AV issue 18

BIG DISPLAY HOME:

EUROVISION, FUTURES EXCHANGE VIDEO WALL, AMWAY CHINA BANQUET & PROFILES OF BIG SCREEN PROVIDERS $6.95 inc gst

issue #18

ALSO: DETAILS OF INFOCOMM EDUCATION AT INTEGRATE CURTAIN CALL: 200m+ DRAPES FOR ETIHAD STADIUM SONY VEGAS & LIGHTING FOR TV BROADCAST

The first scalable line array for all occasions

However large or small your audience and the venue may be, you can put together a system suitable for every situation using just the six components of the HK Audio Elements system. Here are just a few examples of systems you can build using the six components of Elements.

Thanks to E-Connect, HK’s novel integrated

Voice Two

Acoustics Three

2 x E435 1 x EA600 1 x EP1 1 x EF45

150

300w RMS

6 x E435 2 x EA600 2 x E110 2 x E110A 300

2,100w RMS

350

DJ Three

Band Four

6 x E435 2 x EA600 2 x E110 4 x E110A

8 x E435 2 x EA600 4 x E110 4 x E110A 2 x EF45

2,700w RMS

450

3,600w RMS

signal routing, even the largest Elements setup is performance-ready in just a few minutes with a minimum of cabling. Due to each component’s extremely compact and rugged design, transportation is no longer a hassle.

i t ‘s e l e m e n t a r y Your nearest Elements dealer: ACT: Pro Audio | NSW: Kirby Productions | NT: Top End Sounds QLD: Musiclab & Mackay Music | SA: BSS Light Audio Visual | Vic: Factory Sound Distibuted by CMI Music & Audio. For more info visit: www.cmi.com.au

CommeRCial lCD

DVR seCuRity

Display Wall Cubes

pRojeCtoRs

Resolia™ leD

Bring your vision to life with the superior quality of Japanese design and engineering.

Mitsubishi Electric has the visual solution to meet your needs, no matter how small or large the task. With the freedom to choose from a large range of commercial LCD displays, Digital Video Recording and security control systems, large format Resolia™ LED billboards, home or business projectors and Display Wall Cube systems, the possibilities are only limited by your vision.

Mitsubishi Electric Australia Pty Ltd, 348 Victoria Rd Rydalmere NSW 2116 www.MitsubishiElectric.com.au ph: (02) 9684 7777 fax (02) 9684 7208

Proud partner of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Symetrix introduces ARC-WEB for Jupiter. Now you can control Jupiter from almost any computer or handheld device with network access.

Enter the Jupiter IP address into your mobile browser, and dial in your sound from the palm of your hand.

It’s just that easy!

Explore Jupiter at www.symetrix.co CTION A DU

R

LT D

SE

VI

IO UD

PRO

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by:

CES PTY

Production Audio ServiceS AUS: sales@productionaudio.com.au TEL: 61 (0) 3 9264 8000 NZ: sales@productionaudio.co.nz TEL: 64 (0) 9 272 8041

04

Editorial Pearls Before Swine Despite having worked in the world of commercial realities for all of my several careers, I’ve noticed that I’ve recently developed a tendency to gripe about wasting our technical talents on a general public who hasn’t got a clue about the technological workings of our society. It happened again recently, when I was looking over Paul Collison’s article on the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest that appears in this issue. I became quite irritated that so much design and technical talent, not to mention production budget, was being squandered on such mediocre acts: the process often called “t*rd polishing” out of the clients’ earshot. You may even notice that the occasional photo caption in AV gets a bit narky on this issue.

While I can’t promise to totally refrain from this practice, I am prepared to come out in public and admit that it’s almost certainly an over-reaction, and most probably, almost uncalled for. That’s because it’s actually

our job to cast the pearls of our design and technological wisdom before the unaware and unconcerned in our population.

If they want a magical way of having the lights fade down, the projector to lower, the mics pop up and the link to the headquarters conference room to just appear on the screen; we provide it and eventually send them the invoice. Although the cost may be a significant factor in how we achieve such magic, what doesn’t matter to them is how we do it. Whether it’s as simple as plugging a black box with an RJ45 connector into an existing Ethernet network, or running fibres for hundreds of metres, or squeezing ISDN over the only existing copper into the property, rewiring an entire building just to get one room’s lights onto a dimmer, or even constructing a temporary roof over an entire Düsseldorf football stadium, so long as they get what they want, the client is essentially disinterested in how we achieved it.

So aside from chatting to the folk at work or a few colleagues over a beer after an InfoComm function, how can you get some recognition for the ideas, innovations, cleverness and care that you put into creating something that’s indistinguishable from magic for the 99% of the populace that don’t even understand what is that you do or worse, think that you sell TVs? Simply download the AVIA entry form from the website at avias.com.au and tell the industry about it. You do have a chance to shine!  Andy Ciddor, Editor Join the AV adventure. Dob in a friend. Drop a note to the editor Andy Ciddor andy@av.net.au and tell him about your discoveries.

HURRY! ENTRIES CLOSE: 24 JUNE 2011 CATEGORIES

Audio Visual Industry Awards (AVIAs) 2011: Get on your Bikes!

Are you proud of an audiovisual installation, production or idea that was completed in 2010? Well, tell the whole AV Industry about it by entering it in the AVIAs, Australia’s only independently-adjudicated professional AV industry awards.

Here's how: • Go to the AVIAs website and download the pdf entry form.

• Follow the instructions and fill in the pdf fields.

• Rustle up some decent photos.

• Include the $100 administration fee per entry (we have to cover the costs of convening the judging panel etc).

• Package it all up and email your entry to entries@avias. com.au or to the mailing address on the entry form.

• You’ll be notified if you’re short-listed.

• Get on it. Time is of the essence.

BEST INSTALLATION $1m+ The most innovative, best conceived and consistently excellent audiovisual installation of the year.

BEST APPLICATION OF AV IN EDUCATION This award is for the best conceived and most innovative audiovisual projects and installations in the education sector.

BEST INSTALLATION UNDER $1m This category gives all installers and integrators the chance to show their wares. The install that best meets the unique demands of the project will win. Doesn’t need to be the most glamorous or highest profile project going around.

INNOVATION AWARD This award isn’t tied to any one event or installation. It’s recognition of a nifty ‘idea’; a solution to a curly problem; a unique perspective on an existing technology. In other words, anyone reading this could potentially win this award with their wit and cunning.

BEST AV PRODUCTION Best staged event, whether that be commercial product launches, made-for-TV spectaculars, one-off events, etc. The winner won’t necessarily be the most lavish production, but it will be the most elegantly conceived application of AV technologies and design.

For more detail on how to enter, go to: www.avias.com.au

Digital That Works.

Everywhere.

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Works for your Application More choices mean more flexibility; our wide-ranging product selection makes it easy to design a system that’s perfectly matched to the needs VISIT US AT STAND XX of the application.

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Works for your Budget Faster installation, simplified configuration, and long-term system reliability help to save time and money at every stage of the project.

Extron manufactures the most complete line of digital products available today. They’re engineered with the reliability, ease of installation, and ease of operation that distinguishes our products. Whether you need DVI, HDMI, USB, or multi-rate SDI, we have the digital products for today and tomorrow, with the high performance and value you’ve come to expect from Extron.

For your next digital video system design, give us a call. Our professional staff of application and system design engineers are ready to work with you to define and design complete, end-to-end digital AV systems. Need to learn more about the digital transition? We’ve created a complete library of training and educational materials, including white papers, technical articles, application profiles, and design guides; all written for the AV professional and available at no charge.

Visit www.extron.com/digitalthatworks for complete details.

Australian Distributor of Extron Products

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VISIT US AT STAND Q9

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The reduced costs of broadband and cable access, along with more cost effective and easier to use software solutions have made telepresencing a viable and cost effective communication solution, for even the smallest companies.

Once you have the software, screens and network connections, you then need a flexible platform to house and protect this technology. That’s where Axis by Gilkon comes into play.

Axis by Gilkon offers a broad range of motorised and manually operated wall and ceiling mounts and brackets, as well as ingeniously designed LCD and plasma stands and trolleys.

The entire commercial-quality Axis by Gilkon range is manufactured to Australian design and safety standards and is finished using state-of-the-art eco-friendly finishes.

Axis by Gilkon is a testament to the fact that in some areas, Australian manufacturing still leads the world.

Wilson & Gilkes PO Box 63 Moorebank NSW 1875 Australia 02 9914 0900 www.gilkon.com.au

Crew For the past five years Matt has been the Marketing Coordinator for Lightmoves, which has exposed him to some of the most high-profile technology projects in Victoria. He is also a strong contributor to Melbourne’s independent theatre scene, having worked as a producer, director, actor, stage manager and more recently as a lighting designer. He is a produced playwright and budding screenwriter (although Hollywood doesn't think so... yet) and also freelances his reviewing skills to a number of online and print organisations.

Advertising Office: (02) 9986 1188 PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086

Editorial Office: (03) 5331 4949 PO Box 295, Ballarat, VIC 3353

Editor: Andy Ciddor (andy@av.net.au) Publication Manager: Stewart Woodhill (stewart@av.net.au)

Paul is a freelance lighting designer based in Sydney. Struggling to find work in his homeland, Paul spends much of the year in far flung places in perpetual search for the perfect breakfast and good coffee. With a love of lights, gadgets and a good story, Paul makes an admirable effort to bring to AV reviews of products and events from around our small and wondrous globe.

Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@av.net.au) Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@av.net.au) Art Direction & Design: Dominic Carey (dominic@alchemedia.com.au) Additional Design: Leigh Ericksen (leigh@alchemedia.com.au) News Editor: Graeme Hague (news@av.net.au) Accounts: Jen Temm (jen@alchemedia.com.au) Circulation Manager: Mim Mulcahy (subscriptions@av.net.au)

Paul is technical producer/director and co-owner at The Events Activation Resource (The EAR), a company specialising in large scale corporate and entertainment technical event management, and has worked in video projection and multimedia since 1992. He has been involved in video production management for events in the corporate, broadcast, exhibition, fashion and entertainment industries, and has toured extensively. He has expert knowledge of multimedia, content creation and complex live video systems.

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright © 2011 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title AV is a registered Trademark.

Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication. They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974. The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 3/6/11

Tim Stackpool is a broadcast technical director, most recently completing the design and construction of a three-studio TV facility for IP Studios in Sydney. After spending 10 years at Channel Nine, Tim founded and remains co-owner of production company Sonic Sight. Tim also supplements the [lavish – Ed] income he receives from AV Magazine by assuming the role of Australian correspondent for Global Radio News in London and the Canadian Economic Press.

Two Easy The Hyper Media Company

HMP100 Hyper Media Player H The ямБrst networked Hyper Media Player appliance T dedicated to the professional digital signage industry. de

+

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Fusion Software CWT 7<? RP] P[b^ _dQ[XbW SPcP PdSX^ P]S Sh]P\XR R^]cT]c Ua^\ ABB UTTSb fXSVTcb P]S X]bcP]c \TbbPVX]V dbX]V 5dbX^] b^UcfPaT fWXRW aTbXSTb X]bXST cWT d]Xc P]S is part of the package. ~ 4PbX[h RaTPcT \d[cX bRaTT] eXST^fP[[b X]cTaPRcXeT ZX^bZb and touchscreens ~ 2^\_aTWT]bXeT bRWTSd[X]V ^_cX^]b ~ <P]PVT R^]cT]c eXP P fTQ Qa^fbTa X]cTaUPRT ~ D_[^PS TSXc P]S _dQ[XbW fXcW \X]X\P[ cTRW]XRP[ bZX[[ P]S X] aTR^aS cX\T ~ =^ PSSXcX^]P[ b^UcfPaT aT`dXaTS

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Digital Signage Dramatically SimpliямБed

PROFESSIONAL BROADCAST & AUDIOVISUAL SOLUTIONS

madis n a u d i o v i s u a l 1800 00 77 80 av@madisontech.com.au

When you’re putting on a show for the best in the world, you can only rely on the best in the world...

Yamaha’s MY-card expansion system, standard across all models of Yamaha digital mixer and programmable DSP, enables connectivity to all major digital audio protocols, including the CobraNet distribution backbone that ran around the Formula One Qantas Australian Grand Prix track in Melbourne, March 24-27 2011.

“Choosing the LS9 for the media conference systems just made sense. The combination of on-board DSP processing and the availability of CobraNet I/O made integration of the mixers with the rest of the control system simple and foolproof.”

Chris Dodds, Managing Director, The P.A. People

For further information on all Yamaha Commercial Audio products, please visit www.yamahaproaudio.com or call Yamaha Music Australia on +61 3 9693 5272 For sales enquires regarding all Yamaha Commercial Audio Products, please contact The P.A. People directly on +61 2 8755 8700 or email sales@papeople.com.au

Issue 18 REGULARS NEWS News and the latest new product information.

14

INFOCOMM NEWS Regional news from InfoComm.

56

TERMINATION Indiana Jones & The Venue of the Lost Wheelbarrow.

58

FEATURES

34

AMWAY CHINA HITS TOWN WITH A BANG Dinner and a spectacular show for 8500.

24

EUROVISUALS 2011 When too much video-mapped LED is only just the beginning.

28

FEX STUDIO'S VIDEOWALL A video wall for Sydney’s ‘Wall Street’ .

34

EXTENDED CURTAIN CALL Etihad Stadium installs huge drapes for its Intimate Mode.

40

REVIEWS

46

24

SONY VEGAS PRO 10 An old favourite video NLE gets 3D workflows.

TUTORIALS PRACTICALITIES OF LIGHTING IN TV PRODUCTION Actually getting your beautiful pictures onto the TV screen.

50

46

GETTING THE VERY BIG LED PICTURE You reckon you could drop that round to my place after the show?

52

TEST & MEASUREMENT Using multimeters and impedance meters

57

28

22

50

52

WINNER Manufacturer

WINNER Audio Product

2006

2009

of the Year

of the Year

WINNER Installation

WINNER Audio

HIGHLY COMMENDED

2010

2010

2011

Product of the Year

Manufacturer

Most InAVative AV Accessory

AFFORDABLE INSTALLATION PRODUCTS

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Distributed by: Integration Supplies Pty Ltd. P: 0408 570 950 E: ian@isupplies.com.au Amber Technology Ltd P: 1800 251 367 E: sales@ambertech.com.au VideoPro NZ Ltd P: (04) 805 0440 E: sales@videopro.co.nz

WORLD’S MOST

ADVANCED VIDEO NETWORKING • GOVERNMENT • MEDICAL • SECURITY • ENTERPRISE • EDUCATION Haivision is the global leader in delivering the most advanced video networking, digital signage, and IP video distribution solutions.

Haivision is the only company that offers complete end-to-end technology for video, graphics, and metadata.

Contact IDT for a demonstration

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Furnace VF: totally secure video to every desktop and display within an organisation.

Record any source, apply metadata and deliver live or recorded content or video on demand.

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LIFT. CLICK. PLAY. Introducing the KLA Active Line Array System Award-Winning K Series Technology • 1,000 W (continuous) Class D Power Module.

• Intrinsic Correction™, DEEP™, GuardRail™ Processing.

• DMT™ Directivity-Matched Transition provides seamless transition between the high and low frequency drivers.

SOLO™ Rigging System • Convenient, one-person hang for most popular configurations.

