients have had success in raising revenue by offering paid content, selling sponsorship of space on the webskin and repurposing the webcast content for future marketing purposes. Making money while extending the reach of an event — makes sense! METRICS & ANALYTICS

Brett Dwyer, Lemac: Analytics can be crucial for the right Livestream clients. The system allows users to inform clients and advertisers of who is watching, where, for how long and on what device or platform. This kind of market feedback, deliverable in real time during the event, gives content producers the opportunity to develop or tailor their production on the fly, or to concentrate their broadcast on one market or region more than the next, depending on how many people are watching here or there. Obviously the analytics are also extremely useful in general for future marketing plans for content producers. SPECIAL SAUCE

Tim Chapman, Staging Connections: I believe Australia is ahead of the game when it comes to webcasting. As an example, while our overseas counterparts are still using switch-slides, our norm has advanced to side by side video and slides. There’s been huge advances over the past five years and webcasting at events has certainly found its place as a valuable commodity. With technology and providers working hand in hand, there is a bright, even super hi-def, future ahead! Brett Dwyer, Lemac: Special sauce? The Lemac model of solutions and support is the key to all that we do. With Livestream that means listening carefully to individual clients’ wants and needs, being there the whole way through the planning and production process and making suggestions along the way. For example, we’ll let our customers know about the remote camera features, which allow the use of any device on the LAN or wireless network, like Google Glass or an iPad, which brings a whole new element to the customer’s event. Paul Rumble, MCEC: Increasingly we’re using streaming to bring people into the event as opposed to just streaming out. Sometimes it’s used for bringing in high-profile presenters you wouldn’t normally gain access to, either as a keynote or to contribute to a program — that’s a real trend. On another occasion we streamed in medical procedures. We had a room full of medical experts who sat in and observed a procedure and were able to talk to the surgeon as it’s happening. Seeing the audience gaining access to these people in another continent was amazing — to me it showed just what live webstreaming is capable of. 

AETM wish all our members a successful beginning to 2016 and we hope that you will be able to participate in some our events and offerings again this year. Members Forum: at the 2015 conference, AETM released our new members-only forum. This new membership benefit will assist bringing our community closer throughout the year and also act as a repository for standards, ideas and information sharing. Please login and share your knowledge with your peers www.aetm.org Webinars: we will again be running webinars starting from March in 2016. Hosted by InfoComm, we hope to bring you some fantastic new topics and will be requesting member suggestions on topics via the online forum in early February. Integrate Education Program (IEP): with Integrate returning to Sydney in 2016, we are delighted to announce that we will be again running the IEP. Behind the scenes we are already working out the finer details and hope this year to offer 30 scholarships, covering flight and accommodation costs. Let your managers know now; as again the scholarships will be offered on a ‘first come first served’ basis. Integrate will be held on August 2528. More details to follow. 2016 Conference — November 7-10: The AETM Conference this year will be hosted by UWA. The finer details are still being confirmed but please check in on the website at a later date for more details. Please check out our website www.aetm.org to find out more about AETM, we are always welcoming new members from organisations that provide educational technology facilities and support audiovisual systems in a training environment.

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TUTORIAL

Image to Protect How to Verify Video System Performance

hether or not you’re the provider chosen to maintain an AV system after installation you have to be able to tell a client when the system is ready to use – when it operates according to agreed-upon requirements and is free of any faults or unacceptable risks. At a time when so much of an AV experience is visual this is especially true of video systems. If you don’t verify the performance of video systems, clients will see the flaws in your solution – literally. Video systems comprise many different components, each with its own set of parameters. Cut corners in one area and it can have a ripple effect. Let’s look at five video performance characteristics you should test before officially handing over a system: PROJECTED DISPLAY PHYSICAL ALIGNMENT

You should make sure that a projected image exactly fits the user’s projection surface. The projected image should be free of under or over throw, and squarely aligned on the screen. To verify, use a test pattern to take a look at the image and check for any areas where the image isn’t projected, or is projected beyond the boundaries of the projection surface. To support your findings, simply take a photograph of the screen, showing proper alignment and fit, and attach it to the verification report. IMAGE GEOMETRY

In addition to checking and verifying the projected display alignment, you will need to check the geometry of a projected image to ensure proper shape and aspect ratio. The image should be free of any distortion, such as stretching, keystone and barrel or pincushion effects. To test for these conditions you will need to use a grid test pattern. Analyse the grid to ensure correct aspect ratio while also observing uniformity in the pattern. Is it free of curves or distortion? Circular test patterns can be used as well. You will need to test at a variety of resolutions, based on how the customer intends to use the system. As with the alignment test, attach a photo of the system to the verification report.

and calculate the difference between the two referenced as a ratio. Use the following benchmarks to help gauge users’ image contrast needs: • Passive viewing (7:1) • Basic decision making (15:1) • Analytical decision making (50:1) • Full motion video (80:1) COLOURIMETRY

An important component of the video experience is correct and accurate colour representation. Using a test pattern, such as high-definition (HD) European Broadcasting Union (EBU) colour bars, you will need to adjust brightness, contrast and chroma (colour) in order to obtain correct colourimetry. You can use a colourimeter to measure and verify the colour, gamut, chromaticity, gamma, display brightness and white point of the image. Record the precalibrated state of the image and record any adjustments made to the final image in the verification report.

