AV Magazine Issue 24

issue #24 $6.95

THE SCIENCE & ART OF MUSEUM AV

GREAT WALL OF TELSTRA: 260 x CHRISTIE MICROTILES! IRON SUPPLEMENT: NEWCASTLE STEEL MUSEUM PARIS HILTON!: MARTIN MLA @ MARQUEE CLUB

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

Whether it’s a small classroom or a giant sporting stadium, Mitsubishi Electric has the visual display solution to suit your needs. With the freedom to choose from a large range of home or business projectors, commercial LCD monitors, Video Wall systems or large format Diamond Vision LED screens, the possibilities are only limited by your vision.

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VISUAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

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

SMAARTER THAN EVER Smaart v7 is a completely new code base developed from the ground-up – we’re now Smaarter than ever.

MULTI-CHANNEL, MULTI-PLATFORM, MULTI-MANIA: Smaart v7 is able to access multi-channel input devices to run multiple, simultaneous Spectrum and Transfer Function Measurements.

BUILT TO MAKE USE OF THE POWER: optimised to make use of the all power of modern processor configurations – from one processor to eight.

NEW PROGRAM ARCHITECTURE: Run as many simultaneous single-channel (spectrum) and dual-channel (transfer function) measurement engines as your PC will allow.

ENHANCED, STRENGTHENED, AWESOME-IZED MEASUREMENT ENGINES: All aspects of Smaart’s measurement engines were revisited, considered, reconsidered, and everywhere possible, improved.

Production Audio Services (New Zealand) P. +64 (0) 9272 8041 sales@productionaudio.com.nz www.productionaudio.com.nz

SIMPLER, FRIENDLIER GUI: Many of the dialog box-based controls have been replaced with ‘point ‘n’ grab ‘n’ drag ‘n’ click’ mouse-based controls.

REAL-TIME MODE: SPECTRUM ENGINE: Configure as many single-channel engines as needed, each with the ability to produce its own RTA and Spectrograph data.

RTA: Improved fractional-octave banding for RTA and Spectrograph, including 1/48th Octave; Simultaneous display of multiple individual RTAs; and ‘Line-Over-Bands’ view of RTA displays.

SPECTROGRAPH: Scrollable 1000(+) line history; Real-time adjustable dynamic range.

IMPULSE RESPONSE MODE: Impulse Response mode has been significantly expanded to include functionality from our AcousticTools software package.

Production Audio Services Pty Ltd P. (03) 9264 8000 info@productionaudio.com.au www.productionaudio.com.au

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Editorial The Bandwidth Conspiracy Gordon Moore has a lot to answer for. When in 1965 he observed that the possible number of transistors on an integrated circuit was doubling every 18 months, he set up an expectation that succeeding generations of chip designers, materials scientists, chip fab manufacturers and chemical engineers have strived to live up to. Today Moore’s Law is generally taken to mean that there will be a doubling in possible processing capacity every year or so. While this may seem like a good idea to the people who want cooler, cheaper phones, music players and tablet computers, it’s actually become a curse for the R&D departments of many electronic equipment manufacturers. If last year’s model of the widget was indeed the best thing to come out of the lab since the stain-resistant pocket protector, what will they need to produce for an encore? What can they come up with to use up all those extra logic gates, memory cells and MIPS of processing power?

It’s really great that there are 41-megapixel image sensors in phone cameras, despite the difficulty of giving a phone optics worthy of that resolution, and it’s very reassuring that you can take 320 x 240 images from a helical-scan videotape, stabilise them, upscale them, dress them up as an HD-SDI feed and image map them over half a hectare of building, but these are only

niche applications. What’s needed is some big new application; one that pushes existing devices to their limit and immediately creates a demand for next year’s generation that will have twice as much processing power. I’ve stumbled on a leak from a major AV industry player that’s tipped me off as to what that new technology will be.

You see I’ve inadvertently uncovered one of the most closely-guarded conspiracies of the modern world. Ever since the end of the Great 1914-18 War, every couple of years a secret meeting is held in a discrete hotel, in a remote, and possibly even exotic, location. Present are representatives of all of the world’s major electronics companies, from component manufacturers to mass-market device manufacturers. The purpose of these meetings is to devise new technologies that will be immenselyattractive to billions of consumers, despite a total lack of tangible benefits to humanity.

The outcome of the first meeting was broadcast wireless, which after nearly a century, has produced not a single benefit for mankind, although it has sold untold billions of pieces of electronic equipment to produce, broadcast and receive what is essentially useless information that wiles away the time. Broadcast television was the next of these technologies, followed a few years later by video-cassette recorders. And so it has proceeded

to create – at an ever-increasing rate intended to exactly track the Moore’s Law curve – new, more powerful, but equally meaningless, devices.

The evidence for this conspiracy came from a surprising quarter. I was going about my business, attempting to keep up with developments in the technical areas that I follow closely, when I stumbled upon a recording of the CEO of a major projector company explaining why we needed High Frame Rate projectors. Huh? It would appear that having stereo devices using twice as much bandwidth to show us the same old material in 3D isn’t good enough anymore.

We need to watch the next generation of notparticularly-inspiring movies at very much higher frame rates to avoid the apparently-devastating problem of motion blur. I just can’t see how removing the motion blur from the 90% of screen time that’s occupied with people talking is going to help anyone except the companies who make High Frame Rate equipment and the material that will be screened on it. So if 3D didn’t do it for you don’t worry, this year’s buzz-technology will be HFR. Enjoy it.  Andy Ciddor, Editor Contact Andy on andy@av.net.au

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Crew 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.

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)

After spending five years desiging and installing sound, communication and network systems in the Big House, Cameron has now been released out into the Real World. Prior to the ‘House, Cameron worked as a freelance theatre technician on commercial shows..

A staunch believer in technology and combined networking, he now wanders the country in search of venues in need of communications assistance.

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) Front Cover: Corten stairwell at MONA Photographer Leigh Carmichael

Matt is a freelance technical writer with a background in marketing and a focus on lighting and entertainment.