• No tools or external hardware required for array assembly.

• Just press the button, lift the lever, and you’re connected!

Ar-Q™ Frequency Optimization • Simply click the rear-panel dial to select the number of boxes in your array and Ar-Q will tune and configure your system for a perfectly-balanced response. No external processing is required. And with a fixedarcuate design of 18 degrees per enclosure, you can create a 90 degree array using only five enclosures.

And the price – let’s just say that you’ll soon be flying your KLA rig overhead, without going in over your head.

For more information about KLA and all the active speaker solutions in the QSC House of K, visit us at www.qscaudio.com or contact TAG: Ph. (02) 9519 0900 E. Info@tag.com.au

www.qscaudio.com ©

2011 QSC Audio Products, LLC. All rights reserved. QSC and the QSC logo are registered trademarks of QSC Audio Products, LLC in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office and other countries. SOLO, Ar-Q, Intrinsic Correction, DMT, DEEP and GuardRail are trademarks of QSC Audio Products, LLC.

014

NEWS

2011

in association with

INFOCOMM ACADEMY SESSIONS: REAL WORLD EDUCATION

HUGE, EXPANDED EDUCATION PROGRAM Integrate in association with InfoComm International is pleased to announce a broader, more comprehensive professional AV education program hosted by InfoComm International under the InfoComm Academy brand.

In addition to the ever-popular ‘Super Tuesday – Future Trends’ program, InfoComm International has added six InfoComm Academy seminars and two half-day conferences.

The InfoComm Academy sessions will focus on technology and best practice in the industry. AV professionals will leave these information-packed, ideagenerating sessions with practical advice, expert solutions and technical education designed to meet the future challenges of the Australian/NZ marketplace.

InfoComm International takes education seriously.

It is one of the key pillars of the association’s existence and a source of great strength and respect within the professional AV industry.

These sessions represent a significant step forward for this region’s AV industry, providing training and education opportunities previously only available at the likes of the InfoComm exhibition in the US. These sessions also demonstrate the commitment Integrate and InfoComm International have to continually developing and improving an already world-class education program.

For session times, pricing, availability and more session details go: www.integrate-expo.com

HALF DAY CONFERENCES: Digital Signage Conference Digital signage is a significant growth area and this half-day conference provides integrators and installers with the tools to set up a successful network.

The conference comprises three sessions.

Digital Signage 101 covers the basics of installation, maintenance, and equipment.

Presenters Cameron Lucas (Madison Technologies) and Rod Sommerich, CTS (Spinetix) will provide you with an understanding digital signage, how to apply

that knowledge to projects and understand the hardware used in a digital signage network.

Bringing it all Together – Developing Your Digital Signage Business Case is presented by InfoComm International staff instructor Rod Brown. Rod discusses typical business models; what should be included in a business plan; identification of additional staff and other resources which may be required to enter the digital signage field; and consideration of where to go from here.

Maximising the Appeal of Digitial

Demystifying the Loop: The Building Code of Australia is changing the way we design and install hearing assistance technology. The Deafness Forum of Australia shares some important information in relation to the requirements for future technology that is compliant with the Disability Act. The seminar then looks at different types of technology available to meet the regulations, including Induction Loops, Infrared and 2.4GHz RF. Presenter: Michael Pun, Brand Manager, Hills SVL. Solving Real-Life HDMI/DVI/DisplayPort Installation Problems: HDMI, DVI and the emerging DisplayPort format offer extremely high video image quality and other advantages, but since they were mainly developed for one source to one display, they introduce limitations and problems in large-scale AV installations. In this session you’ll learn how to convert between the formats, identify problems when using them together with analogue formats, send the signals over distance, and prevent and solve EDID-related issues. Presenter: John Ungerer, CTS, Managing Director, Kramer Electronics Australia.

The Power of Integration and Net-centric AV: The Power of Integration delves into the world of integrated, converged and net-centric technologies. Understand the importance and fundamentals of integration, convergence and net-centricity; know what’s required to achieve a successful integrated project; and have a greater knowledge of integrated systems of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Presenter: Peter Sean Coman, CTS, RCDD, CDCDP, AssocIES, Managing Director, InDesign Technologies.

Video Calibration Primer: This seminar will give technicians a broad level of understanding of

Signage Content will demonstrate how effective and creative digital signage messaging can maximise an audience’s engagement.

Damien Edmonds (Director, Edmonds Marketing) will discuss how best to understand your audience, truly integrate your message, and get the most out of digital signage.

The conference will conclude with a Q&A session with the panel.

Communications Technology in the Built Environment This half-day conference is designed for architects, project

managers, IT managers, consultants and facility managers, and is comprised of three sessions. Systems design for the Contemporary Built Environment is presented by Michael Comiskey, CTS (Principal AV Consultant, AECOM Australia) and explains how AV advice during space planning and concept design can help deliver a better facility; how to initiate design approaches to manage operational costs; and list and understand standards, codes and best practices – and rules of thumb for architects.

The second session – AV

calibrating all the important performance aspects of modern video displays and projectors. This seminar covers everything from video basics to advanced calibration of all display technologies, addressing video processing, video equalizers, and video generators. Learn the general performance factors that determine image quality of displays and projectors and become familiar with the calibration characteristics of different display technologies. Presenter: Jeff Murray, ISF Instructor and President of SpectraCal, brought to Integrate 2011 by VR Solutions.

Advanced Fibreoptic Design: Many AV systems rely on fibreoptic technology for secure transmission of data, error-free delivery of content, and signal integrity over extremely long distances.

In this course, you will learn critical system design techniques utilising fibre technology. This course will provide you with the knowledge to successfully design cutting-edge fibre technology into new or existing AV systems. Presenter: Jerry Kushnir, RGB Integration.

Conferencing Best Practices: Room Environment and Design – Acoustics and Lighting: Lighting and Acoustics are critical elements for successful remote communication, yet the room environment is often overlooked or poorly implemented, leaving the end user with a conferencing system that is inherently limited in performance. This seminar will review basic theory for good room environment design and provide designers and integrators with the necessary tools to offer informed and constructive recommendations to their clients.

Presenter: Mark Hanson, Director, Hanson Associates and ICE Design Australia.

Installation Processes & Pitfalls – Where Budget and Design Meets the Physical Integration, is presented by Wizard Projects’ Managing Director, Paul Van der Ent, CTS. Paul will reveal where budget goes, the hidden costs that are sometimes forgotten during the design and budgeting stage, scope creep, and the unknown situations that can occur during the installation process. This will be a jam packed 50 minutes and a must for consultants, designers, architects, engineers, builders, project managers, IT managers and end clients.

Finally, Facility Management – Bridging the Divide Between Project & Users, outlines the role the Facility Manager has to play through the design and implementation phases of the project to maximise the client’s return on investment. Reg Collins (AV/IT Working Group Chair, Campus Development Plan, Information Technology Division, University of Technology, Sydney) explores what planning is required to deliver a smooth transition from the builder to full operation and ongoing support and maintenance strategies are required.

AKG

DMS 700

SUPER TUESDAY: BE INSPIRED Integrate 2011’s Super Tuesday program is stronger than ever. This year the show welcomes InfoComm International supremo, Randy Lemke, to provide the day’s keynote. Unmissable. Here’s a precis of the full lineup.

Taking Video Communications to a Higher Plane (Without Needing to Jump On One): Jason Bordujenko – National Video Conference Service (NVCS) Manager at the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet) – will dispel those myths, bust that jargon and help you learn the ropes on conferencing with a straightforward and concise introduction to the underlying technologies, standards and mechanisms of a great videoconference.

Extending Unified Communications-Based Multimedia Services Beyond the Enterprise: Bill Efthimiou – Unified Communications Engineer at the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet) – talks us through AARNet’s vision: call from a video capable endpoint at one institution, to a video capable endpoint at another institution and expect video to just work. This seminar presents AARNet’s Multimedia solution, it will cover details on the challenges with the current environment, what is the solution about, how will it work, and who they’ve have partnered with.

AWAG (Australian Wireless Audio Group) wireless spectrum update: Jands’ Jeff MacKenzie and Syntec’s James Waldron provide an update regarding potential impact on owners and operators of wireless microphone systems due to reallocation of spectrum by the federal government. Questions such as: ‘Will I be able to use my wireless microphone after 2013?’ ‘What frequency range is considered ‘safe’ after 2013?’ and ‘What are the potential ramifications of not changing frequency after 2013?’ will all be answered.

Integrated Building Technology: Jason Lewis – National Manager Education & Government, Hills SVL – poses the question: When you get home you do not leave your car running? Of course not, you turn it off to save petrol. So why do companies not take the same level of control over their buildings? Jason outlines how the AV industry now provides the platform to provide truly integrated solutions to this problem.

I Can See the Future – Standards are Coming! Avoid surprises and be prepared: Peter Swanson, CTS – NSW/ACT Business Manager, AMX Australia – will review the current and future InfoComm standards as a basis for system design, production, sales, and support. This seminar will help you to develop a strategy to implement current and upcoming standards.

BIM: An Introduction to Building Information Modelling and its Impact on the AV Community: Peter Blackmore – founder of Blackmore Audiovision (BAV) – describes how BIM allows designers to view the building and its contents from any angle, revealing potential problems at early stages to allow correction before integration.

Control in the Age of Smart Devices: Graham Barrett – AMX Australia & NZ Marketing & Communications Manager – explores the fundamental difference between smart devices and smart systems, and identifies how traditional control systems fit into the changing landscape of smart devices and IP control and connectivity.

The Dawning of the Net-Centric Era: Randy Lemke, Ph.D. – Executive Director and CEO, InfoComm International – keynotes Super Tuesday, asking ‘If you buy AV and deploy it on a network are you making the new connections needed to get the most value from your systems?’

Randy explains why new technical and business connections with IT are important to your enterprise if you are a buyer of AV and are equally important if you are a commercial system integrator of AV.

The new DMS 700 is a revolutionary digital wireless solution designed for the future: The First Professional Digital Wireless System

• Up to 150MHz tuning range • 256 bit RC4 signal encryption for secure audio transmission • 2-channel digital true-diversity receiver • No Compander (used in analogue systems): higher sound quality • On-board DSP per channel (Compressor, EQ, Limiter) • Quick setup via infrared data link to the transmitter • Graphical spectrum analyser helps find clear channels • Remote monitoring and control via PC

016

NEWS

CLEAR-COM COMES CLEAN

DIGICO DOWNSIZES

SELECON TAKES WING

Clear-Com has come clean and agreed that professional wireless comms systems, including its own Clear-Com FreeSpeak and Tempest 2400 equipment, are often beyond the budget of smaller venues. The new Clear-Com HME DX210 is an affordable, entry level wireless communication system to suit the basic needs of small theatre, school and production applications. The Clear-Com HME DX210 is a single- or dual-channel Digital Wireless Intercom System that supports up to 15 belt-packs per basestation. This number can be increased by adding up to four additional base stations. Four of the 15 beltpacks can transmit at the same time in single-channel mode and three of the 15 belt packs can transmit at the same time in dual-channel mode. The DX210 supports both Clear-Com and RTS cabled intercom systems using the built-in two-wire interface in addition to four-wire and auxiliary audio connections. The DX210 is what Clear-Com calls ‘spectrum friendly’, providing co-existence with other 2.4GHz devices. Battery life for the belt-pack should be 15 hours.

Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or info@jands.com.au

A few years ago getting a decent analogue mixing console this compact was unthinkable. Now digital mixers are shrinking that much. The Digico SD11 is designed to be either a desktop console or fixed in a 19-inch rack. By removing the end cheeks and arm rest, rack fixings are revealed making it straightforward to mount into any touring or installation environment.

Manufactured with a steel chassis for strength and a polycarbonate-overlaid, aluminium work surface for reduced weight, the SD11 features 12 touch-sensitive moving faders below a 380mm touchscreen. Sixteen microphone preamps, eight line outputs and two mono AES I/O are provided and users also have the option to connect a Digico D-Rack to the Cat5E port. This provides a remote I/O rack frame with an additional 32 microphone inputs and up to 16 outputs. Further connections are a MADI port, GPI/O, MIDI, Overview screen output, wordclock I/O, an Ethernet port for console remote control/networking and a USB port for file exchange and session backup. Yes, I want one.

Group Technologies: (03) 9354 9133 or www.grouptechnologies.com.au

With the release of its latest addition to the Wing range of Wall Washers, Philips Selecon is recognising the rapid advancements in high-power LED technology and its potential for performance display lighting applications. The Wing LED Wall Washer delivers a homogenous, glare-free beam, which will evenly light walls with no UV or Infrared radiation to cause damage to artworks or exhibits. The Wing LED is available in two modules, a Warm White (50,000hrs, 69lm/Watt), dimmable fixture or a RGB/Tuneable White (35,000hrs, 29lm/Watt) controlled via DMX (RDM address). The passive heat management system delivers a cool beam which means no radiated heat and convection cooling of the luminaire means no fans are needed, so no noise. Wing LED luminaires are currently shedding light on the Identity: yours, mine, ours exhibition at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.

Philips Selecon: 0419 133 342 or peter.mckenzie@philips.com

NEWS IN BRIEF:

AMX AWARDS: 2011 marks two milestones from AMX Australia, 20 years of AMX in Australia and the 20th Anniversary AMX Conference, called AMX11. The annual AMX event has evolved from a one-night meeting for 25 dealers in 1991 to a week-long conference including dedicated events for AMX dealers, consultants and for the first time in 2011, an AMX Users Group. It’s also the occasion for the annual Best Project Awards.

Advanced Video Integration was recognised for its involvement with the new disaster coordination facility in Queensland, the Queensland Emergency Operations

Centre (QEOC) in Kedron, Brisbane.

The $5.5m audiovisual rollout was completed in Feb 2011.

Auckland-based company ITAV was awarded for its work establishing the new CESPO headquarters in the Wellington CBD. Contained within this modern nine-story building is an AMX core solution that delivers a broad range of leading edge audiovisual applications.

Wizard Projects got an AMX gong for the Australian pavilion at last year’s World Expo in Shanghai.

With a major part of the pavilion being technology-based and a large mechanical exhibit, the

challenge was to design a system which was virtually maintenancefree. The system connected all lighting, audio, video, IT, CCTV, security and mechanical systems including the pavilion BMS system (which was Chinese) into one control environment.

IBS AV topped the class at La Trobe University installing a high quality, HD video conferencing system to provide distance learning for the remote students. Ten new lecture theatres were outfitted, while adding to an additional 10 existing theatres at the university.

AMX Australia: (07) 5531 3103 or www.amxaustralia.com.au

D-Tools Inc has launched a newly re-designed website, which features improved navigation and is optimised for improved speed and social media connectivity.

The company's flagship product, System Integrator is a total design solution that utilises Autodesk, AutoCAD and Microsoft Visio for comprehensive system design, documentation and project management.

D-Tools: www.d-tools.com

Matrox Graphics’ Avio Series is a line of fibreoptic KVM extenders for graphics-intensive design and visualisation applications within the process control, automotive, oil and gas, and government and military markets. The KVM extender transmitter/receiver pair enables users to secure the host computer in a climate-controlled machine room by capturing the system’s I/O functionality and extending it up to 1000m over a single fibreoptic cable.