PROJECTED IMAGE CONTRAST RATIO

VIDEO CAMERA IMAGE OPERATION

Finding a balance between the black and the white levels in an image is a key part of ensuring proper image projection. For specific guidelines refer to the ANSI/INFOCOMM 3M-2011, Projected Image System Contrast Ratio standard. Part of this standard defines how and from where to measure the luminance of black and white blocks in a contrast ratio test pattern displayed on the screen,

Many video systems include a camera(s) for recording or broadcast/transmission functionality. Prior to calibrating the camera, ensure it is fully operational and mechanically sound. You will need to test and confirm the camera is properly mounted and operates in a consistent and reliable manner. This includes testing its pan-tilt-zoom function to ensure the camera has both freedom

of movement and moves smoothly. Cables should be harnessed. The camera’s video capture should then be viewed and tested. Colour/white balance should be performed and black levels set. You will need to test the zoom and focus functions to make sure they are properly calibrated and the image is correctly framed and focused, and presets (if required) should be created. ABOUT THE STANDARD

The InfoComm International standard ANSI/ INFOCOMM 10:2013, Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification includes 12 verification items for video, from Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) and High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) management plans to video routing. The video system is just one of the many pieces in the AV puzzle. The standard covers a total of 160 AV and IT reference items. To help you test and report on each, an InfoComm task force composed of international subject matter experts developed the Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification Guide. The guide ensures functionality and performance in accordance with a system’s project documentation by outlining the verification reporting process from start to finish. Download it from www.infocomm.org/cps/rde/ xchg/infocomm/hs.xsl/40440.htm today and use the checklist to make sure your AV systems are exactly as your customer expect them to be. 

050

HUMOUR?

Termination Merrily Down the Stream Text:/ Graeme Hague

here’s been an extraordinary alignment of the geek planets. A coming-together of technology and invention that’s threatening to ruin our way of life, forever. We’re talking the destruction of modern society here. Nothing to do with tsunamis, earthquakes or meteors, by the way. No, nothing quite so benign as that. It’s all about the internet, live streaming, smart phones and tablets — and bloody cricket. Have you noticed how many people are constantly monitoring cricket on their phone? No one wants to talk to anyone, because they’re too busy listening and watching the latest 50 Over Big Bash Test Match. Sometimes it’s like nobody is interested in doing anything anymore. There’s a game on somewhere with overwhelming consequences hinging on the result. And it has to be watched live. By everyone. There is a history. Years ago cricket tragics used Doctor Who-like impressive, miniaturised technology called ‘AM Pocket Radios’ that could be tuned into the ABC. These were a true invention of evil more powerful than any Death Star. Mind you, often it required facing west or putting one foot on a milk crate to pick up a strong signal. Owners of this devilish equipment also used an ‘earphone’ (note the singular). Many readers of this fine tome may be surprised to learn that the bud-style of headphone has been around longer than Richie Benaud’s haircut, except it was (gasp, horror) in mono. You only got one to jam in your lug’ole, betrayed by a thin, white cable that explained the vacant look on the listener’s face — they’re not paying a scrap of attention to you, the cricket’s on the radio. These days no one bothers to hide that they’re cricket junkies. People continually swipe and tap at their phones, watching replays and checking the scores, examining graphs that pin-point the bounce of every googly, the ballistic arc of every

boundary. Frequent fist-pumping and shouts of ‘Woot!’ in public can be alarming, if you’re not aware of what’s going on. The real problem is that cricket’s just the beginning. We’re being brain-washed into watching almost everything live on our mobile devices. Not just sport, although goodness knows there’s enough of that to fry your eyeballs already. You won’t even be able to make those lame excuses for not attending the wedding of friends you don’t really like, or the christening of a baby you reckon is butt-ugly, because it’ll be streamed over Facebook (or something) and you’ll be expected to watch. Tracking software will ensure you’ve logged it. Web cameras will spy on your every move. Being a live video feed, you won’t even be able to photoshop the baby into anything reasonable-looking. EVENT YOUR SPLEEN

Nobody seems to care that the increase in live streaming could bankrupt our economy. If you think that, during the last century, nipping outside to the loading dock for a quick fag cost us millions in productivity, imagine how many work hours are stolen by people having a quick peek at a five-day cricket test on their phone? What do you reckon the Olympics this year is going to do? We might as well pull the plug on the stock market now. The weird thing is that people are usually very defensive about the amount of time they spend watching their smartphones. Accuse them of being glued to the screen and they’re outraged. Tell them they’re Facebook addicts and you’ll be firmly Unliked, Unfriended and permanently Blocked. Few people are prepared to admit just how much time they spend online. What might help is the virtual equivalent of that coloured dye they use to dissuade people

from peeing in your swimming pool. Maybe if someone sneaks a look at the cricket score at, let’s say, an inappropriate moment — such as when their first child is being born — a kind of embarrassing alarm goes off. Maybe a bad smell. Okay, that’s not going to work. But at least I’m trying. RADICAL SOLUTION

A solution to this 4G perversion of our society might be to provide a more exciting alternative to watching stuff on smart phones. We could create some kind of global transmission network and put screens all over the towns and cities. Hell, we could even put a big screen in every house, in a special room where the whole family can gather together and watch the same thing at the same time. There can be hundreds of channels filled with thousands of programs. And each one can have regular information thingies about the latest products and where to buy them — a valuable resource for the community. Who’d want to stream stuff on a tiny screen when you’ve got such an awesomely impressive network like that to watch instead? I’ve even got a name for it already. Tele... something. Telepictures? Televisual. That’ll do. Not as trendy as ‘internet’, but I’m sure it’ll catch on. And if it doesn’t, we’ll start broadcasting cricket 24/7. It can’t fail then. 

Please call our sales team on 1300 666 099 or visit www.midwich.com.au

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