He contributes to publications around the world and provides media and marketing services for the entertainment industry. A strong contributor to Melbourne's independent theatre scene, he has worked as a producer, director, actor, stage manager, and more recently as a lighting designer. Matt is a produced playwright and budding screenwriter (although Hollywood doesn't think so... yet) and freelances his reviewing skills both online and in print.

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 © 2012 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. 7/5/12

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.

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Issue 24 REGULARS NEWS AV industry news. Includes the noexpense-spared Marquee @ The Star install.

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INFOCOMM NEWS Regional news from InfoComm.

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TERMINATION Aaaarr! Scuppered by pirates.

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FEATURES

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OLD & NEW ART – ALL NEW TECH The science and art of MONA’s AV.

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LIGHTS, CAMERA, KYLIE! The Mardi Gras party outdoes itself… again.

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LAVA GOOD EXHIBIT Volcanic 3D: Melbourne Museum’s immersive (and explosive) exhibit.

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TELSTRA EXPERIENCE CENTRE Telstra builds its Great Wall of MicroTile.

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STEEL THE SHOW Newcastle’s Museum turns up the AV heat.

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TUTORIALS

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CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Part II our series on communications sytems.

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ARRANGING EQUIPMENT IN A RACK InfoComm DES201 Design Online excerpt.

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REVIEW MA LIGHTING COMMAND WING FOR GRANDMA ONPC2 Tactile control for grandMA2 onPC.

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AMX ENOVA DVX The perfect meeting: effortless, reliable, and picture perfect. AMX has unified technologies to automate and simplify the use of conference room equipment to ensure meetings and presentations run seamlessly. The Enova DVX All-In-One Presentation Switcher combines AV switching, control, audio processing, amplification and category cable distribution in a single 2 or 3U chassis that can be supported and serviced remotely over your current IT infrastructure.

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NEWS

ONE-CLICK WONDER

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Here’s a bit of interesting trivia – Barco tells us that 30 million PowerPoint presentations are produced around the world every day, all fighting for screen time. To help out, Barco has a clever gizmo called Clickshare. A standard ClickShare setup consists of four USB devices – the ClickShare Buttons – a storage basket for storing the Buttons when they’re not in use and a Base Unit. The Base Unit has a fixed connection to the meeting room’s AV system and users who want to put their presentation on the large meeting room screen simply connect a Button to their own PC or MAC, click it, and immediately their desktop is transferred wirelessly to whatever screen system is in place. ClickShare doesn’t interfere with the laptop’s resolution and it automatically displays the screen content optimally. ClickShare also allows you to show video clips with frame rates of up to 20fps. In total, four participants can be on-screen simultaneously. So, no more squabbling over who has the video cable.

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

The latest LX501 and LX601i projectors are the first to offer a new 3LCD product platform for Christie. The LX501 is a 5000-lumen XGA (1024 x 768 resolution) projector with up to 3000:1 contrast ratio. The professional-grade Christie LX601i XGA projector offers more punch with 6000 lumens. The projectors use a hybrid filter rated up to 20,000-hours with no moving parts and long-life lamps ranging from 3000 to 4000 hours in eco-mode (compared to 2500-3000 hours in standard mode). Four additional widescreen options will be added soon. Both the Christie LX501 and Christie LX601i are rated for high altitude use up to 10,000 feet (3048 metres) – apparently at higher elevations, 3LCD projectors typically can’t cool properly and run the risk of shutting down (hey, you learn something new every day you read AV). As well as integration with Crestron RoomView and AMX Device Discovery the new models include DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) Simulation Mode for use in medical training environments.

VR Solutions: (07) 3844 9514 or www.vrs.com.au

Extron Electronics has released in Australia the DVS 605, a high performance video scaler that includes three HDMI inputs, two universal analogue video inputs with auto-format detection and simultaneous HDMI and analogue high resolution outputs. The DVS 605 accepts a wide variety of video formats including HDMI with HDCP, HDTV, RGB, and standard definition video. It features advanced Extron video signal processing with 1080i deinterlacing, Deep Color processing, and true seamless switching for professional-quality presentations. The DVS 605 also offers SpeedSwitch Technology that delivers ultra-fast switching speed for HDCP-encrypted content. It is available in models with audio switching plus HDMI audio embedding/de-embedding, and also 3G-SDI/HD-SDI output with genlock. All the added features come courtesy of a new, advanced Extron scaling engine.

RGB Integration: (08) 8351 2188 or www.rgbintegration.com.au

THE PEPPER’S HOLOGRAM?

The Pepper’s Ghost effect has had a couple of high-profile appearances in the news in recent years when the ever-gullible media has been duped by lessthan-honest entrepreneurs and AV companies into reporting that the two-dimensional images from a Pepper’s Ghost were live (3D) holograms.

In 2008 it was Cisco promoting their live 3D ‘Telepresence hologram’. More recently, virtually every news outlet in the world carried the story that a live hologram of Tupac Shakur, a rap artist gunned down about 15 years ago, had made an

appearance at the US Coachella festival, singing a duet with Snoop Dogg. What they were seeing was a CGI reconstruction of the performer projected on to the reflective panel of a Pepper’s Ghost rig.

The same journalists that spend their lives speculating on the screen shape of the next iPhone and when Steve Jobs will arise from the dead and walk among us, went on to report that this was the end of live performance, as these ‘holograms’ will soon be touring instead of real people.

It’s nice to think that mid-19th century technology is still being

reported as cutting edge, although in this case it was the computercontrolled rigging system that flew in the partially-reflective Pepper’s Ghost panel that was the really clever bit. It makes you wonder when the epidiascope will make a comeback as a cutting-edge AV presentation tool.