New Magic Australia: 03 9722 9700 or www.newmagic.com.au

HD SERIES SOLUTIONS

CHALK ONE UP FOR VIEWSONIC The gloves are off and them’s fighting words...

ViewSonic four new projector models have been added to its 7 Series projector range – PJD7383, PJD7383i, PJD7583w and PJD7583wi – aimed at the education and training sectors. The 3D-ready ViewSonic 7 Series projectors “negate the need for costly interactive whiteboards” as teachers are able to write directly onto the projected image with the included interactive pen and the bundled RM Easy Teach software. ViewSonic 7 Series project 80-inch (2032mm) images from just one metre away “putting an end to teachers being blinded by the bright light”.

A microphone input is included and every projector in the ViewSonic 7 Series is 3D-ready. Also 3D-Ready are the Pro 8 Series DLP projectors targeted at business users. The Pro8500, Pro8450w and Pro8400 feature brightness levels of up to 5000 ANSI lumens and a lamp life of 3000 hours in Eco-Mode. The projectors are compatible with Crestron advanced network control, have a contrast ratio of 3000:1, two built-in 10 watt speakers and digital zoom. Pricing: from $1999.

ACTUAL SIZE

ViewSonic: (02) 9906 6207 or www.viewsonic.com.au

HD Omni-directional tabletop microphone

Revolabs HD Series provides conferencing and sound A Williams Sound Digi-Wave RF Transmission System was recently installed at Macquarie Park University Hospital Surgery Theatre. The system is used for communication between the teaching surgeon and the medical students. While demonstrating surgical procedures the surgeon can speak wirelessly via a DLT-100 transceiver to all the students who also wear similar transceivers to listen to the commentaries. During question time, each student can speak into his/her own transceiver.

Hills SVL: (02) 9647 1411 or nsw@hillssvl.com.au

Advantech, an embedded platform and integration services provider, has announced the ETM-RES02C, a touch control board with fast response times for 4/5-Wire resistive touchscreens. It comes with software which can help integrators quickly configure their applications. The board provides a solution for POS, medical and machine control applications with a MTBF of 4 million hours. Touch resolution is 4096 x 4096 with response times of around 10ms. The board has USB and RS-232 interfaces, and three touchscreen connectors. A 10-bit A/D converter is built in.

Advantech Australia: 1300 308 531 or www.advantech.net.au

reinforcement solutions that offer the fidelity

of wired microphones, with the versatility of a wireless system.

Experience a new freedom in collaboration!

FOR YOUR NEAREST DEALER: AUSTRALIA: Call 1300 13 44 00 or visit www.audioproducts.com.au

018

NEWS

‘iPROJECTOR’ TO PINCH MARKET

PULSAR GO PAIR-SHAPED

IT’S JBL’S SHOUT… ALMOST

Panasonic’s new PT-FW430 and PT-FX400 projectors can project data wirelessly received from an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. The PT-FW430 offers 3500 lumens of brightness and native WXGA (1280 x 800 pixels) for full hi-def viewing as well as a 600:1 contrast ratio in dynamic iris mode. Panasonic’s Daylight View Premium function corrects image quality to project sharp, clear images even in brightly lit rooms. The PT-FX400 has 4000 lumens of brightness, XGA (1024 x 768 pixels) and an optional wireless function.

For both models an Eco-Filter only needs replacing every 12,000 hours and there is a 6000-hour lamp replacement cycle. To do the iPad thing requires the Panasonic Wireless Projector for iOS application, a free download from the App Store. The application allows users to conduct presentations in PDF and JPEG format using only the wireless projector and an Apple device, allowing touchscreen operations such as rotating the screen, flicking to turn pages, and pinching to zoom in or out.

Panasonic Australia: 132 600 or www.panasonic.com.au

Pulsar has released wireless DMX transmitter/ receivers that provide a full 512-channel universe using matched pairs. The PWDMX are compatible with all DMX512 equipment and are rated at IP65 for external use. Using the global 2.4GHz ISM band, typical range is expected to be 100 metres, but you can get up to 250 metres with a clear line-of-sight.

Otherwise long-range antennae are available to help things along. The PWDMX have AFHSS Adaptive Frequency Hopping, Multi-mode DMX packet error correction and accurate DMX packet timing integrity.

There is a single one-button operation to achieve a setup and pairing between transmitter and receiver, and it’s possible to program an unlimited number of receivers to accept data from any one transmitter.

Each unit does need a +6 to 32 Volt DC power supply or they are automatically powered by the voltage on pins 4 and 5 of any Pulsar DMX fixture.

Show Technology: (02) 9748 1122 or www.showtech.com.au

JBL knows how to catch our eye. It mentions beer in the press release. It’s almost cheating. JBL’s Commercial Series ceiling loudspeakers are designed for paging and background music applications including retail stores, restaurants, schools and other public facilities – and are priced to “give you change for a beer”. Hmm... that’s not exactly putting a hand in the pocket at the bar. High sensitivity provides maximum sound level at low tap settings and wide dispersion ensures good coverage. Triple voltage transformers (100V, 70V and 25V) are compatible with any distributed speaker system, and the Commercial Series meets UL1480 and UL2043 requirements for use in plenum ceiling spaces (standards regulating loudspeakers used within fire protective signalling systems), so long as you use a UL listed backcan, which is also available from JBL. The drivers all feature a full one-inch diameter voice coil with a Kapton coil-former and high-temperature wire for power dissipation and long-term reliability. The driver, grille and transformer come pre-assembled for ease of installation.

Jands: (02) 9582 0909 or info@jands.com.au

NEWS IN BRIEF:

I can’t wait for the DVD release: Sony Australia has completed an upgrade to the Australian Parliament House broadcast and display technologies. In a $4m+ contract, the new system enables hi-def (and standard def) footage to be captured for distribution to broadcast networks. Sony broadcast cameras are used to produce televised coverage proceedings, as well as studio and piece-to-camera work.

Sony Australia: 1300 720 071 or www.sony.com.au

Due to continuing expansion, a new general manager position has been created to oversee the day-to-day running and future direction of Australian Monitor.

This position has been awarded to Marc Sharman, who has been with Australian Monitor for over a year now and previously worked for Hills SVL for almost 15 years, building the branch office in Perth.

Hills SVL: (02) 96471411 or nsw@hillssvl.com.au

Hitachi has introduced increased warranties for its signature digital presentation products, the Ultra Short Throw Projector and the Starboard Interactive Whiteboard.

Warranty periods are increasing from five to seven years for the interactive whiteboards and from three years to five years for its entire range of Ultimate Short Throw Projectors.

Hitachi Australia: (02) 9888 4100 or www.hitachi.com.au

Kramer has released the 910 digital audio preamplifier and mixer. The 910 accepts balanced and unbalanced stereo audio, S/PDIF digital audio, and a microphone input. It then processes the signals and outputs them to balanced, unbalanced and S/PDIF outputs. The 910 is ideal for professional audio applications, sound studios, boardrooms, classrooms, and training rooms.

Kramer Electronics Australia: (07) 3806 4290 or www.krameraustralia.com.au

Both of Bosch’s voice alarm systems, the mid-range Plena system and the high-end fully digital Praesideo system, have been granted EN54 certification.

Introduced as a standard for fire alarm systems, EN54 has now been extended to cover voice evacuation to meet a growing trend towards integration of fire alarm and voice evacuation systems. Certification includes not only the central voice alarm equipment but also peripheral equipment such as loudspeakers.

Bosch Security Systems: (02) 9672 1233 or www.boschsecurity.com.au

Savant has an Apple-based home automation system controlled from iPad, iPhone or iPod touch interfaces. It enables them to access a wide range of devices and all their digital audio and video content using Apple products. Savant control solutions include security systems, telephony, window shades and much more – all controlled from an easy-to-use application that runs on Apple iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Emersive Technologies: (03) 9819 5786 or www.emersivetech.com

the AV Industry’s Lunchroom Noticeboard

Luxim’s LiFi STA 60 series is a new range of higher output Light Emitting Plasma sources. Total initial output will be 45,000 lumens, the equivalent of a 600W HID lamp, while the sources are expected to deliver an average life of 30,000 hours life to 50% intensity. This represents a significant improvement in the output of plasma lamps and is the next major step from the LiFi technology currently being used in Robe’s Robin moving light fixtures.

Luxim: www.luxim.com

Subscribe now: www.av.net.au

ArKaos has released the 1.5 version of GrandVJ, a realtime video mixer software allowing VJs to compose up to eight layers of video during live audiovisual performances – think: nightclubs, dance parties and other on-the-fly visual spectaculars. GrandVJ 1.5 has two major new features: Transitions and ArKaos Connect VST. Thirty-seven transitions, such as fades and swipes are available over variable fade times, all controlled by MIDI. Arkaos Connect VST allows GrandVJ to receive sound and MIDI from any audio sequencer compatible with VST plug-ins, running on the same machine or on another machine from the network. ArKaos Connect has been successfully tested with Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar X1, Reaper and FL Studio. GrandVJ 1.5 has bidirectional support for Akai’s new MIDI controller, the APC20. Akai’s APC40 was supported in the previous release. GrandVJ accepts all common video and image formats and operates in both Windows 7 and Mac OSX. ULA Group: 1300 852 476 or www.ula.com.au

• Who’s doing what work where • What’s happening on the technology front • What training is available • Who’s hiring

GRANDVJ FADES IN

020

NEWS

2 3

1 4

5

6

1/ IPAD HITS A WALL

2/ AFMG HITS SWEET SPOT

3/ BARCO BOX OF TRICKS

The iRoom iDock is an iPad in-wall docking system that allows easy removal of the iPad via a motorised release system. The iDock has power and AV RCA connections for the iPad to be used with home automation control via a growing range of apps that can be downloaded using a Wi-Fi connection when the iPad is docked. The iRoom iDock can be installed in masonry or dry stud walls and with use of the provided backing box customers receive a 2-year warranty. For removal, the iPad slot tilts forward by 20 degrees. The iPad slot remains in “remove” position for 10 seconds after which the slot is automatically retracted. In the case of slot-mechanism overload or power failures the iPad slot moves to the “remove” position to avoid injury and damage to the equipment. The iDock is available through authorised resellers in portrait, landscape and desktop versions in black and white; users can choose from three different frames–black, white and brushed aluminium. iRoom Asia Pacific 0447740016 or www.i-room.com.au

This should finally kill of the old ‘egg cartons glued to the wall will work’ myth. German software developer AFMG, renowned for “mathematically rigorous acoustical simulations”, has developed AFMG Reflex – software to model the reflection, diffusion, and scattering of sound waves by geometrical structures. Reflex Standard users can draw 2D-extruded geometrical surfaces of unlimited size and complexity, then reflective properties are displayed as polar response graphs for any frequency at any angle of incidence. Users can evaluate diffuser performance and fine-tune room design for both single-listener and expanded sweet spots, applying the data to anywhere from large auditoriums to the smallest studio. Reflex Standard is a stand-alone analysis tool for professional acoustic technicians, but if your aspirations are a little lower, AFMG has Reflex Basic, engineered for designers and owners of home theatres and project studios.

Scientific Acoustics: 0409 344683 or info@scienticacoustics.com.au

The DX-100 is a video processor designed to control Barco’s FLX transformable LED series by using Barco’s Director Toolset (DTS) application. The DX-100 accepts single-link or dual-link DVI inputs (RGB/YCbCr), through a DVI-I connector, and SD-SDI or HD-SDI inputs (up to 1080i) via BNC. Internal signal processing is by Barco’s own Athena scaling technology with a 12-bit minimum colour depth. An advanced motion-adaptive de-interlacer converts interlaced or progressive segmented frame (PSF) inputs to progressive formats.

Colour correction and enhancement is also provided for all video inputs. The DX-100 supports a variety of digital video effects such as freeze, strobe, and linear color transformations. The processor can also be genlocked to an external reference, to a selected input or set to free-run. Internal test patterns can be selected and configured from the DTS. All input, output and communication connectors are located on the unit’s rear panel.

Barco: (03) 9646 5833 or sales.au@barco.comw

4/ CRYSTAL CLEAR VISION

5/ BOSE: 5.1 IN THE BACK OF A TELLY

6/ POWERSOFT ADDS DSP

New from Crystal Vision is the ARC-20MC, a high performance bi-directional digital aspect ratio converter with the ability to change the aspect ratio live on air without picture disruption. ARC-20MC has presets for the six commonly used aspect ratio conversions between 4:3 and 16:9. Continuous compression or expansion in line and pixel increments can be used to change the picture size, while vertical and horizontal offsets allow the addition of subtitles. Vertical and horizontal cropping from 0-100% also make it possible to completely blank the image, starting from any edge. The ARC-20MC can dynamically select the best conversion based on the video index, WSS or SMPTE 2016 AFD data in the incoming video and passes all embedded audio, ensuring the audio is delayed by the same amount.

Mastatek: (03) 9753 4300 or info@mastatek.com.au

Bose likes to ‘think different’, as the Yanks might say.

Bose figures cashed-up consumers not investing in a 5.1 surround sound home theatre are being discouraged by unnecessary complexity. Bose’s new VideoWave entertainment system changes all that by combining a 46-inch 1080p LCD display and a music system into one product. It includes new software and electronics, multiple channels of amplification and a custom speaker package – all invisible. VideoWave ‘pings’ the room to optimise the performance of the audio… and the simulated surround sound experience is very believable. If engineering an entire 5.1 system into the back of a telly wasn’t clever enough, the new click pad remote is brilliant. It cleverly controls everything on-screen – unfortunately you can’t buy the remote separately!

Bose: 1800 023 367 or www.bose.com.au

Powersoft’s M Series is designed for pro use in sound reinforcement and fixed installations including resorts and hotels, live music and dance clubs, and theme parks.

The new M Series DSP+ETH brings added functionality and control to the amplifier platform, providing access to Powersoft’s digital signal processing engine technology, Ethernet connectivity and system monitoring and control through its Armonia Pro Audio Suite software. The system offers five bi-quad filters per channel for system EQ, plus two crossovers and eight bi-quad filters. Each channel has dual dynamic processors delay compensation for speaker time alignment. The DSP card also offers FIR/IIR filters for accurate crossover control. Crossover filter types include Butterworth, Linkwitz-Riley and Bessel, with adjustable 6dB to 48dB per octave roll off. The M Series comes in three two-channel and two quad versions.

Production Audio Services: (03) 9264 8000 or info@productionaudio.com.au

sound . light . vision 30TH AUGUST - 1ST SEPTEMBER 2011

SYDNEY AUSTRALIA Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park, Sydney

EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE

www.integrate-expo.com

022

NEWS

TOOWOOMBA’S EMPIRE THEATRE STRIKES BACK Some might call it careless to let your prime venue burn down after some 20-odd years, but for the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba, 1933 was just the start of what’s become a glorious, if protracted, rebirth. “Within nine months the theatre had been rebuilt to what we see now,” said Steve Alexander from the Theatre’s technical department. “This fantastic Art Deco proscenium is an outstanding example from the period and is now Australian Heritage listed.

Consequently any changes at the theatre have to fulfil more than just technical expectations.”

Toowoomba has fought hard to preserve its theatrical jewel; the theatre was a popular Movie venue until it was closed in the early 1970s. After sitting basically unused for almost 25 years, the run-down venue was purchased and renovated by the local Council.

During this renovation in 1997 an extensive civic-funded re-build saw improved and up-to-date front-of-house facilities added, and backstage, a new fly tower was created. “That really brought the theatre into the 21st century,” said Alexander. “When I joined as Head of Audio two years ago the only thing that required attention was the PA system, not through neglect, but just the fact that it had been well used and was in need of some attention.”

Alexander, a native of Toowoomba, brought 20 years’ experience to the Empire, “Previously I’d devoted my time to numerous productions and musical theatre.

I worked nine years with a production company in Brisbane, and another 11 touring productions around Australia and Asia.” The perfect job for Alexander, he set about assessing and justifying the improvements needed. “We’re all very proud of our theatre including The Friends of the Empire who are a large group of volunteers involved in ushering etc. So in suggesting change I had to work towards consensus. We now have a d&b audiotechnik T-Series system supplied by National Audio Systems and we’re really happy with it. However, to get to this point we conducted several in-house tests, and I created a decision matrix against which we judged the contenders.”

As a civic-owned venue, Alexander had to justify purchase decision very clearly. “My touring experience gave me a good idea of what sonic performance

markers we needed and what would suit the venue. We don’t get a lot of rock ’n’roll in here so the majority of our performances are theatrical. It also needed to be physically discreet; we didn’t want some large intrusive system ruining the aesthetics of the proscenium. We took a long look at people’s riders to see what the leading preferences were. The d&b system ticked all those boxes. The system was colour matched beautifully to the proscenium’s colour, and the coverage across the auditorium is excellent. The final factor was support; if we needed more cabinets or spares it was good to know that just two hours away was a sizeable stock of d&b rental gear readily available in Brisbane.”

At just over 1500 seats the Empire is the largest regional auditorium in Australia, and, like the three bears’ porridge, it is in the words of Alexander, “not too dry, not too reverberant, but just right.” The balcony is deep and wide but NAS system designer Dave Jacques is rightly proud of the fact that he was able to rig the d&b T-Series system in such a way as to completely negate the need for under balcony fills. “We did just add a pair of Ci80s right at the very back, but only as a mix delay for the desk position.”

Low end could have been another issue. “We didn’t really want subwoofers stacked at the bottom of the proscenium,” said Alexander. “Dave and I decided to try the d&b B4-Subs in the Juliet boxes. Since we re-opened in September with the new system, sound engineers come in, look at it and say ‘that can’t work’. Then they try it, and it does, and very well at that, giving good low-end delivery across the stalls and the balcony.” To complete the picture Jacques placed just three of the tiny d&b E0 loudspeakers across the front of stage for fill. As Alexander concluded, “That underlines just how comprehensive the coverage is from the main flown T system. Already we’re getting productions turn up with a truck load of PA; the sound engineer arrives, takes a look at the house system, and they just leave the kit on the dock. These guys aren’t even wanting to fiddle with the system EQ. We’re all just very pleased. With the 100th anniversary of the founding of The Empire in 2011 we're in perfect shape for the next century.”

Empire Theatre: www.empiretheatre.com.au National Audio (d&b): 1800 441 440 or www.nationalaudio.com.au

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MY expansion cards ensure that Yamaha’s extensive range of DME Series programmable DSPs, digital mixers and TXn Series power amplifiers are always compatible with the widest variety of audio formats.

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024

FEATURE

Dinner and a Show For 8500 Please Amway China’s Island Sea incentive event.

Text & Images:/ Paul Newton.

Each year, Amway China rewards its highest-selling dealers with an impressive and memorable international incentive event. This year the destination was Sydney, where the winners attended two days of conferencing at Acer Arena and a day of sightseeing activities culminating in an elaborate gala dinner event at The Dome. Back in September 2010, Blake Harris from Triumph Leisure Solutions (TLS) won the tender to produce the event, and working in collaboration with Ignatious Jones from David Atkins Events and Jason Coleman (of So You Think You Can Dance fame), built a series of performances for the gala dinners that rivalled an opening ceremony for a major sporting event. There were a total of 8500 guests that attended the three-day event, in four separate waves. This meant staging four identical gala dinners on the 16th, 20th, 24th and 28th of January this year. Management of staging and technical responsibilities were outsourced to Joshua James, my fellow director at The Event and Activation Resource (The EAR), who production managed the entire event and liaised with all technical and creative suppliers from the outset. For this event I took on the role of safety officer, writing the risk assesments and managing the safety on-site throughout the project.

THE SHOW

Each night, guests walked down a red carpet and entered the hall immediately adjoining The Dome. Here, they were ushered into one of four identical gold-draped photo booths equipped with tiered platforms to accommodate up to 50 delegates for the compulsory pre-event group photo session. Guests then moved through star cloth tunnels and into Island Sea, an underwater spectacular complete with gigantic helium-filled floating sea urchins and seaweed suspended from the roof.

The room was (pardon the pun [It’s unpardonable-Ed]) literally a ‘sea’ of tables, each with their own centrepiece consisting of underwater theming which included a fishbowl with live goldfish. A 30m-wide, Perspex-topped table, located directly in front of the stage, was constructed for the VIP guests and was underlit by strings of LED balls.

During the course of the evening, guests were entertained by dance acts tightly choreographed by Jason Coleman and involving over 200 dancers, aerial performers, and gigantic UV painted (and self illuminated) props, complete with multimedia, laser and pyrotechnic support. Some seven satellite stages were located around the room so all guests felt that they were part of the show. Also on the program were the popular Chinese entertainers Sean Hern Lee, a seven-year old piano prodigy and prolific Taiwanese singer/songwriter Jonathan Lee and his five-piece band.

For those of you unfamiliar with the space, located in Olympic Park, The Dome (built for the Olympics as the Sydney Superdome), is like a massive sphere, cut in half and dropped across the concourse from ANZ Stadium (built for the Olympics as Stadium Australia). The roof structure is a symmetrical web of timber and steel beams that intersect to form over 240 possible rigging points; and almost every single one of them were used. The footprint is a true circle which made installing a show of this complexity even more challenging than usual as there are no parallel walls to reference the placement of stages and other surrounding infrastructure. I have never seen so many laser measurers and laser levellers used on a single event!

The Dome is attached to a series of exhibition halls that house the Boiler Room for the Big Day Out each year. This year the Big Day Out fell in between the third and fourth dinner so we needed to share the showground precinct that particular week, which we managed seamlessly, but it wasn’t fun.

and flown to working height for the lighting install on Day Four. By the end of day four, all luminaires were rigged (and flashed out) and all looms were run and tested. The total weight of metal work and fixtures hanging from the roof of The Dome was around 35 tonne and the total power draw sat at around 800 Amps.

The impressive lighting and rigging system design was the brainchild of Andy Mutton of Melbourne-based Lightning Lighting. The trussing spanned the roof with every possible combination and shape: tight twisting curves, circles, stars, zig-zags, boxes. It was like a flown truss showroom: if it existed, it was in the rig. Fabrics were then spanned across the trussing to create surfaces for lighting and the impression of a canopy over the guests.

The backdrop to the stage was a 12m-high scaffold tower that was clad with timber, then covered with a cyc cloth, to become a performance space for Aerialize Australia, an act that involves aerial performers scaling the screen surface and interacting with video projection. Requiring four tonnes of concrete ballast for stability, the structure took a full day to build… all for a five-minute performance.

The lighting rig consisted of about 700 luminaires, including (to name but a few hundred) 50 x Robe ColorSpot 2500E and 50 x Robe ColorWash 2500E, 50 x Mac 1200 spots, 82 x Robe 600 LED Wash, 36 x Martin Atomic strobes and 20 x Chromlech JARAG’s.

There were 27 universes of DMX512 control, of which eight were wireless W-DMX feeds to the satellite stages. Lighting control was divided between Andy Mutton on dualredundant Hog 1Ks driving the LED fixtures and Francesco Calvi and his dual-redundant GrandMAs looking after the rest.

LIGHTING & RIGGING

AUDIO

Clifton’s Productions installed all rigging, draping, staging and lighting for this event.

A total of eight semi-trailers transported all this equipment over a four-day period with an average of around 50 install crew per day. Day One was spent installing a total of 220 points by 8 riggers, while the trucks were unloaded in the adjoining hall. Day Two and Three were spent getting all 1.8km of trussing arranged

Norwest Productions provided their flagship Adamson system, which was processed with XTA DP448s and DP226s taking care of cross over and limiting duties. Networked Dolby Lake 4-12s and 8-8s were used as a front end, allowing wireless control via a tablet PC to equalise and tune all system delay functions.

The entire system was amplified by Lab Gruppen FP6400s, FP+ 10000Qs and C68.4s.

THE VENUE

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Above: Hectares of sailcloth draped between truss sections helps to add some intimacy to a sports arena transformed into a dinner theatre for a couple of thousand guests . Below: Virtually every possible rigging point in the Dome has a chain motor and truss hanging from it.

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IMAG picture-in-picture of the action on the main stage, one of eight spread around the venue. Theming included sea anemones overhead between the sailcloth panels and drapes, more water ripple effects than it takes to fill an Olympic pool, 'you are here' panoramas, smoke, lasers and of course, live goldfish, who apparently didn't perform.

Due to some unexpected on-site changes and rigging restrictions, Norwest had to quickly re-configure their main array system as it was overweight by around 500kg. The final system design, consisted of two arrays (left and right) of 8 x Adamson Y18 with 4 x Adamson Y10 underhung. The centre fill was two Arrays of 4 x Adamson SpekTrix with 1 x Adamson SpekTrix sub underhung.

Further down the room, delay clusters 8 x Adamson Y10s were used for centre, left and right. Suffice it to say – there was plenty of PA in the roof despite the required reduction to meet weight loading requirements. The front of house consoles were a Yamaha M7CL and a O1V96, while a PM5D and another 01V96 handled stage monitoring.

VIDEO PROJECTION

The event space was wrapped with over 180° of projection screen, in the form of two 60m x 9m curved scrims and a flat 20m x 9m central scrim that formed the stage backdrop. All 1260sqm of projection surface were brand new cyclorama cloth, supplied and very carefully installed by The Look. Big Picture installed and blended 9 x Barco HD 20k DLP projectors together to form a seamless blend 15,744 pixels wide, with a 10% overlap between each of the nine projections. Barco Toolset was used for projector control via a wireless network, allowing the projectionists the

freedom to roam the space when tuning the displays.

All multimedia content was created in-house by a team of six TLS designers who worked solidly for six weeks creating some of the most stunning content I have ever seen – the majority of it created especially for the show. The projection backdrop formed a virtual digital set that immersed the guests in an underwater environment complete with hundreds of individually animated fish, whales and turtles. This content (a series of stitched Quicktime movies) was triggered through a rack of five dual-DVI output Pandoras Box Pro servers. A team of three Big Picture projectionists, together with the Pandoras Box programmer, Paul Collison, spent four long, late nights programming the blend and colour balancing the nine high definition projectors to perfection.

The system was then handed over to Kim Louey-Gung who controlled and operated the multimedia system each night.

All Pandora’s Box servers used four video layers and three graphic layers.

Two of the video layers were used for each scene then cross-faded through to the next scene on the other two video layers. The graphic layers held the IMAG picture-in-picture (PIP) and the table plans used to direct guests to their tables during walk-in.

In total, five sequences were used: two for the main scene looks, one for the camera and layer defaults, and one

for the three different IMAG PIPs that were provided via the video capture cards on each server. There was no sub mixer used for the show, each server output was fed directly to its own projector via a dedicated Barco/Folsom ImagePro HD scaler. The video scenes were programmed on alternate sequences, allowing the content to remain locked to timecode, which reduced the possibility of the individual clips falling out of sync.

The engineered camera system was driven by an SD Grass Valley Kayak console with Sony DXC D55 SDI camera chains. The system also included an 8m jib and a Gigawave D-Cam microwave link to the roaming camera located front of stage. Cameras provided live to screen elements as well as recording a mixed, directed feed to a bank of Sony DVCAM recorders each night.

SPECIAL EFFECTS – PYRO & LASER

Laservision was contracted to provide the laser elements for the event. These include a stunning wave effect that made the guests feel like they were underwater. Special effects such as CO2 vapour cannons, flame blasts, bubble machines and pyrotechnics (truss and floor mounted) were installed and operated wirelessly by a team under the direction of Bob Blore Pyrotechnics.

SHOW CONTROL

All systems were synchronized via a dualredundant Medialon ShowMaster Pro

Controller system supplied and programmed by Dean Stevenson of Interactive Controls. The ShowMaster system received SMPTE timecode from the audio playback system and distributed it to all the slaved systems. In the end, all show systems were locked to timecode except for the pyrotechnics and the aerial performers’ StageMaster rigging system, which were manually controlled for obvious safety reasons.

Medialon Manager panels displaying timecode and a realtime clock were provided to the showcaller and various stage managers around the room.

The staging of this event involved thousands of hours of meetings, planning, designing and extensive communication between 30 different companies and contractors over a three-month pre-production period. All staff should be incredibly proud of their achievements in staging this event as Amway China was extremely impressed by the end result. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS Executive Producer – Blake Harris (TLS) Creative Director – Victor Mayor (TLS) Production Manager – Josh James (The EAR) Talent Director – Jason Coleman (Dance Academy) Show Caller – Pamela Kekos Lighting Director – Andy Mutton (Lightning Lighting) Audio Director – Ian Cooper Multimedia & Video – Paul Collison & Kim Louey-Gung

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FEATURE

Toasting Euro-Cheese Eurovision Song Contest: astounding technology in the service of ‘what the…?’ television.

Text:/ Paul Collison

How does a simple song contest become so deeply embedded in the psyche of an entire continent? How is it that 55 years after its inception, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is one of the biggest and most-watched television events of the year? This is despite it being described as kitsch and boring: and they’re the publishable descriptions! While these questions may be unanswerable, what we do know is that the ESC is a unique event that’s gaining in popularity every year, around the world. Even outside Europe, people now flock to their television screens to witness this monstrous show. We also know the ESC is one of the ultimate technical productions of each year.

This story really began when Germany won the ESC in 2010 and thus became the hosts for the 2011 event, which was staged in Düsseldorf’s Fortuna Arena. Built in 2002-04, the Fortuna Arena was initially designed as a football (soccer) stadium, and later modified for live events. To convert the building into a Eurovision temple suitable for all of Europe to worship ‘talent’ from around the continent, a roof had to be constructed to enclose the previously open-air stadium. With capacity reduced from 55,000 to only 24,000 due to production requirements, the building became home to the hundreds of production crew for the four-week build and two-week production run of the broadcast.

LED PLAGUE KEEPS SPREADING

To create an environment where more is more, is a bigger challenge than one might think. Simply throwing huge numbers of lighting fixtures and set pieces to every corner of the building is not the answer. Production Designer Florian Wieder, of Wieder Design, was tasked with the responsibility of creating an overall concept for the event. As in past years, LED video surfaces were integral to the design. The video surfaces allowed for a complete transformation of the overall scenic landscape. Starting upstage we see

the 1250sqm Spider F-30 transparent LED screen which completely engulfed the end of the stadium. Keen beans would have noted the slight gap in the centre of the screen throughout the final broadcast. If you had, you were not surprised when it parted at the end of the performance segment of the show to reveal a green room area in an impressive honeycomb array.