DMS700 V2 The first professional true digital wireless system

LIGHT & BRIGHT Panasonic Australia has the PT-DZ20K series, a new three-strong flagship range of 20,000-lumen, threechip DLP projectors it’s calling the world’s smallest and lightest in its class. The series consists of the PT-DZ21K with WUXGA (1920 x 1200) resolution and the PT-DS20K with SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) resolution both with 20,000 lumens, while the PT-DW17K with WXGA (1366 x 768) resolution has 16,500 lumens. The PT-DZ21K delivers reduced running costs by using four newly-developed, affordable 465W UHM lamps instead of the Xenon single lamp system and the Lamp Relay mode allows operation of the lamps alternately to enable 24/7 projection. All models in the PTDZ20K series have a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 and the PT-DZ21K and PT-DS20K are both active 3D stereo projectors. The supported 3D system is an active shutter system where the projector can be equipped with an external emitter via the 3D timing signal In/ Out terminal. From top model to bottom the RRPs are $109,999, $71,999 and $43,999 respectively and they’re available in June.

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

WAR MEMORIAL GALLERIES’ HI-TECH MAKEOVER Last week Julia Gillard and Veterans’ Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon announced that the First World War galleries at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra will be receiving $27m for a refurbishment.

Set to be ready for the centenary of Gallipoli in April 2015, Mr Snowdon said that the new galleries would receive around 850,000 visitors a year.

Key to the refurbishment will be upgrades of the classic dioramas depicting battle scenes, with the latest AV technologies. Some of these dioramas are older than the building itself, which in turn is becoming too small to house all the available material on the Anzac legacy. That’s where the new interactive technology comes in: visitors will be able to

access additional information and images with their smartphones and tablets.

The War Memorial is following the hot trend of museums around the world encouraging visitors to turn their phones on, instead of off, with the Louvre, the Guggenheim and the Brooklyn Museum among those who have designed their own apps. It enhances the museum experience, and helps attract younger visitors as well.

Details of the refurbishment and the technology to be employed are not available yet but will come to light in the coming months.

The Australian War Memorial is “a very special place for Australians,” Prime Minister Gillard said.

The DMS700 V2 is a revolutionary digital wireless solution designed for the future • Up to 150MHz tuning range – widest in class, gives maximum flexibility to accommodate Digital Dividend changes • 24bit/44.1kHz audio sampling • 512 bit signal encryption for secure audio transmission • 2-channel digital true-diversity receiver • High performance external antenna distribution systems available • On-board DSP per channel (Compressor, EQ, Limiter) • Quick setup via infrared data link to the transmitter • Graphical spectrum analyser helps find clear channels • No Compander (used in analogue systems): higher sound quality

For more information Call 1300 13 44 00 or visit www.audioproducts.com.au

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NEWS

MAGIC BLACKMAGIC

MIDAS MIXER APP

MAGIC EYE

We try not to take sides here, but you may agree this is pretty impressive for an Aussie company, especially with a RRP price tag of around $3k. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera features a 2.5K image sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range. It has a built-in SSD recorder, uses popular open standard uncompressed RAW and compressed file formats and has compatibility with quality EF and ZF mount lenses. There’s LCD touchscreen monitoring plus metadata entry, and the whole thing is wrapped around a tough, machined aluminium chassis so you don’t have to worry when those angry, paparazzi-hating movie stars swat it out of your grasp or you have to film anywhere near Matt Newton – Blackmagic has given this design plenty of thought. Aimed at independent film makers, television commercials and episodic television production, DaVinci Resolve software (Mac and Windows) is included for post-production tweaking. You get full 12-bit RAW recording quality using the built-in SSD recorder and you can also choose 1080HD recording into ProRes and DNxHD compressed video formats. A neat package indeed.

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

Midas has launched its Mixtender iPad app, which provides wireless remote control of the Pro2 and Pro2C digital mixing systems, giving audio engineers access to fader levels and output GEQ from – you guessed it – an iPad. An upcoming v2.0 app will be available for the Midas Pro Series and XL8 digital systems. Meanwhile, in Version 1.0, 64 input meters and 27 output meters can be viewed simultaneously in real-time on the console overview screen. Multiple iPads can be used on a single console simultaneously, which sounds like asking for trouble, but to prevent any silly arguments the mix engineer has the option to lock each iPad so that it can only access one mix. Realworld applications would be allowing each performer to control their monitor mix on their own iPad without making changes to any other area of the console (which still seems like a recipe for disaster, but hey).

Mixtender also controls all fader levels, inputs, bus contributions and masters, VCA and MCA fader levels.

Hell, just leave the desk in the truck…

National Audio Systems: 1800 441 440 or sales@nationalaudio.com.au

Rotolight has announced the next generation of its Studio lighting systems with the launch of the Anova LED EcoFlood, the first product from the new AlphaNova series. Anova One is available in Daylight (5600k) or Tungsten (3200k). It is the light equivalent of a 1000W tungsten lamp, but uses only 38W of power at full output. Anova Two is a bi-colour LED system and is capable of reproducing white light from candlelight through to full daylight. All versions of Anova feature full wired DMX control, V-Lock battery mount, WiFi and Magic Eye technology. Rotolight’s new Magic Eye allows the user for the first time to accurately sample the colour of ambient light in a room using an iPhone or iPad and transmit that colour to the Anova light, which will accurately reproduce it. This technology will also enable users to remotely measure colour temperature and transmit to anywhere, enabling synchronisation of colour both on location and in the studio.

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

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Image Design Technology (IDT) has appointed audiovisual and technology veteran Rod Sommerich as new National Sales Manager. Sommerich brings to IDT over 20 years’ experience in sales and marketing roles working across some of Australia and New Zealand’s largest independent technology distributors.

Image Design Technology (IDT): 1300 666 099 or sales@idt.com.au

InfoComm International is opening the public review and comment period for the proposed draft standard, InfoComm 4: 2012 DS1, Audiovisual Systems Energy Management. This Standard addresses power consumption management of audiovisual (AV) systems. Although there is no requirement for a specific percentage of energy reduction, the Standard requires preparation of an energy management plan that will assist users in formulating their energy reduction goals. The review period will remain open until June 4, 2012.

For more information contact standards@infocomm.org

Vision has announced plans to move all product manuals to the cloud – where we can virtually ignore them (real technician don’t need manuals, right?) – as part of a new environmental impact policy. However, should you fail dismally and require the manual, new QR codes on the product packaging will take the installer straight to an online manual in their language. If you haven’t got a smartphone the manuals will all be available for download from Vision’s website.

Integration Supplies: 0408 570 950 or ian@isupplies.com.au

Kramer Electronics has introduced the MV-6, a high performance multiviewer for 3G HD SDI video signals. The device can display up to six inputs in any combination and output the image in multiple formats supporting either preprogrammed or customisable screen divisions. The MV-6 features Kramer’s re-Klocking and EQ technology on each input, which rebuilds the digital signal so that it can travel longer distances.

The MV-6 is housed in a standard 19-inch, 2U rack-mountable enclosure with rack-ears included.

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

Panasonic Australia has appointed Hills Sound Vision and Lighting Group (SVL) to distribute its new High Definition Visual Communications (HDVC) solution with 3D capability. Hills SVL will begin distributing the KX-VC600 and KX-VC300 HDVC systems from this month.

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

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 en - 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 hi g 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 .

PENN-ELCOM MAKE A CASE Flightcase and speaker cabinet solutions specialist Penn Elcom has developed a software program called CaseDesigner to offer its distributors, dealers and their clients the best and most efficient possible design, order and build service. The fully visual graphical interface enables Penn Elcom customers to plan and visualise new case designs in 2D or 3D and view in full 360-degree rotation. The software generates a quote and other information including a full list of components needed. Users can either create a fully bespoke case from scratch or select from a large library of standard preset cases which they can customise using a comprehensive list of Penn Elcom flightcase fittings and accessories (catches, handles, grilles, etc). The case can be specified with or without dividers or foam interiors. The CaseDesigner roll out will be region-specific to ensure that all the accessories and measurement units are correct, and the necessary price variations are relevant for your part of the world.

Penn Elcom Australia: (03) 9335 6455 or australia@penn-elcom.com

• • • • •

It must be getting a little crowded down at Hills these days. Hitachi Australia has appointed Hills SVL as national distributor for its Digital Presentation Solutions. As part of the agreement, Hills SVL will be responsible for bringing to market Hitachi’s range of StarBoard interactive whiteboards, digital projectors and accessories. The distribution agreement between Hitachi Australia Pty Ltd and Hills SVL became effective as of April.

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

Wireless Solution Sweden AB has been working on a completely new software platform since October 2011, that is prepared for future hardware functions as well as many new features and updated functions. W-DMX G4S offers the lowest latency in the market (under 5ms) and is available for a software update on all existing Micro F-1, BlackBox, WhiteBox and ProBox units already shipped via the USB Dongle.

Wireless Solution: www.wirelessdmx.com Engineering consultantancy Umow Lai has recently appointed well-known AV industry veteran Mal Barnes as its Principal AV/ Communications & IT consultant. Mal will be operating from Umow Lai's Sydney office.

Umow Lai: (02) 9431 9431 or www.umowlai.com.au

Fixed I/O configuration Open-Architecture Processing AEC processing channels for 101 and 102 conferencing applications BLU-Link Digital Audio Bus Same powerful software

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New from Ampetronic is FreedomLoop, a lowcost induction loop amplifier designed for simple, non-engineered induction loop installations – “nonengineered” meaning those situations when a venue has laid the carpet and installed the seating before remembering it needs a hearing loop in the floor (I must let that one go…). The FreedomLoop amplifier is designed for professional and domestic perimeter and figure 8 loops and is capable of up to 500sqm area coverage, depending on loop configuration and metal loss. The FreedomLoop delivers excellent speech intelligibility and is suitable for both musical and speech reinforcement. Key features includes automatic gain control, metal loss correction (0dB to 3dB per octave adjustment), program output monitoring via 3.5mm headphone jack and XLR line level input. The unit is a single rackmount design and is ideal for simple, budget installations where low-spill, low-loss or other more demanding specifications are not required.

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

It had to happen in Queensland, home of the Big Banana, Big Pineapple, Big Barramundi… the list goes on and, unfortunately, on. In Brisbane, InFocus has unveiled the Giant Tablet: integrating for the first time a 55-inch full HD touchscreen with a powerful PC, high quality video conferencing capability and comprehensive interactive whiteboard functions. Called the Mondopad, it’s claimed to be the world’s first giant touch tablet and is designed to be an all-in-one business-class collaboration device. Mondopad’s multi-touch display works with all the common documents and file formats, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF, JPGs and more, and includes standard software presentation tools like drawing and highlighting actions. Used in a video conferencing system, Mondopad can be added as an SIP endpoint and you can also install a desktop client. Local or remote users can connect from their PC, tablet or smartphone with Mondopad’s wi-fi. Souvenir postcards, hats and tee-shirts aren’t available… yet.

Revolution Technologies: (07) 3902 8051 or sales@revolutiontechnologies.com.au

Philips Selecon launched two new LED lighting products at Frankfurt Pro Light & Sound 2012, the Studio Panel and the PLCyc (pictured). The Studio Panel is a softlight featuring colour temperature variable from 2700k to 6000k using amber and white LEDs. Drawing 60W of power, the Studio Panel can be powered via a fourpin XLR direct from a TV camera or via a Powercon connector direct from the mains. Three onboard buttons and a wheel enable the user to adjust the colour temperature, dimming intensity and access a number of preset colour temperatures. Alternatively the luminaire can be controlled remotely via DMX. The PLCyc LED uses a mixing chamber designed to homogenize the RGBW colours. The front of the mixing chamber has a holographic diffuser to complete beam homogenisation and, with the added elliptical reflector system, the unit creates an asymmetric beam and distribution. As the name suggests the PLCyc LED is designed to be used on cycloramas, backdrops and scrims.

Selecon Australia: 0419 133342 or www.seleconlight.com

4/ IT’S A FLUKE

5/ HIGH CALIBRE SCALER

6/ TWEETS FROM THE BLACKBIRD

Fluke Networks has released the LinkRunner AT Network Auto-Tester for troubleshooting Ethernet connectivity. The LinkRunner AT performs six essential connectivity tests, returning results in less than ten seconds. This speed and simplicity, combined with the ability to customise additional tests, allows technicians at every skill level to perform a standardised set of tests and track down errors. The AutoTest feature includes continuity, link/speed/duplex, DHCP and DNS server availability and performance, key resource connectivity through TCP port open or ping, nearest switch and port identification and Power over Ethernet (PoE) performance (with TruePower line loading technology).