The transparency of the Spider screen, with its 30mm pitch between SMD LED pixels, allowed for greater depth, with lighting fixtures including strobes and strip lights placed behind it. Out in the centre of the performance area, 200sqm of Barco MiTrix created a radiating panelling effect in the roof.

Spread around this and through the floor was 2.6km of Barco MiStrip. All LED content was mapped from a grandMA VPU (Video Processing Unit) controlled from within the lighting department. The IMAG screens for the audience were covered by 12 Barco FLM20 projectors. Coolux V3.0 Widget Designer Pro was used by Stephan Floeren to manage the video switching and backup system.

SEEING EUROVISION IN A FRESH LIGHT

With that much video to contend with, German Lighting Designer Jerry Appelt had a job ahead to light the talent around the video. At times he was required to create massive lighting effects and at other times was required to let the content breathe and become the overriding scenic element. To achieve this, Appelt required a lighting system full of powerful fixtures in great abundance.

Cape Cross of Cologne was the lead lighting contractor. With over 1000 moving lights, 8.5km of truss and 900 rigging points, this was a job that required exceptional planning and preparation. Using a lighting system based around the Mac2000XB Wash and Clay Paky Alpha1500 series of lights, Appelt needed to be able to provide some wow moments that could really cut. Enter the A&O Falcon searchlights: 24 x Flower 3000

and 16 x Falcon Flower 7000 provided that punch. Their impressive xenon multi-beam effects from a controllable reflector combined with an integrated gel-scroller, allowed the lighting team to create some truly unique looks and completely change the space of the massive room in an instant. Appelt said of the Falcon: “I use the 3K all the time, but Düsseldorf Arena is huge and I wanted beams to reach into every corner. This was actually the first time I used the 7K, and the results were fantastic.”

Appelt and his team used the grandMA2 platform to control this massive video and lighting system. There were four primary control surfaces with four backup surfaces.

Amazingly, though, the entire show, lighting and video, was all run from a single console session. This led to a simplified network for the 42,000 parameters that controlled the 5000-odd lighting fixtures on the site. Also in that session were eight grandMA VPU devices controlling all the video content and LED mapping. A further eight VPUs ran in-line to provide full system redundancy.

Appelt took advantage of the grandMA3D tool for offline programming, which started in Hamburg weeks before the first lighting fixture was installed. Carefully programming cues, all to be executed via timecode in that environment, gave the lighting programmers a great headstart for the live programming.

“Absolutely every millisecond is cued and then rehearsed, again, and again, and again.

There is no room for an error in a show of this size,” said Appelt.

KEEPING THE ACTS HAPPY

Working with every delegation from each country and keeping them happy is by far the biggest challenge. Ola Melzig, a veteran of nine ESCs, was the go-between for the delegations and the creative teams. Ola made sure each delegation had a strong voice in terms of content creation and lighting states. She was with each delegation, for every rehearsal, on

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All photographs on this page by Alain Douit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; courtesy Eurovision TV

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Image courtesy Riedel Communications

the floor of the area. And because production time is severely limited, ensuring that it was utilised to its full extent was a major task for Ola. However, ensuring that all the delegations were in control and comfortable with the production process are also an important part of his job. Of the video content, Ola states: “Video is one of the trickier elements, as sometimes the production team doesn’t get specific instructions on how each country wants their song to look. After the first round of rehearsals there are usually several requests for changes; even Spain completely changed their content the day of the final broadcast. Luckily, we had a very talented crew and some of the best equipment available. In the end, everyone walked away completely satisfied.”

MOVING THE BITS

Of course, being a German gig, it would have been impossible to keep Riedel Communications (the German comms and data trucking company) away, even if this wasn’t the sort of large-scale gig they do all over the world every week. Their fibre-based multi-protocol MediorNet system formed the backbone to distribute every type of data from the 70 HD-SDI video feeds and 1200 audio signals to the 734 comms ports for their Artist and Performer talkback systems. They also provided the interfaces for the 500-odd digital trunk radio handsets, vision and audio for the 48 commentator booths, a 4Gbps site-wide Internet feed and the two 125Mbps terrestrial (and satellite backup) broadcast links from the venue to host broadcaster NDR. Needless to say, everything was at the very least dual-redundant.

Top and centre: Take a perfectly good open-air footy arena, plonk a temporary roof over it, then load the roof with kilotonnes of production gear. All this effort for some cheesy sparkling song contest. What's wrong with an eisteddfod in the local hall? Bottom: In addition to the two steadicams, and the two hothead booms, some truly spectacular shots came from the SkyCam on its computer-controlled four-winch flying system.

Source: ESC Today Forums

Photographer: Alain Douit

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Image courtesy of M & M Production Mgt. The look for Slovenia included a lot of atmospheric effects and every last beam of the Falcon Flower multibeam searchlights – which did a brilliant job of lighting the grid .

A BEAUTIFUL NOISE

Audio was no simple matter either. Each delegation had time in a studio away from the main stage to get their levels right for their in-ear monitors. The settings were then transferred to the main monitor system, to make sure precious on-stage time was not wasted with setting monitor levels, so that once on stage, everyone could concentrate on the visual aspect of the show.

Almost 400 loudspeakers in various flavours of d&b filled the auditorium with Eurovision love.

Audio control for the room included a fullyredundant Yamaha PM5D-RH control system for front of house and a Yamaha PMID-V2 for monitoring. Sennheiser has long been a Eurovision partner and 2011 was no different. Handheld mics were all SKM5200 with Neumann Kapsel KK104S and headsets were all HSP-4 with EM3732

beltpack transmitters and EM3732 receivers. The 5.1 and stereo broadcast mixes originated from a container in the car park where four Aurus consoles from German audio company Stagetec were deployed. From there, all broadcast mixes were sent to NDR’s master control and distributed around the world to over 120 million viewers.

After talking to many of the team involved, one gets the impression that the Eurovision family is just that, a family that come together each year for up to three months to put on one of the truly spectacular events of the year. For many of these people, Eurovision is a huge part of their life. So much so, they are all, already, talking about concepts and ideas for 2012… and before the last truck had even left the building.

See you in Azerbaijan! 

PRODUCTION CREDITS Stage Design: Florian Wieder Lighting Design: Jerry Appelt Technical Coordinator & Gaffer: Matthias Rau Head of Lighting: Matthias Hagel Head of Lighting Greenroom: Wolfgang Nöhrer Effect Operator: Sascha Matthes Video Operator: Michael Giegerich White Light Operator: Markus Ruhnke Greenroom Audience Operator: “Matze” Meyert Host Broadcaster: NDR Executive Producer Show: Thomas Schreiber (NDR) Executive Supervisor of EBU: Jon-Ola Sand

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Up Against the Wall FEX now has a videowall befitting Sydney’s ‘Wall Street’.

Text:/ Tim Stackpool

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The challenge presented by installing technically advanced systems in a heritage-listed building is well documented and understood.

AV has certainly reported on many installations, both here and abroad, where the integrity of the ‘nature’ of the architecture is given as much consideration as the practicality and effectiveness of the gear. Today, further issues complicate such installations. Perhaps the site has significant OH&S requirements or access to the venue might be limited during business hours. Perhaps the site also happens to host a live television broadcast everyday. This was the situation faced by Videowall Australia when the limited video display apparatus at the Financial Energy Exchange (FEX) in Sydney required an ‘upgrade’.

The FEX site, located in the historicallysignificant Burns Philp building on Bridge Street, is described as a purpose-built financial media hub, providing television broadcast and event facilities.

Situated in the heart of Sydney’s financial district, the space is also used as a venue for market announcements, conferences and corporate functions. With the open and viewable live broadcasting studio accompanied by impressive cutting-edge interior design, the fitout and style of the entire complex makes a striking impression indeed. Business is serious in this building, being the home of the Financial and Energy Exchange Group (FEX), and the licensed Australian stock exchanges, the SIM Venture Securities Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of Australia.

SOLID FOUNDATIONS – SHAKY START

Back in late 2009, the partially-completed videowall on the ground floor was required to give an impressive welcome to the building, but fell short of being able to deliver the imagery or flexibility of operation desired by the FEX. Three movable support towers held the first three of nine proposed 102-inch plasma displays. With an overall width of just over 7m, these screens were big, heavy and had very wide mullions, making it impossible to display a single picture across the entire wall, and fell short of delivering such features as picture-in-picture effects. It was nonetheless Photographer: Tim Stackpool

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utilised by CNBC, albeit merely providing a network logo on a single screen as a backdrop to their broadcasts. It was however, supported by some very impressive structural engineering, which was subsequently employed for the future design.

After consultations with Samsung about its requirements for a replacement system, FEX briefed-in their wish list: a large, bold, bright, broadcast standard screen; capable of displaying multi-source video and data; flexible control with various pre-programmed screen layouts; in-house ability to map any source to anywhere on the wall with the option of a full-screen HD TV image.

Screen input sources should include SDI, DVI, HDMI, RGBHV and composite video. The other major requirement was that the installation should cause minimal disruption to the broadcast facility which works five days a week, remembering the videowall is situated within the studio. And of course, given the site’s location in the city, parking was unavailable.

Richard Newton from Videowall Australia said, “We proposed a solution and won the job based on our innovative approach. We suggested a large LCD videowall, 7179mm x 2897mm, using 35 Samsung ultra-narrow mullion 460UT screens. These were supported by Jupiter PixelNet videowall processing with multiple input nodes for all source types, BrightSign digital signage player and 1010 servers providing graphic content. Plus, we put forward a design solution to position all this within the confines of the broadcast studio, utilising the existing mobile support towers.”

PIXELS FROM JUPITER

The Samsung displays use S-PVA LCD panels, making them suitable for the demanding 24/7 operation. “Their 700 cd/sqm brightness with 44% haze provides a bright clear image in adverse light conditions with very low reflectivity off the screen surface,” reports Samsung product manager Danny Gibson. Although Samsung has developed a modular mounting system to facilitate the mounting of its UT screens, these were not used in this case, due to the significant infrastructure required to be added to the support towers already

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Image courtesy of Samsung The screen in all its glory, demonstrating some of its image distribution capabilities. The cast iron column in the foreground and street scene reflected in the window give an idea of just how cramped and open to the public the FEX studio really is.

in place. The PixelNet processors were used in conjunction with the UT series built-in videowall firmware to distribute multiple images across the matrix of screens.

The PixelNet processing and control from Jupiter was fully supported by distributor IDT, who also provided engineering expertise for the BrightSign digital signage devices. In particular, the brief required the ability to implement a scrolling ticker across the wall. To facilitate this, IDT supplied a BrightSign player to add the element. The BrightSign solid state player was selected due to its lack of moving parts, pointing to reliability and a longer life of the product.

For the engineering design, Videowall Australia commissioned Partridge Partners

to deliver the promised innovative design required to transform the installed structural elements into a massive single display.

The support needed to hold the weight of the 35 Samsung screens, as well as resist bending when rolled out for maintenance.

All components had to be man-handled into place and assembled within the confines of the TV studio, all with the now understood restricted access to the site.

BUILDING THE NEW WALL

Nick Joannides from Partridge Partners joined the project following the successful completion of an earlier project with Videowall Australia. “We were impressed with Nick’s innovative designs, assistance

and patience with our RailCorp cube wall project at the Sydenham Signal Box. Any engineer who can produce designs acceptable to RailCorp is to be treasured.

We instantly retained Nick for the FEX project,” said Videowall Australia’s Richard Newton.

Additionally, Peter Allen from PA Site Services was engaged to fabricate the heavyduty frame system required to mount on the existing tower constructions and the installation phase of the project. No hot work was allowed on-site. Instead, all the installed hardware had to be preassembled off-site, broken down, then reassembled on-site where the team worked several nights from 9pm until 6am to assemble the

Digital Place-Based Media & Technology

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Photographer: Tim Stackpool

Above: Typical screen setup with multiple feeds including the simulated ’LED stock ticker‘ running across the top. The skirt at the bottom of the screen masks the castors on the support towers. Right: LED panel mountings in place on the support towers await the screen panels.

The scissor action support brackets allow the towers to move without losing stability.

structure and mount the screens. It only took a few days to cable and commission the PixelNet system, so the TV studio was only required to deploy a temporary backdrop for 48 hours.

The videowall uses around 23kW of power and is maintained inhouse, generally requiring only minimal inspections. With each panel display rated for around 8.5 years of use, Videowall Australia has yet to receive any service requests since installation.

For the client, the screen has proved to be a focal point not only for the facility, but for the entire operation. “Videowall Australia provided us with the know-how and the technology to meet our needs and the Samsung screens and Jupiter PixelNet processors have proven to be the ideal solution, providing both the visual impact and the functional flexibility required,” said Daniel Tribe, Network and Security Architect at FEX, adding “their professional staff worked with our architects and project team to accommodate the specific site constraints that come with installing contemporary design and technology into a heritage-listed building, and the complex installation was completed on time and to budget.”

Richard Newton concludes, “It took the combined talents of many to pull this one off so quickly; from the importers to the fabricators to the Videowall team and of course a client who understood the big picture.”

Ah yes, boom boom.  Image courtesy of Videowall Australia

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Extended Curtain Call Transforming a footy ground into an Intimate space.

Text:/ Matt Caton

When I first that heard that a 216m-wide and 20m-high drape was being installed in a major Melbourne venue, I must admit, my first thought was not a sporting stadium; especially one that predominately hosts AFL football. But that is exactly what Etihad Stadium has recently added to its inventory, to bolster its already impressive list of event configurations. Besides being home to AFL football, soccer, rugby and arena-sized rock concerts, the Docklands stadium also plays hosts to a variety of corporate events, dinners and broadcasts, and because of all this, runs on a very tight timetable.

At full capacity, which uses the entire arena, the stadium is capable of housing over 70,000 patrons. But let’s face it, not every band or function is going to need that much room, and while some purists will salivate over the prospect of entertaining on the hallowed turf (and I’ll admit; I’m one of them), if you are hosting a ‘small’ 5000-person corporate event, the sheer size of the unused portion of the venue would pretty much dwarf the event. It was this search for more intimacy that instigated the installation of this massive drape, which allows for over half of the stadium to be, quite literally, masked behind a curtain, and forms the basis for the stadium’s new Intimate Mode.

For a stadium that already hosts 86 arena events plus 600 functions in its many entertainment spaces, it almost seems impossible to increase the venue’s workload. However, the new curtain configuration pulls the maximum capacity back to 23,000, which will attract a more diverse range of events, on a much smaller scale than it currently does. Smallerscaled events also have the benefit of less traffic on the arena surface and a much quicker overall turnaround from the build of the event to its conclusion.

WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BRACKET

When the early meetings began between Melbourne Stadiums Limited, the operator of Etihad Stadium, and drape manufacturer PRG Showdrapes Division (Production Resource Group, formerly Bytecraft Entertainment), it was clear that creating a drape that not only masked off half of the venue, but could be deployed within a matter of hours, rather than days, was going to be quite challenging. Rod Paton from PRG recalls some of the early discussions, “The challenge was to create a system that was safe and effective for the purpose, while being simple to erect, dismantle and store on site. Our idea was to provide a portable

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system in which the main components remained together and could be simply wheeled into position, bolted together, and hoisted up.”

The gigantic curtain arrangement (have I mentioned this thing is big?) consists of three 60m drapes – plus a 36m overlap – and is made up of a total of 72 black wool drops, each measuring 3m wide by 20m high, and weighing in at about 80kg. These are attached to 36 x 5m lengths of standard Universal tri truss, which form the three main 60m runs.