The LinkRunner AT has a full-colour ¼-VGA display and can store up to 50 test results.

Fluke Networks: www.flukenetworks.com

Calibre UK has released the HQView530, an all-in-one scaler, switcher and scan converter. The HQView530 addresses the latest trends in AV systems design and integration of projection systems for use in the studio broadcast environment and for staging applications.

It is designed for easy and quick setup via a jog wheel with an LCD front panel menu display. The HQView 530 will switch, scale and scan-convert, as well as edgeblend for multiple projectors over large surfaces. It can also perform warp mapping for projection onto curved screens or unusual-shaped surfaces or for projector stacking. The 530 offers 3G-SDI input and output capability, as well as backwards compatibility with HD-SDI and SD-SDI formats. The processor will accept a wide range of HD, SD and computer inputs and also has Genlock input.

Network Audio Visual: (02) 9949 9349 or www.networkav.com.au

Acoustic Technologies is a Queensland-based company that has been designing and manufacturing its own line of pro PA speakers and components for more than 25 years. The latest addition is a new model in the Blackbird speaker series, the TLA1163. The TLA1163 comes in a stand-alone array system of 16 x 3.5-inch elements matched with AT’s TLA210A compact sub cabinet where all the power and DSP trickery comes from. There is a big brother, the TLA1243, which has 24 of the same elements and there’s also a passive sub called TLA210B, so all up you can mix and match all kinds of configurations, but right now the new TLA1163 matched with the TLA210A is becoming a popular seller for Acoustic Technologies.

It’s small, lightweight and packs a punch – you just have to make sure only very, very thin people stand directly in front of the PA stacks.

Acoustic Technologies: (07) 3376 4122 or www.atprofessional.com.au

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020

NEWS

Martin MLA @ The Marquee: BYO iPod Text:/ Graeme Hague Images courtesy The Star

The Marquee Main Floor, looking through to the impressive LED backed and clad DJ booth.

Grab your monogrammed handkerchief and prepare to weep softly with me. The biggest, most ambitious, most expensive club audio install we’ve ever seen in this part of the world is complete – based on the highly desirable Martin Audio MLA PA – and the DJs’ iPods have taken over.

One mustn’t be too dismissive of DJs and their craft, but when one of the world’s highest profile DJs rocked up to the launch of the Marquee at The Star with his iPhone, asking to be plumbed into the PA via BlueTooth (so he could press ‘Play’ and stream his ‘set’) you have to wonder how exactly he’s earning his inordinately fat paycheck.

Or it just could be jealousy kicking in.

ONCE UPON A TIME

For those at the back of the class, Star City Casino is no more. It’s now ‘The Star’. Tabcorp has devolved its casino business, calling it Echo Entertainment, and brought in some American heavy hitters to inject more than a touch of Vegas to Sydney.

Although not entirely complete, the ~$1b refit has changed the old Star City out of sight. Worldclass restaurants, bars, live venues and more have turned The Star into a ‘destination’. Part

of the mix was to have a full-blown, glamorous nightclub. The Marquee is that nightclub and it’s spec’ed to impress.

AV was all ears when we heard that a Martin Audio MLA system was to be installed. MLA has been on the market for over a year now, but it’s Martin’s Rolls Royce touring rig and didn’t cause much of a blip on the Australian radar.

So to hear that 12 MLA boxes (plus subs and other speaker systems) were to be installed, into a nightclub, well, that’s interesting.

EXPECTING THE UNEXPECTED

Technical Audio Group, as the Martin representative in Australia, was given the thumbs-up to supply a Multi-cellular Line Array (MLA) PA system into the largest of the three areas inside the club – imaginatively called the Main Floor (the Boombox and the Library being the other two). The challenges for the MLA rig were, let’s say… interesting. Dance clubs aren’t exactly known for ‘ambient’ SPL levels out on the floor and the Marquee was likely going to take this factor up to a whole new level (please admire the pun). Many DJs tend to regard red lights on the sound system as added lighting effects for their personal benefit. Joking aside, a real issue is the wide variety and disparate

quality of the media content that a lot of highprofile DJs bring with them. They all crunch, mash and mix their favourite tracks to extremes, yet there’s little consistency between the different operators and as TAG’s Technical Director, Anthony Russo, explained you have to expect the unexpected – and you have to expect it loud.

So Russo shouldn’t have been surprised (but he was) when the aforementioned world-famous DJ rocked up with his iPhone setup, adamant it was necessary for him to do his world-famous thing.

Yes, maybe it’s time to get a fresh handkerchief.

TAG’s involvement with the Marquee went well beyond a PA system for the Main Floor.

Apart from the Boombox and the chill-out Library there are small, segregated areas of entertainment everywhere. Even the large, unisex toilet has its own DJ booth so the punters can continue movin’ and groovin’ while they do whatever you have to do in a unisex bathroom (Ally McBeal has a lot to answer for). The cleaning staff must love it. During the gala opening nights there was even a snake charmer performing in the toilet, which again you’d have to imagine would have an adverse effect on what most people are hoping to achieve in a bathroom.

And okay… yes, Paris Hilton was there.

‘Nuff said about that.

AUDIO SPEC

The main dancefloor speaker system is comprised of 12 x Martin Audio powered MLA Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Arrays and four MLX powered sub basses with 18 VHF bullet arrays to “make sure the system specs all the way out to 32kHz” [They cater for dogs at nightclubs these days? I really must get out more – Ed].

MLA is more accustomed to high-end touring and crowds of tens of thousands. At the Marquee, MLA is barely idling delivering nightly levels of 120dB. And if you’re an SPL junky and think you have heard loud, Russo has installed the world’s loudest ‘appliance’ to summon dance goers, a ‘Nathan Air Chime’ locomotive air horn, as used on US trains, 142dB at 1 metre!