But this is where it gets a bit clever. A collaboration of ideas from Rod and various PRG personnel, including Andrew Bennett (PRG Rigger) and Darren Irving (PRG National Service/Sales Manager) came up with the idea of permanently adding wheels and a catch cloth to each length of truss, thus transforming the truss sections themselves into the dolly system to house and transport the drapes. Each drape simply collects into its dust cover as it’s lowered, then the dust cover attaches to the top chords of the truss on each side, enclosing the drape. The wheeled truss section then becomes both the container and transport system for storage. In a situation where time and efficiency is everything, this proved to be a very elegant design.

The curtain itself is a black, non-reflective durable woollen fabric, which provides sufficient acoustic and light absorption to achieve the desired intimate environment. The curtain is attached to the tri truss using standard sash ties, supported by rated safety wires through the drape eyelets.

RAISING THE CURTAIN

Yes Joyce, a football ground can be an Intimate space. All you need is 240m of drapes and a fairly loose definition of the term ‘intimate’.

Note the mix of bridles used to distribute the load to the lifting lines.

Image courtesy of Melbourne Stadiums Limited

Creating a portable drape that can be stored on location and can withstand the extreme heights is one thing; rigging it and lifting it all into place within a matter of hours is a whole different story. Having already enjoyed a successful history of collaboration with them, PRG approached Harris Movement Engineers (HME) in the early stages of the project, and between them and the venue operators, worked through the myriad issues and limitations. “The initial conversations and meetings quickly identified a number of key problems to overcome with the project,” says HME’s John Grimshaw. “All of the lifting points needed to run in perfect sync, as the failure of any single point would quickly bend the truss. The system itself needed to deal with wind loads that occur inside the stadium and it needed to operate quickly to assist in changing configurations.”

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Above: The curtain modules make their careful trek across the hallowed field of play. Each dolly unit is a 5m length of tri truss fitted with pneumatic cross-country castors, a short masking border and a black drape with a 20m drop, bundled into its PVC protective cover. Right: A drape section lifted to working height.

The castors are now poking incongruously out from under the masking border and the lift lines have been attached to the joined truss sections. For optimal load distribution the main lines from the cable hoists are attached in turn to a carefully-calculated array of 2-, 3- and 4-way bridles which attach via levelling turnbuckles to the pickup points on the trusses.

Images courtesy of HME

The key element to this rigging solution was the hoisting arrangement. While using the familiar chain hoists would have been the easy and most obvious way to approach it, HME’s Principal and Lead Engineer, Glen Harris, saw otherwise.

“There was a large risk to the process should a single hoist fail.

Getting a rig down after a single hoist failure when it is 40m in the air – given you’re not allowed to look at the grass, let alone drive a 25m boom on it – presents some problems. The stadium is also very proud of its moving roof, and did not really want a bunch of chain hoists sitting up there spoiling the view.”

HME designed and supplied a rigging system that comprises three individual hoists, one for each section of the drape. These aren’t exactly your typical hoists though; each one lifts 1500kg at a speed of 1.5m/s, which means the load can be moved from roof to ground to roof again in under a minute. With their covers on, the hoist housings look just like a white box on the ceiling, which allows them to blend into the roof structure. The wire rope and diversion system is simply a scaled-up version of the systems you’d see in most theatres around the country.

The wire ropes come off the grooved drum of the hoist, and are diverted across the roof over custom sheaves, in a manner that has the most minimal visual impact to the roof.

The hoist control system is based on the standard HME control architecture and incorporates brand new wireless options that were implemented for this project. John Grimshaw explains: “The control system ended up being the least complex aspect of the whole job. It was decided early on that control needed to be achieved from the field of play where the trusses were attached to the lifting lines. That instantly meant we needed to deploy our wireless solution. The system was then configured with individual control over each hoist, and global [all hoists] control.”

MAKING YOUR BLACKS GREEN

A particularly interesting feature of the hoist system is its use of ‘Green Drives’. When a hoist is lowering its load, the motor actually becomes a generator and so produces a current. This current is usually just converted into waste heat through a

BOOTH #68

044

FEATURE

Left: The wireless hand controller developed by HME for this project is very simple, with fixed-speed up and down functions, and, of course, a big, red stop button.

Right: Lift lines coming out of the hoist on the far right of frame and over the sheaves on their way to the load. There are six lines on the two side hoists and five lines on the centre hoist. The cables appear to be running above the roof rather than the field of play because this photo was taken with the stadium’s famous moveable roof in its retracted position.

Images courtesy of HME

braking resistor. HME decided that this project needed a little more creativity and chose from a new range of Mitsubishi drives which instead takes this current and feeds it back into the power grid, in a similar way to that of a solar panel. Glenn Harris explains, “We could say this was done to make the project a green solution – and if the system was used frequently that would be significant – but more important was the idea of having as few pieces of equipment in the weather as possible. So by not needing braking resistors and using the drive to manage this process the system was simplified.”

A DIFFICULT INSTALLATION

Everybody who has ever done some type of production work on a sporting ground would be aware how precious the grass is on the field of play. Being an AFL fan myself, I’m kinda glad that these obsessively-careful measures are in place. However, it doesn’t make life easy when you’re trying to install 800kg hoists 40m in the air.

Combine this with a venue that is in heavy use and difficult to gain access to, and this isn’t your typical installation.

HME worked closely with the stadium management and the stadium’s structural engineers to successfully implement this curtain and hoist system. With no cranes or heavy loaders allowed onto the grass, HME used four temporary chain hoists attached to various rigging points on the stadium, to load the permanent hoists into position.

PRG also had to consider the surface of the ground, which led to large pneumatic tyres being used on the truss dolly system.

However, once the initial difficulties of the installation were overcome, the stadium has been left with a curtain and hoist system that is stored on site and out of sight, and can be set up quite easily in about three hours. Considering the frantic nature of the venue’s usage, this is a very great result.

The system had its debut performance at special event industry night to launch the new Intimate Mode. An audience of promoters, event managers, AFL and club representatives were treated to a performance by Australian rock legend Mark Seymour on a specially-designed stage which showcased the new Intimate Mode and of course, the bloody big curtain. 

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE PROJECT The curtain uses approx 4500sqm of fabric.

The fabric is inherently flame retardant 100% Aussie wool.

The dust covers are heavy-duty PVC. The curtain could comfortably run from one set of goals to the other (and then some) if placed in a straight run.

The curtain took approximately eight weeks to manufacture from time of order.

Each hoist manages 240m of SWR. The maximum speed of the hoists are currently set to about four times the speed of a standard chain hoist.

The drums of the hoists are 300mm in diameter and over 2m in length.

Each hoist weighs in at over 800kg.

CREDITS Client: Melbourne Stadiums Limited (Etihad Stadium) www.etihadstadium.com.au Drape Manufacture: Production Resource Group (PRG) www.prg.com Hoist & Machinery: Harris Movement Engineering (HME) www.harrismovement.com.au Stadium Engineers: Aurecon Engineering www.aurecongroup.com

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Herma Technologies www.herma.com.au 1300 730 025

046

TUTORIAL

Practicalities of Lighting in TV Production Actually getting your beautiful pictures up on the TV screen.

Text:/ Paul Collison

Understanding how light works with the camera is critical, but being able to communicate with the others in the production team, and knowing how your role interacts with theirs, is integral to a successful show.

The official disclaimer: Every broadcast is different. The examples contained in this article are highly generalised and simplified. Often the dynamic on a broadcast might differ wildly from these descriptions, depending on the level of production you’re working on, or simply whether the production is based in a studio or is an outside broadcast. There are many stakeholders in the production of a

television program. How you interact and what sort of information each person requires is something you need to understand before you can successfully integrate into the team.

THE TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

In the first instance, in the early stages of the setup, you would generally work the closest with the TD (technical director). The TD is responsible for the quality of pictures – it is his/her task to ensure they’re ‘broadcast quality’. This means they meet a range of technical standards for such things as resolution, frequency, noise, brightness, contrast, and colour range that are required for broadcast. The TD is the single most important person to have onside during the making of a television program. At times they’ll have the power to help you make the pictures better and it’s within your power to repay the compliment – at various stages you can scratch each other’s backs.

VISION CONTROL

Working closely with the TD are the CCU (Camera Control Unit) operators or Vision Controllers. Each CCU operator is looking at waveform and picture monitors to examine the quality of the pictures, down to very exacting levels of detail. Generally speaking, a single operator may have around four cameras to control. The CCU operator is responsible for adjusting the exposure of the

cameras on the fly to maintain a consistency of image quality within a production. This can be called many things, including shading or simply riding the levels. If your show has dynamic lighting levels, the CCU operators need to work harder to keep a consistent picture.

This is where the communication between the two departments becomes critical. You need the CCU operator to understand the intentions of your lighting. If you’ve set up a dramatic picture with the singer’s face in shadow so that you can fade up their keylight as they begin to sing, it isn’t very helpful if the CCU operator decides to “save the show” by correctly exposing the darkened face, which then burns out completely when you fade up the keylight. You must talk to the CCU operator all the way through the rehearsals and keep reminding them what’s about to happen during the broadcast.

The CCU operator’s responsibilities extend to maintaining correct colour balances and colour matching between cameras.

A followspot for example, may have a green spike in its colour spectrum. The CCU operator can easily wind some green out of the picture to compensate for a last minute follow spot pickup. Of course, in an ideal world, one wouldn’t be bouncing between two different-coloured sources. However, there are times, such as when a camera picks up direct lens flare from looking into a backlight, when the CCU operator will need to ‘paint’ on the fly to maintain colour consistency.

The CCU operators also control the Black Levels in the cameras.

For example, if a picture contains a lot of dark areas, such as in a shot looking towards the lighting grid, the black levels may be lowered (crushed) to make all the darker areas into a solid mass of black, or lifted to see the details of the lighting rig. Either may be appropriate for a particular shot or sequence. It goes without saying that the CCU operators can be your best friend, and your biggest problem, sometimes all at once.

TUTORIAL

Eurovision 2011 image courtesy LightPower

NETWORKED PROGRAMMABLE DSP SYSTEMS Th e S o u n dw e b L o n d o n 1 0 0 S e r i e s r e p r e s e n ts a p r e mi u m, o p e n- a rch i t e c t u r e s o l u ti o n i n th e f o r m o f a h ig h l y f l e x i b l e , c o s t-e f f e c tive a n d s c a l a b l e p a ck a g e .

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Every show has a Director. The television Program Director is the glue that holds everything together. Generally it is he/she that is in the centre of it all… including the universe if you ask them (oops, that will come back to bite me). The Director is looking at the composition of the pictures, the framing and content, as well as how the whole show is cut together, shot by shot. The Director will be less interested in the green tinge to the picture and more interested in making sure there is a back light, keylight, set dressing or something filling out the background of a shot.

Your discussions with the Director will almost always be about what is in the frame, the angles the cameras are shooting and when a particular shot may be taken. You will be able to help the director by being able to advise him on your abilities to light certain aspects of the show or where he/she might get a great shot. (A quiet word to the camera operators, letting them know where to find those interesting shots you’ve got in mind doesn’t go astray either.) Almost everyone on a production will be listening to the Director on comms during a broadcast, as it’s he/she who ‘calls’ the show. Much like a stage manager in theatre.

• • • • •

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DIRECTOR’S ASSISTANT

Never far from a director’s side is the Director’s Assistant (DA). Truth be told, it’s often this person who really holds the broadcast together.

They know it all, and have it down in writing. The DA will know exactly how long that musical number runs, how many segments there are in the show or simply where the catering is! The DA will prompt the director as the show progresses, with what cameras the Director has plotted and generally assists the director to do their job. During a musical segment, the DA will be counting down to solos and changes in the song to keep everyone on track. Often at these moments, the DA is a better person to listen to than the Director.

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TUTORIAL

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Eurovision 2008 image courtesy of Procon Event Engineering

“everyone, from the generator operator to the producer’s 10-year old kid, will have an opinion on the staging and lighting of any moment” PRODUCERS

Then there are the Producers. There are Line Producers, Executive Producers, Associate Producers and so many more. Regardless of title, one of the producers will take the hands-on approach to deliver the show. Sometimes there will be particular aspects of the show they are concerned with, however, overall their concern is the bigger picture – the total package of the production. You’ll generally have first contact with the producers and they’ll govern the look of the show. They also hold the budget and do the hiring and firing. You must get along with these people for obvious reasons!

There are no shortages of opinions on the production of a television show. Much like any event really, it’s imperative that you find out early who it is that really is in charge and can say yes or no. As an example, I recall listening to someone (who I thought to be of importance) for 45 minutes before the broadcast of a live show, only to later discover they were a lowly assistant (with a bent sense of creativity) whose opinion held no importance for anyone other than themselves. Suffice it to say, you’ll never get those 45 minutes back. The thing to remember is that everyone, from the generator operator to the producer’s 10year old kid, will have an opinion on the staging and lighting of any moment. It’s important that you have the voice of the right people in your mind and not that of someone whose input is appreciated, but not necessarily required.

Of course, there are myriad people involved in putting together a television production. Your ability to communicate as a lighting designer/director with the right person at the right time, can often be just as important, if not more so at times, than the quality of work you are delivering. In a corporate event you often only have one boss.

In theatre, it is generally the same. However in television there are so many aspects to what you are doing, that just simply making the pictures look great, isn’t always everything. 

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HURRY! ENTRIES CLOSE: 24 JUNE 2011 CATEGORIES

Audio Visual Industry Awards (AVIAs) 2011: Get on your Bikes!

Are you proud of an audiovisual installation, production or idea that was completed in 2010? Well, tell the whole AV Industry about it by entering it in the AVIAs, Australia’s only independently-adjudicated professional AV industry awards.

Here's how: • Go to the AVIAs website and download the pdf entry form.

• Follow the instructions and fill in the pdf fields.

• Rustle up some decent photos.

• Include the $100 administration fee per entry (we have to cover the costs of convening the judging panel etc).

• Package it all up and email your entry to entries@avias. com.au or to the mailing address on the entry form.

• You’ll be notified if you’re short-listed.

• Get on it. Time is of the essence.

BEST INSTALLATION $1m+ The most innovative, best conceived and consistently excellent audiovisual installation of the year.

BEST APPLICATION OF AV IN EDUCATION This award is for the best conceived and most innovative audiovisual projects and installations in the education sector.

BEST INSTALLATION UNDER $1m This category gives all installers and integrators the chance to show their wares. The install that best meets the unique demands of the project will win. Doesn’t need to be the most glamorous or highest profile project going around.

INNOVATION AWARD This award isn’t tied to any one event or installation. It’s recognition of a nifty ‘idea’; a solution to a curly problem; a unique perspective on an existing technology. In other words, anyone reading this could potentially win this award with their wit and cunning.

BEST AV PRODUCTION Best staged event, whether that be commercial product launches, made-for-TV spectaculars, one-off events, etc. The winner won’t necessarily be the most lavish production, but it will be the most elegantly conceived application of AV technologies and design.

For more detail on how to enter, go to: www.avias.com.au

050

REVIEW

Sony Vegas Pro 10 The latest incarnation supports 3D as well as SD, HD, 2K and 4K workflows.