Elsewhere in the club the dance systems are comprised of Martin Audio W8LM line array, WSX subs all with VHF bullets with lower-level bar areas catered for with 76 elements of Martin Audio Omniline line array and subs.

A high-end Martin ceiling speaker system was installed to satisfy those punters in the unisex loos.

QSC Audio QSys Core 1000 delivers 80 discrete channels to over 40 QSC Audio PL series amplifiers in over 120U of rack spacing and patching. That’s well over three times the height of Paris Hilton.  Technical Audio Group (Martin Audio, QSC): (02) 9519 0900 or www.tag.com.au

LIGHTING SPEC Video wall: The 9m x 2.5m main backdrop you can see pictured opposite consists of a GLUX 12mm-thick semi-transparent video wall. The wall is hydraulically operated to allow the middle 3m section to move behind the right hand side – the right hand section moves forward a few inches and the middle slides behind. It all aligns perfectly to reveal a 3m section suitable for go-go dancers. There is an additional 13 panels (1000mm x 500mm) installed around the arched front of the DJ box – a total of 58 panels in all. Control for video is via Coolux Pandoras Box Media Play Pro.

Lighting Control: Martin M1 Console (Main room), Martin MPC Control (Lounge Bar)

Laser: Martin RGB Laser system with Mirrors

Lighting: Martin MAC 250 Entours x 32 Martin Atomic Strobes x 6 Martin MAC 101 LED Wash x 14 Martin Mania EFX 500 x 4 Martin K1 Hazer x 3 510meters of ProShop RGB LED Tape and 28 Unicontrollers Show Technology: (02) 9748 1122 or www.showtechnology.com.au

022

FEATURE

The Art & Science of MONA Tasmania’s Museum of Old & New Art has no tickets on itself.

Text:/ Andy Ciddor

Photographer: Leigh Carmichael

FEATURE

The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Berriedale, Tasmania, is the nation’s largest privately-owned museum and art gallery. The brainchild/ hobby/obsession of its ever-so-slightly eccentric owner, mathematician-professional gambler David Walsh, this privately-funded museum/gallery was built to share David’s strange, challenging and eclectic collection of ancient objects and art works with anyone who cares to visit.

MONA is located in the grounds of Moorilla, Tasmania’s first vineyard and winery that was, against the best-available advice, established in 1958 by newly-arrived Italian migrant Claudio Alcorso, on a peninsula in the Derwent River near the Cadbury’s factory, just 15 minutes’ drive North of the Hobart CBD. Long before MONA was conceived, the Moorilla site was a destination for cellar door wine sales, a fine-dining restaurant and outdoor concerts during Hobart’s short ‘summer’ season.

In 1999, to display some of Walsh’s collection to winery visitors, the Roy Grounds Courtyard House, built as home for the Alcorso family, was converted into the Moorilla Museum of Antiquities. Later Walsh added a function centre, a micro-brewery and a cluster of outstanding architect-designed river-front pavilions (starting price is $490 per night). A well-equipped outdoor stage structure, complete with grid-equipped stage roof, cabling infrastructure, dressing rooms, green room and a function room, was constructed on the spot where temporary concert stages had previously been sited.

Disappointed with the general lack of interest reflected in the poor visitor numbers for his modest museum, in 2005 Walsh decided to solve the problem in a non-intuitive way, by spending about $50m on a vast new three-level museum.

Rather than create a towering monument to his wealth and ego, Walsh had Melbourne architect Nonda Katsalidis design a relatively unobtrusive and site-sensitive building clad in rusting Corten steel and dug into the cliff on the edge of the Moorilla peninsula. Scheduled for completion in 2009, MONA eventually opened its doors in January 2011, just two years late and with a budget that had grown to $80m.

MONANISM

Walsh’s collection, as curated and exhibited in the semi-permanent but ever-evolving exhibition entitled Monanism is confronting, exciting, disturbing and very provocatively centred (vaguely) around the themes of Sex and Death. The title is an unsubtle play on the word onanism, which ties in neatly with David Walsh’s constant references to himself as a ‘wanker’ and the persistent use of the phrase ‘art wank’ in the descriptive materials for the exhibits.

Walsh may be an eccentric, mathematicallygifted nerd, with some fairly unusual quirks, but he does have some very strong, if not always coherent, views about art and he’s prepared to back them with a lot of money. MONA is his

023

strident upturned finger in the direction of all other galleries and museums and the way they think and operate. If you have the opportunity to visit MONA, it’s well worth the effort to be surprised by the strange juxtapositions of the ancient with the contemporary, the accessible with the obscure and the beautiful with the brutal.

This time Walsh seems to have attracted the attention he wanted for his artworks and his ideas about art. MONA has become a destination in its own right, with people trouping down from the mainland (the Big Island, as it’s known to Taswegians), just to visit MONA. The fact that you can take a half-hour ferry ride to MONA from Hobart’s dockside tourist and restaurant precinct adds to the experience. In the 16 months since it opened, MONA has hosted just under half a million visitors, of whom quite a few must have come from out of the state, as the total population of the 335 islands in the Tasmanian archipelago is only about 511,000.

IDIOSYNCRATIC VISION

Being driven by the obsessive ideas of just one wealthy person who doesn’t report to a board or a minister, nor answer to a finance committee, has not only produced an idiosyncratic building dug into the rock of the peninsular and an idiosyncratic exhibition, it has also produced a very singular vision of how technology should be integrated into the museum’s structure and operations.

As it should be, MONA itself is a pretty controversial work of architecture and design, filled with idiosyncratic ways of doing everything from booking, ticketing and guiding visitors, to HVAC, AV, ICT, lighting, displaying artworks, and customer relationship management. Rather than attempting to cover all of the clever and innovative components of MONA, the museum and Monanism the exhibition, I too am going to be controversial. Due to the limited space available in a single magazine article (even if I am the editor), I’m going to offend a substantial proportion of the people who are responsible for the technology, art and magic at MONA, by picking out just a few of the facets that have caught my eye on visits as both a punter and a technophile.

FUTURE PROOFING

During the years that MONA was being designed, constructed and fitted-out there was an unprecedented acceleration in the pace of change in the realm of audiovisual technologies. The most profound of these from the construction viewpoint, was the move from a multitude of analogue signals in separate cables to a multitude of IP datagrams on a single Ethernet. The MONA project also had a relatively unusual restriction in that it was being constructed by excavating a very big hole in in the side of a cliff, then filling it in with a multi-level reinforced-concrete structure, clad in steel. This meant that there could only ever be one chance to run services to many parts of the structure.

024

The original infrastructure specifications included the provision of as much power as possible to every location and a structured cabling system based around as much UTP/STP cable as could be afforded, to every possible point in the building. However, that was changed after further consultation with engineers and systems integrators, Aegres.

Through their long-standing relationship with other Moorilla projects, and at the request of exhibition designer Adrian Spinks, Aegres had the rare good fortune to be involved with the MONA project from the very outset. This not only gave AV a voice in the project at that early point where it’s possible to get things right the first time, it also gave feedback into the process from the very people who would be providing AV design, support and maintenance for MONA as an operating museum.

The advice from Aegres (which appears to have been right on the money thus far), was to run as many empty conduits as could be afforded, to all the places where there would be no second chance at cabling. Indeed, that policy was extended to virtually all horizontal signal/ data cabling infrastructure. As the opening of the museum finally drew near, and the first version of Monanism began to take shape, Aegres made the call to run 1310nm monomode fibre to those parts of MONA that required data feeds. Even after providing fibre over redundant paths to all four server rooms, there are still empty and partially-filled conduits awaiting changes to both the exhibitions and the technologies that will accompany them.

THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE

Each of Adrian Spinks’ display cases for MONA is a sealed, self-contained museum in microcosm. The only connections to the display cases are power from an overhead track and an optical fibre connected to the museum’s network backbone. The cases contain an AMX NI700 interfacing with a Luxam 24-port TCP/ IP-controlled fibre-optic illuminator, a selfcontained temperature and humidity control system, plus all of the necessary surveillance and security monitoring devices required to protect priceless antiquities.

The one exception is a display case, which whilst also hermetically-sealed, is actually filled with water. Included in the material exhibited in this case is a work displayed on an ostensiblywaterproof LCD display. Despite employing units sold as being waterproof, over the 16 months that MONA has been operating, water has nevertheless managed to infiltrate the ‘immersion-proof’ monitors via different paths, on several occasions.

A TORRENT OF WORDS

For fairly obvious reasons, I’ve been taken with the idea of the artwork bit.fall by Julius Popp, since the moment I laid eyes on it. Essentially

FEATURE

an oversized ink-jet print head attached to a length of standard concert box truss, this device consists of 320 solenoid-controlled water valves (which makes it QVGA resolution, I suppose) that are used to spell out words in falling drops of water. The words displayed are an aggregated feed of material from a group of internet news sites. In the artist’s own words this work is: “a metaphor for the incessant flood of information we are exposed to”.

The water is recirculated from the catchment trough below the jets through filters to remove the accumulated gunk and rock fragments and irradiated by a powerful sterilising UV light source to ensure that the water mist is sterile.

Once David Walsh and the curatorial team had decided where this work would be displayed, the excavation contractor was asked to remove another few dozen cubic metres of rock to make an alcove for it. (With little ‘variations’ like that, just to get it right, it’s easy to see how the MONA project’s budget could grow by 60%.)

MONA'S GAME CHANGER

Right from the outset Walsh had insisted that he didn’t want to have labels getting in the way of the objects and the audience in his museum; and thus began what will no doubt be MONA’s great legacy to the entire world of museums and galleries; even those who never hear the name MONA. Labels are an essential part of any exhibition, enabling the curator to identify the work and provide some information about its provenance and hopefully also communicate why the work is present and how it fits into the context of the exhibition. So how do you convey this information without physical signage?

One tried and true method is to put a simple code number next to each work and provide a written guide, usually the exhibition catalogue, that has matching numbers for the work. There are about a dozen reasons why this is less than ideal, which is why several other technologies have been in use for many years. Other methods still use numeric codes, but equip the visitor with different forms of audio replay device that can play the appropriate audio description of the work in response to the code being entered. While several versions of audio device have proved successful in exhibitions in many countries, their capabilities fell far short of MONA’s ideal.

What Walsh wanted was a device that did much more than any printed label or an audio description, by providing visual content, a selection of optional additional written, visual and audio content, and if at all possible, a way to interact with the exhibits, the museum and even other visitors.

To undertake this quixotic quest Walsh engaged the team of Nic Whyte and Tony Holzner who between them had expertise in both programming and content development and a

few ideas about how they might achieve the level of data content and access for such a project.

TESTING TAGS

One big question was how to deliver the relevant material for each artwork. As many portable devices come with built-in cameras, they considered the use of both standard linear barcode and the rectangular QR matrix barcodes, while either would have worked, they would have required visitors to physically access the label with their scanning device, causing problems with traffic flows and detracted from an easy, smooth visitor experience. In the end, a version of the RFID technology used to label freight containers and stolen designer clothing was employed. With an on-board battery capable of working for at least a couple of years, the tags broadcast unique identifying packets of data in the 5GHz industrial band. This allows a constellation of receivers and a very hard-working server to triangulate the location of every one of MONA’s 1340 tagged devices to a radius of a metre or so, which is more than enough accuracy for this application. To maintain calibration of the system there are also number of tags discretely fixed to the museum’s walls.

Once a location system was selected Whyte and Holzner, now calling themselves Art Processors, had to find a portable device to deliver the content that was being assembled. When Apple released the fourth generation iPod Touch with its 324dpi screen, they realised that their wishes for a suitable platform had been fulfilled.

The touch-based interface, high-resolution screen, application development platform, quality audio output, wi-fi networking, broad community familiarity and acceptable aesthetic were a good match to their requirements. At this point, Scott Brewer an experienced iOS developer, joined Art Processors to build what would become the ‘O’ application.