Text & Images:/ Graeme Hague It’s all very well to talk about the highresolution outputs of projectors, multiple monitors, innovative screen designs, and making the most of digital signage, but it’s a bit pointless if you can’t create content that takes advantage of the latest technological advances. PowerPoint is okay if you just want to display static graphs with maybe a snappy transition between slides.

If some kind of full-motion video presentation is needed the OS-provided applications like Movie Maker always seem to fall short of the vision in your head; you can’t quite do what you want, even though the accompanying hype vaguely seems to suggest that you can.

At the other end of the software spectrum some of the professional applications for Non Linear Editing (NLE) are just downright daunting. Sure, you want to create something impressive that will blow the audience away – or at least keep them awake – but the learning curve is steep and the assumption is you want to make something akin to Avatar. Let’s not get too carried away here.

Somewhere in the middle could be Sony’s Vegas Pro, which isn’t to suggest it isn’t a very capable and professional NLE application, but rather that it stays user-friendly when your content creation aspirations are not quite so James Cameron-ish – or even when they are. Let’s hit the Install button and see what happens.

There is a boxed version available with a RRP of $699, but if you can’t wait or want to try the fully-working demo version first, the download is a tad under 200MB, plus another 90MB for the included Sony DVD Architect Pro, which is about a cup of tea and biscuit for most of us (or a couple of deep breaths if you’re on the NBN). There are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, so beware.

Vegas doesn’t come with any vast libraries of clipart or free content and that’s okay. I usually find that the gigabytes of freebie jpegs supplied by some applications never have what I need anyway, so you still have to go searching. There are some Media Generation templates such as text, backgrounds and test patterns, but we’ll get to those later. Installation is straightforward and quick. Vegas Pro 10 fins all the right default devices no problem and you’re immediately up and running.

A FAMILIAR FACE

If you’ve used other Sony products like Acid Pro, the appearance of Vegas Pro 10 is familiar.

It’s a utilitarian, no-nonsense GUI, devoid of

3D buttons and sliders. You won’t be leaping about with excitement over the icons either, many of which are unlabelled and bear little, if any, resemblance to the function they offer, so you need to learn what they are. The good thing about the sparse look and minimal icons is it leaves plenty of screen real estate free for the important stuff: content creation.

The main role of Vegas Pro 10 is of course video composition and editing. You can create a wide range of video files to be played directly from a media player or burned to DVD (or Bluray or CD) by importing media into the timeline directly. Video and still images of most formats (including Photoshop .PSD files), and audio of all types are recognised and can be dragged straight into the project from Vegas Pro 10’s own Explorer window. Items are then reflected in the Project Media window, and you have a choice whether to make copies of the files or continue to source them from their original locations. It’s long been a feature of Vegas that it’s very tolerant of disparate file types and makes them available without needing external conversion.

Now you’re ready to start compiling a video.

It’s as easy as dragging and dropping media files onto a timeline. Different media types, such as audio or video, will automatically create separate tracks. However, accepting differing resolutions and sizes is one thing, displaying them is another. In an ideal world people will provide material adhering to the correct size, resolution and aspect ratio. In that same ideal world my football team will narrowly win every week, I’ll stop putting on weight and the guys building my house will actually build something – not vanish down the road in a haze of exhaust smoke as soon as no one’s looking. All crazy, foolish fantasies, I know. Vegas Pro 10 offers a simple solution to bashing material into shape: a Match Output Aspect process that’s a right-click menu option in the Event Pan/Crop window. It can deal with most troublesome content. Vegas has a lot of right-click features that aren’t available elsewhere. If you ever get stuck with a problem, try right-clicking the offending article and you might be surprised with what comes up [or you could actually RTFM – Ed].

STARTING OUT RIGHT

BUILDING THE PICTURES

Before we go too much further the project needs to be correctly set up. In Vegas Pro 10 this accomplished via the Properties dialogue. This is one aspect of NLE software that can often trick the new user, and be unforgiving if you don’t get it right. Video and audio output formats need careful selection, thanks to the growing and evermore-perplexing range of video types the various manufacturers are developing. The drop-down list of presets is comprehensive and your preferred flavour should be there somewhere. Other options such as de-interlacing methods, motion blur types and rendering quality are critical and yet changeable. Some NLEs will lock your project into these options once you start processing content and force you create a new one, if you need a different format. Vegas doesn’t, thankfully.

Next you have to set up the Output Preview pane. This won’t automatically mimic your project’s Properties. Rather, Vegas allows you to preview your video in wrong screen sizes and resolutions, to let you see what your video will look like if an audience doesn’t have the right gear to watch it. Here also are overlays like safe margins and options to control the level of preview quality, a Snapshot function for capturing individual frames and a Video Output Effects menu.

The Event Pan/Crop window is one of the principal tools for both adjusting content and creative manipulation of an otherwise still image (or video for that matter). For example, you can zoom into and pan across a photograph to add focus and movement to a slide presentation.

Herein lies a small trap for the unwary. If you’re used to working with applications like Photoshop and cutting, cropping and trimming images, then the Pan/Crop function will trick you. You’re not directly editing the image – your POV in this window is as if you’re looking at the image through a camera view-finder. Thus panning and cropping (like shuttering) seems to work backwards, if that makes sense. You have to think like you’re operating a camera.

Other video effects are more straightforward and can be applied by dragging and dropping them onto individual events on a track, the entire track itself, or across the output. Many effects, such as colour correction, contrast or brightness plug-ins can fix poor material, but there are plenty of special effects that are easily applied and introduce some sit-up-and-take-notice value to bland images. Here’s where your preview quality can cause a hiccup. If you have it set to High, although the resulting image is better, sometimes

051

REVIEW

The main GUI: nothing fancy and no pseudo-3D knobs or sliders. Just a no-nonsense workspace.

This is the Event Pan/Crop window. The overlay should tell you that you’re virtually looking through a camera lens, not manipulating an image Photoshop-style.

when you’re trying gradual adjustments to video effects levels the preview vision struggles to keep up. A Draft quality will react faster, although obviously the picture is degraded. The effects can be inspirational. If your thing is more about multimedia creation rather than video, some of the dedicated video effects will be kind of puzzling in their intent, but dabble with a few and you’ll discover some neat results.

One effect of note is a new Image Stabilisation plug-in that can eliminate those nervous prewedding camera shakes and make amateur vision suddenly look rock-steady.

Adding text, sub-titles and scrolling credits is just as easy. A Media Generation tab offers access to a variety of templates for creating animated text and it’s placed over the top of existing content or on a track of its own (to apply separate effects perhaps).

CREATING THE SOUND

Adding audio effects is done exactly the same way. Once a wave file is placed inside the timeline exactly where you need it, audio plug-ins are dragged onto the event to create the beginnings of a ‘plug-in chain’. You can add as many plug-ins as you want, turn them on or off and re-arrange the order of the effects to suit. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered Sony’s audio plug-ins and I want to point out I reckon they’re damn good.

As with the whole Vegas GUI, they don’t have the

Top: Yes, this is a real slide for a real business. The proprietor is adamant this is an effective marketing image for a very large screen in a cinema. Never mind.

Middle: By adding a Cookie Cutter vignette effect, things are improving. A bit.

Bottom: Now we’re applying a Lens Flare effect. Maybe it’s too much, but you get the idea of how visual effects in Vegas are vastly superior to the kind of thing you’ll find in Powerpoint-type software. No, it’s not Angelina Jolie.

glitz and glamour of many third-party plug-ins, but they sound great and are very transparent.

Things like compressors and reverbs are nicely subtle until you start to really crank parameters.

Mixing audio is achieved by the Mixing Console, a traditional mixer layout where you can get serious about audio with a more DAW-like approach. It’s worth noting that Vegas is close to a DAW (digital audio workstation) in its own right.

You can record, edit and punch-in/punch-out record tracks, just like any DAW. If that’s all a bit much, individual channels can be mixed from the Track List with finesse by dragging the Track List as wide as you want – the volume and pan sliders increase in size accordingly and allow fine-tuning.

AND 3D TOO

Finally, also new to Vegas Pro 10 is the ability to work with Stereoscopic 3D vision. All the usual video effects can be applied to imported 3D footage. Animated text and Media Generated content can be inserted into the 3D timeline and still made visible as 2D, or depth can be added.

Tools specific to 3D editing have been introduced, mainly various methods to adjust the alignment between the two tracks of vision and perfect the three-dimensional effect. The type of 3D delivery doesn’t matter – it can be anaglyphic, polarising or active-shutter projection. A signal feed to an appropriate external monitor can be configured or the Preview pane can be used.

With everything finished, Vegas has the usual Export functions, but there is also the ability to burn a DVD, Blu-ray or CD directly from the timeline if you’re in a hurry. If you want to get more involved in the DVD-making process and add menus, auto-functions and the like, Vegas Pro 10 includes Sony’s DVD Architect Pro software, where you’ll get all those fancy DVD menu creation tools. However, DVD Architect Pro does have its own rather steep learning curve for designing layered, multi-menu DVDs. It’s a lot more than just a disc-burning application.

Sony’s Vegas Pro 10 certainly does keep things simple and straightforward for an NLE program, yet still provide plenty of options for “power users”. There are only a few aspects that might have you scratching your head – but these apply to the whole NLE shebang, not just Vegas. You’ll quickly find yourself putting together some impressive vision to use across a wide variety of AV and digital signage applications. And you’ll never watch a television commercial in quite the same way ever again.  RRP $699 – includes Sony DVD Architect Pro 5.2 Distributed by: New Magic www.newmagic.com.au the Where to Buy button lists their dealers.

052

TUTORIAL

LED Screens: Getting The Big Picture “You reckon you could drop that round to my place after the gig?”

Text:/ Paul Newton

Truck images courtesy Race-Tech

I can’t tell you how many times a client has said that to me after standing back and being mesmerised by the sheer size, brightness and clarity of a 30sqm+ outdoor LED screen. Put a screen on the back of a truck or trailer and it seems to excite the average punter even more than you’d expect. Must be a bloke thing.

The mobile LED video screen market is growing rapidly in Australia.

A scant 10 years ago there were barely three suppliers in the game, but these days there are dozens of suppliers, madly competing for this lucrative slice of the video business. The recent explosion of LED production has made this technology much more cost effective with over 200 manufacturers of LED in China alone. It’s big business. Recent advances in materials technology and manufacturing mean LEDs that have longer life spans and produce the same brightness for less power, resulting in fewer replacements and repairs.

Large format LED screens have a range of applications, from outdoor sporting events and live relay sites, to digital signage and marketing activities. The main advantage of LED screens is that they are essentially weatherproof and can operate in direct sunlight. Mobile LED screens provide a simple, fast ‘drive in/drive out’ capability, which results in these screens often being operational in less than half an hour. This speed and simplicity of installation allows the customer to relocate a single screen to different locations on the same event – such as the start and finish line of a race/marathon, or at the night concert after a Grand Prix race. All you need is a reasonably level surface to park it on, and you’re away.

THE RESOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED

Resolution in the LED screen world is measured by pixel pitch. This measurement refers to the distance between each pixel (or the distance between the centres of adjacent LED clusters). Outdoor LED trailers usually use tri-colour pixel arrangements (individual red, green and blue LEDs to make up each pixel) to maximise image brightness and screen rigidity. By comparison, the screens currently used for many indoor applications tend to use single-chip Surface Mount Devices that incorporate all of the colour elements on a single substrate. Resolutions usually range between 16mm and 30mm (which results in large 20sqm screens being only 300 pixels wide). By contemporary standards this may seem very ‘low res’, until you take into account the viewing distance; these screens look like plasma screens from 20m away. That said, you must be very careful with the content design if you are using source material with a higher resolution than SD video. Fine detailed logos, text

or websites will suffer major aliasing problems when down-converted.

Large LED displays are assembled by connecting a series of tile elements that lock together very accurately to create a seamless array.

This method allows screens to be constructed to almost any size and aspect ratio. Signal and power are looped or distributed to each tile, which has a unique address that defines its physical location in the overall display. The LED processing unit is the brain of a LED display.

It receives the incoming video signal, processes it, then distributes the appropriate portion of the feed to the individual LED tile components.

READY MADES VS ROLL YOUR OWN

While experienced video companies can build a LED display very quickly and efficiently, they still require a large (10+) crew of techs and loaders, a LED systems engineer, a rigger and a large truck to get all the gear on site. Then you need a counterweighted, windproof truss arch, complete with outriggers and chain motors, to actually suspend a LED wall that weighs a couple of tonne.

Building such a display in high pedestrian traffic areas in city centres involves a lot of pre-planning and logistics. You’ll get very little change from $30k for such a setup, whereas mobile LED screens are usually well under $10k depending on the size and resolution.

While there are over a dozen mobile LED suppliers in Australia, the majority have only one or two trucks or trailers to hire. If you’re after more options or flavours of LED screen the major players are PRG (formerly Bytecraft), Mediatec (formerly Massteknik), Oztronics and Race-Tech, to name but a few.

THE MAIN PLAYERS

PRG boasts the largest inventory of LED displays (well over 20), but their offering isn’t strictly mobile. The screens aren’t actually integrated into the body of the truck or trailer, instead they’re constructed and put into custom-made shipping containers that can be transported by trucks. Once on site, they can be either operated on the rear of a truck, or more commonly, crane-lifted to an alternate location, often where a truck can’t access. This allows them to be used in such places as elevated positions in stadiums and racetracks. The screens are home-based in Melbourne, but like all suppliers, their screens are usually scattered around the country at any given time. PRG almost exclusively use Hong Kong’s Lighthouse LED in their displays.

Oztronics, located on the Gold Coast, has a fleet of five custom-made

053

TUTORIAL

Image courtesy of Mediatec

Image courtesy of PRG

Opposite: A video screen truck does its Transformers impersonation. Above Left: A mastmounted screen at its full 8m elevation above the control room van. Above Right: A truckmounted screen cunningly disguised as a notebook computer, unfortunately someone forgot its security lock-down cable, so it may have been nicked.

mobile screens that house US-manufactured Daktronics LED. Company owner Alan Harvey has been trading for over 10 years and was one of the original suppliers when LED trucks and trailers began to emerge in Australia back in 1999. Oztronics has 18sqm, 24sqm, 25sqm and 2 x 32sqm trucks and works primarily within the horseracing market.

Race-Tech designs and builds mobile LED Screens in addition to hiring them out. The most popular is the RT20 trailer-based LED Screen that is designed to be towed by a 4WD and only has a 5m x 2m footprint. The RT-20 features a hydraulic mast that raises and rotates the LED screen. Race-Tech uses Barco LED tiles and has a range of configuration options depending on the event. It can provide a truck- or trailer-mounted option, and like PRG, can also use demountable ‘pods’ if you don’t want a truck in sight. Race-Tech boasts an inventory of 4 x RT20 trailers, an RT32 (32sqm) semi-trailer screen, and an HRV42 (42sqm) semi-trailer screen.

Mediatec’s trucks are not custom made in Australia but are imported from Mediatec Europe, where they are a market leader in the design and supply of mobile LED solutions. Mediatec currently has 2 x 40sqm mast trucks that use Lighthouse 25mm pitch LED and 2 x 40sqm non-mast trucks, that utilise Mitsubishi 20mm pitch LED. Owner, Owen Davison, who has been serving this specific industry for almost a decade, claims to have the largest, highest-resolution, matching mobile LED screens in the Australian market today. Mediatec also has 2 x 12sqm trailers that contain Lighthouse 16mm pitch LED. The mast trucks can elevate the screen to a lofty 8m from the ground, while the non-mast screens elevate to 4m. The trailers also contain control room space, which allows them to transform into camera or control rooms for events if required.

MORE INFORMATION Barco www.barco.com Daktronics: www.daktronics.com/au Lighthouse: www.lighthouse-tech.com Mediatec: www.mediatecgroup.com.au Mitsubishi: www.mitsubishielectric.com.au Oztronics: www.ledsuperscreens.com.au PRG (Bytecraft): au.prg.com Race-Tech: www.race-tech.com.au

THE BIG PICTURE OF BIG PICTURES

All the providers I’ve just mentioned can provide their own electricity via built-in (or towed) generators or utilise existing power on site. In most cases this needs to be at least a 32A three-phase outlet for screens under 20sqm, and two such outlets for 30 and 40sqm screens. All video signal types can be catered for, with most vendors providing devices such as Folsom (now Barco) ImagePro scaler/switchers to upscale or downscale the signal before it enters the LED screen processor.

Audio synching due to video latency (the delay in displaying a live image due to the time it takes to process the signal) is not a big issue with LED screens, because these displays are usually deployed outdoors with the audio travelling long distances.

Like other screen displays, the brightness of an LED screen is measured in Nits (candela/sqm), with most outdoor screens being around 5000 to 7000nits. Careful balancing of the intensity is required during an event.

While you may use full power during the day when the sun is out, you’ll need to lower the screen to a couple of hundred nits at night so you don’t blind your audience or overwhelm the event lighting.

There is plenty of choice out there, with all major LED manufacturers represented in the Australian marketplace. The quality is now very high while versatility and flexibility have also followed. The importance of careful pre-planning for these projects cannot be overstated; manoeuvring large trucks on site can be very challenging at the best of times. And one last caveat: it’s almost impossible to get one of these into your backyard for the next important football game… trust me. 

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issue #18

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i t ‘s e l e m e n t a r y Your nearest Elements dealer: ACT: Pro Audio | NSW: Kirby Productions | NT: Top End Sounds QLD: Musiclab & Mackay Music | SA: BSS Light Audio Visual | Vic: Factory Sound Distibuted by CMI Music & Audio. For more info visit: www.cmi.com.au

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Tune into the Benefits of Membership at InfoComm International InfoComm International is the leading non-profit industry association serving the professional audiovisual industry.

Member Benefits Include • Discounts on professional industry education and publications

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Australia & New Zealand Ph +61 2 8206 0979 australianz@infocomm.org www.infocomm.org/asia-pacific

056

NEWS

InfoComm News News from the Oceania Region.

INFOCOMM 2011, ORLANDO, FLORIDA, 11TH - 17TH OF JUNE, 2011 It’s June, which means it’s time for InfoComm; this year back at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, Florida. By now you should be all booked in and ready to go. Maybe you’re actually sitting on the plane reading this edition of AV magazine.

Hopefully you’re booked in to your educational events at the show too. Don’t forget about the receptions either, there’s the Opening Night Reception on Tuesday afternoon at 5:30pm to 7:00pm in the Valencia Room OCCC W415CD and the International Reception on Wednesday afternoon at 5:30pm to 7:30pm in the Peabody Hotel Orlando, Room N. The International Business Centre is in the same location it’s been for the last four shows in Orlando: at the top of the main escalator on the right hand side, show floor level. If you need any assistance please come and see us in the IBC. INTEGRATE 2011 IN ASSOCIATION WITH INFOCOMM INTERNATIONAL If you’re not heading across to InfoComm 2011, don’t worry, Integrate in association with InfoComm International is shaping up to be a great event. The show floor is all but sold out and the team at Integrate has put together some fantastic educational programs too. In addition to this, we have built a strong InfoComm Academy program for the show with thanks to all those that submitted seminar proposals and feedback from our Educational Advisory Group.

The InfoComm Academy Program will feature: • A Super Tuesday program, which includes six seminars on the future of AV technology.

• A keynote address by Randal Lemke Ph.D. Executive Director and CEO of InfoComm International, talking about the future of the AV industry with “The Dawning of the Net-Centric Era”.

This is free and open to all. It will be held immediately after the conclusion of the Super Tuesday program.

• A half-day conference on digital signage for technology managers.

• A half-day conference on the built AV environment for architects, facilities managers, project managers, consultants & builders.

• Six 90-minute InfoComm Academy seminars (two each day).

You can read some more detail on the session on the first two pages of the news section of this issue of AV. Even more detail on programs and registration is available through the Integrate website, www.integrate-expo.com (click on the Infocomm Education button once you've made it to the home page).

With the exception of the Super Tuesday program and keynote which is in the Headroom theatre, the InfoComm Academy will be held in the room above the Cafe in the Royal Hall of Industries building.

We will once again be holding an InfoComm Member Reception at the end of day one of the show. It will be held in the InfoComm Academy room. The reception will start at 5:30pm and run until

6:30pm, with drinks and food provided. InfoComm members can come to the InfoComm booth and pick up their tickets or get them at the door. Non-members may come as a guest of a member.

As the InfoComm brand is now on the show, we would like the industry to see how many members we have. Please come to the InfoComm booth for your InfoComm member pins and ribbons and your CTS, CTS-D, CTS-I pins and ribbons. While you’re there, enter the booth competition to win one of three major prizes (one drawn each day) We will also be presenting four 20-minute info sessions each day, rotating through the following topics: Benefits of membership Certification and AVSP AViQ powered by InfoComm iQ InfoComm Academy education InfoComm international tradeshow opportunities AV Week INFOCOMM ROUNDTABLE MEETINGS The InfoComm Roundtable meetings held around Australia and in Auckland in the first and second quarter of 2011 provided us with some valuable information that we are working with to improve the value of your InfoComm membership. We will start to look at the feasibility of how we can assist with some of the items, and report back directly to our members on the progress. Over time we may seek further input to ensure that any new products or programs will be well received and supported by the Industry.

FUTURE DATES 2011 Round Table meetings (2nd round) 20th Oct. Sydney 25th Oct. Melbourne 27th Oct. Canberra Virtual Classroom courses (3rd round) Registration by 29th June.

Orientation 1st July.

CTS Prep, CTS-D Prep, +1 New course, TBA. InfoComm Academy days 20th Oct. Sydney.

25th Oct. Melbourne.

Regional Webinars First round 13th July, 27th July, 10th Aug. Second round 5th Oct, 19th Oct, 2nd Nov. Until the next edition, take care and if you are heading across to Orlando, safe travels, hope to see you there.

057

TUTORIAL

Test & Measurement Using multimeters & impedance meters to test an installation.

This is an excerpt from the Audio System Installation section from the course INS201 Installation Online. This course includes 300 lessons addressing advanced science and technology concepts, specifically as they relate to installation. The course outlines installation procedures in preparation for hands-on practice at InfoComm Academy’s two classroom courses, INS212 Installation Technician and INS311 Lead Installation Technician.

MULTIMETER – CONTINUITY TESTING

One way to verify that cables have been properly terminated is to perform a continuity test using a multimeter. (It’s sometimes called a Volt Ohm Meter, though this really applies to the analogue type, not the digital ones used today.) Multimeters have many uses; continuity testing is just one of them.

Continuity tests serve two purposes: 1. Identify and verify leads When terminating multi-conductor cables, this test tells you where each lead goes.

2. Measure resistance If your terminations are not done properly, the meter will show a high resistance.

The meter has two colour-coded wires, called “probes” which you connect to the electrical points to be measured. Hold the probes by their handles only, and do not touch the circuit while measuring.

Remember to only check resistance and continuity with no power to the cable you are testing – otherwise you can damage the meter.

When you measure resistance with the meter, you are measuring the ability for electrons to flow. Higher resistance causes less electron flow (less current). When you terminate a cable, there should be very low resistance from one end to the other. In fact, the only resistance should be the resistance of the cable itself.

The key to measuring the resistance is anticipating what the reading should be before taking the measurement. The resistance of the

cable will vary depending on its length and the gauge of the cable. A common 22-gauge (0.33sqmm) microphone wire would have about 17ohms of resistance for 300metres (about 0.6 ohms per 10 metres).

When using a multimeter to measure resistance, first test its ability to give a true measurement. Choose the appropriate scale setting on the multimeter. (Typically, you’ll use the “Auto Scale” or the “R x 1” scale to check the continuity of a wire.) Next, touch the probes together.

When touching the probes together, the meter should measure zero ohms.

To test resistance, touch the ends of the probes to each end of a cable. If measuring a 30-metre long, 22-gauge microphone wire anticipate about two ohms of resistance from complementary points on each end of the cable. If you measure ten or twenty ohms, this indicates a problem. The problem could be a cold solder joint or broken strands in the cable.

CAUTION: Be sure to read and follow the meter manufacturer’s instructions to avoid personal injury and equipment damage.

IMPEDANCE METER

Always check a loudspeaker system load prior to connecting the loudspeakers to an amplifier in any constant voltage system. To do this you’ll use an impedance meter. An impedance meter (also known as an impedance bridge) is a piece of test equipment. It is portable and generally battery operated, similar to a multimeter.

WHAT IS IT USED FOR?

An impedance meter is used to measure true impedance of an electrical circuit. This can prevent damage to the circuit components. Impedance meter readings can also indicate short circuits, open loudspeaker lines, transformers installed backwards, low impedance loudspeakers on a high impedance system, and the total impedance or load of the loudspeaker system.

When working with large systems, check the line impedance often. Do not wait until all of the loudspeakers are wired and the scaffold is down to find out that one of the loudspeakers is bad.

As you install a group of loudspeakers, test it to make sure there are no problems before you install the next group. Be sure to write down the final measured impedance. This will be very useful for future system service and maintenance.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

An impedance meter will output a test tone in the audible frequency range. This tone is used by the meter to detect how the circuit reacts to that frequency. It will give an indication in ohms.

HOW IS THE METER USED?

1. The loudspeaker lines are disconnected from the amplifier.

2. The technician or engineer will calculate what the impedance of the line should be.

3. The appropriate range is selected on the meter.

4. The meter is calibrated to that range (or scale).

5. The meter is applied to the line to be tested.

6. The meter is read.

7. The reading is compared to the anticipated reading.

8. Only after being satisfied that the reading obtained is within an acceptable tolerance range should the loudspeakers be connected to the amplifier.

HOW DO YOU ANALYSE THE MEASURED VALUE?

If the measured reading is within ±10% of the anticipated reading, the system is probably correctly wired. If the measurement is significantly higher, it probably means the system is wired incorrectly. For example, perhaps the taps were set at 0.5W rather than 1W. This won’t damage the system; it just won’t work as intended. If the measurement is significantly lower than the anticipated reading, you must reduce the load on the amplifier. 

058

Termination Raiders of the Lost Wheelbarrow Text:/ Graeme Hague

In a theatre in North Queensland, deep within the labyrinthine maze of concrete superstructure and supporting walls, in the upper levels where no one ever goes anymore, there is a wheelbarrow. Not just any wheelbarrow, of course. It’s an enduring urban myth... well, among the local tradies at least – and while I never witnessed this wheelbarrow myself I’m absolutely sure it exists. For a long time it was only spoken of in whispered tones. Later, when the architects had left for the last time, never to be seen again (unaware that the ‘VW’ on their borrowed hardhats had stood for ‘Visiting Wanker’) the wheelbarrow was more openly discussed. Was it real? Did it happen?

We’re talking about a wheelbarrow that was abandoned when, in the flurry of activity to achieve construction deadlines, walls were built and concrete was poured; and too late, someone discovered the wheelbarrow couldn’t be taken out. So they left it behind.

It’s lost forever, along with about two dozen pairs of pliers, several hammers, screwdrivers, spanners, a thermos flask or two, four million dropped Tek screws and one of those foldup camp stools. We also lost an electrician, but everybody’s pretty sure he ran off with his brother’s wife and isn’t part of the foundations – maybe.

DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED

In another few millennia, when we’ve all been long-wiped out by the dreaded Y4K virus, futuristic (possibly alien) Indiana Jones-like characters will pick through the rubble of our civilisation trying to figure out what made us all tick; and that wheelbarrow’s going to confuse the hell out of them. Like the ancient Egyptians leaving artefacts and paraphernalia, and a couple of hundred non-union labourers-behind in their stone tombs to work on in the afterlife,

it’ll be assumed that the only sensible reason tradesmen in the mid-to-late twentieth century left perfectly good tools scattered throughout major constructions, must have been to appease the gods. The Great God Facebook and his minion angel Twitter must have demanded sacrificial offerings be left behind in important buildings to ensure no EvilBay befell the occupants.

In particular, tools forged by the famous artisan Sid Chrome were favoured. An entire wheelbarrow must have been for... well, who could guess? Ancient history’s fascinating, isn’t it? I’m glad we always get it right.

The amount of stuff that’s misplaced, left behind and forgotten in large building sites is enormous and keeps hardware stores in business better than almost anything. If you’re ever standing in an office and suddenly need a pair of pliers, don’t bother slipping down to the maintenance room. Just pop one of the suspended ceiling panels above your head and have a look around – you’ll find one. And half a roll of Cat5 too, probably (send it to me).

Personally, doing installation work, the tool I leave behind the most is the one I just put down. Like a screwdriver – I’ll use it for screwing in something, put it down for a moment, go to pick it up again – and it’s gone. The bloody thing’s vanished. It can get to the point of rage as I search around looking for it. Absolutely nothing can explain how a perfectly normal screwdriver can apparently evaporate into thin air. In fact, I spend more time on a work site looking for tools I just put down somewhere, rather than actually working.

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD

I’ve tried a few solutions. One was wearing one of those leather toolbag, belt things which oddly got my wife a bit excited, but I guess she just thought I was going to do

something useful around the house. (I don’t understand why she’s always watching those house renovations shows on Foxtel either).

Anyway, I just ended up frequently impaling myself on any of the tools hanging from my belt. I also tried buying tools with bright, florescent grips and handles. It didn’t work, because bright colours aren’t worth a damn when the screwdriver scurries away to hide beneath the amp rack or under the insulation batts (I hate insulation – when is someone going to invent non-itching insulation?).

The trouble is that you end up buying cheap tools, because you’re sick of the expense of replacing them all the time.

Phillips screwdrivers with points that burr, budget pliers that won’t ply (ah... is that what they do?) and drill batteries that last about 15 seconds before they need recharging – yes, I regularly lose my battery drill.

So I’ve come up with an idea. If anyone wants to take it further, I’ll have 10 percent of the action thanks.

Remember those whistling key rings?

Well, not quite... if you couldn’t find your keys you just whistled and the key ring started beeping. Since then we’ve managed to put a satellite around Pluto, so how hard could it be to have a complete set of tools with a microchip, beeping thing embedded in each one? You’d have a ‘master’ device for selecting which tool you’d lost, press a button and voila, the missing screwdriver would start beeping. Maybe just like downloading mobile phone ringtones tradesmen could buy individual tool tones? Your hammer could play Pink Floyd’s The Wall – don’t stop me, I’m on a roll here.

Hmm... damn. Assuming you can always remember where you last put down the master device thing. There’s always a catch. 

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