PUTTING THE ‘O’ IN MONA

The ‘O’ device, as the modified iPod is now known, is handed out along with a lanyard and an optional headset to every visitor on arrival at MONA. By touching on the screen’s O icon the visitor requests an update of the iPod’s contents to reflect the objects that are currently visible.

By scrolling the list the visitor can select the item of immediate interest and learn lots about it, read some Art Wank about its significance and possible meaning or interpretation, listen to an interview with the artists (clearly not possible for the antiquities), or vote to Love or Hate the art work. Where exhibits are films or videos, the streamed audio for the work is made available through the O. If you are brave enough to enter your email address into the O, you are emailed a link to the MONA website with a step by step record of your visit displayed on a 3D wireframe model

FEATURE

025

MONA is his strident upturned finger in the direction of all other galleries and museums Above left: The MONA website shows you a 3D wireframe map of your visit.

Above right: The content of the O device is also available from the website when you review your visit.

Left: Navigation and exhibit screens from the O device.

Below: The bit.fall water-drop printer, with a detail of the solenoidcontrolled water valves.

026

FEATURE

of the museum. You can then revisit all the O material – what you saw and the exhibits you didn’t see. The tradeoff is that MONA will send you emails about forthcoming exhibitions and events.

Instead of merely replacing labels, the O device and its attendant systems have provided a means of profoundly expanding and extending the visitors’ relationship with MONA. As an almost accidental by-product, it provides MONA with a customer relationship management platform and a system for tracking every visitor’s movements to evaluate the quality of the display design and identify the most popular and most overlooked exhibits. The O device has proven so popular that quite a number were stolen during the first few weeks of operations before security procedures were revised.

Art Processors were given some very good business advice and have turned their three years of work on MONA’s O device into a platform that locates visitors, manages and delivers the content of the portable devices, provides users with a post-visit web experience and delivers detailed visitor analytics. The Art Processors partners are now off around the world showing their package to museums, visitors’ centres and art galleries.

It’s only a matter of time before the O device surfaces with another name and different payload.

SEEING THE LIGHTS

The universal use of Luxam’s fibre optic-based lighting systems for all small objects and many of the larger ones is both clever and an exceedingly obvious approach to providing the right photometric quality of light in concert with the total control required for lighting in the dramatic theatrical sense on a microscopic scale.

Luxam’s ranges of fibre-sourced luminaires that provide the same families of tools I’ve used to deliver lighting on the stage and in the studio, make me want to try my hand at lighting design on the miniature stage. In the hands of MONA’s resident lighting designer Adam Meredith, these fixtures have been used to remarkable effect on exhibits throughout MONA. Although I haven’t the space to give voice to my excitement at meeting the fibre optic profile spot the size of my little finger and Meredith (the designer who wields them so spectacularly in museums around the world), we will have the space for a full feature article in the inaugural issue of Alchemedia’s new publication, Light+Design that will be available later in the year.

I’ve barely touched on the design of the building and completely ignored the beautiful architectural lighting that works so well with raw limestone, rusty Corten steel and glass of the building. I haven't even mentioned the highly-sophisticated AMX automation system that controls and closely monitors the entire musem and its exhibits, and I've ignored a huge number of interesting exhibits that exploit or incorporate clever and interesting AV. Let’s face it, I was doomed to failure from the outset on a project of this scale and significance. If you want to know more, come down to Hobart on any day but a Tuesday, and look around for yourself. 

Underwater Wunderkammer with Stone Artefacts and Fish Photo: Remi Chauvin

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028

FEATURE

Lights, Camera, Kylie!

The Mardi Gras Party ramps up the visual spectacle… again.

Text:/ Tim Stackpool

Photo: Mark Dickson – Deep Field Photography

After 30 years or so, expectations are always high for an annual event that has the stamp of being one of the best parties of the year. While the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is a cultural event for the entire city, the big-ticket items are the world-famous parade and the ultimate party that occurs each year at Moore Park. The challenge to capture the imagination of partygoers in 2012 fell to event producer Brad Wright, executive producer at Mixitup.

A big coup for the party this year was engaging Kylie Minogue as a headline act. This much-applauded appearance was only secured a few months prior to the event, and a few of the established design ideas had to be modified or completely shelved as this new dimension was added to the party line-up.

“To start with, I pulled together the best team of technical, creative and event production people that the budget could afford,” said wright.

“These guys and girls then supported me, the Mardi Gras staff and the Mardi Gras volunteer group who help guide the creative process and the overall experience.”

For lighting designer Richard Neville of Mandylights the inclusion of the headline act was a turning point in the event’s technical planning.

“Obviously the addition of Kylie Minogue to the

line-up had a profound effect on the entire party.

There were a lot of aspects of the production that had to be re-imagined to shift everything up a notch. Everything from crowd control to creative design, albeit with the same budget,” he said.

“This is my sixth Mardi Gras, and it was the first time I had the chance to step up and be more heavily involved in the visual design of the show.

I created the lighting design, the video design and also played a large role in shaping the way the staging was created too. Other departments collaborated as well. It was a great design process where choreographers, producers, technical directors and the designers were all involved in the creation process which I think added a noticeable amount to the entire production.”

TOTAL (VISUAL) CONTROL

This year also heralded change in terms of actual technical control of the visuals. In previous years, Mardi Gras video, lighting and staging has operated very much independently. This year, the visual content was created in-house at Mandylights, and was triggered from the lighting consoles. Neville also worked with the choreographers and stage managers to plot all of the Kinesys stage automation movements for trusses and screens. The result was video content,

lighting and choreography all moving together – something all designers work to achieve. “We got some great looks as a result,” said Neville.

There was a real mix of old school and newer technology in the rig this year. “We had 20year old Vari-Lite VL5s next to brand new PRG (Production Resource Group) Bad Boy fixtures, and Martin LC LED panels alongside Strand zip strips,” Neville added.

Speaking of the rig, Richard Neville admits he is a fan of the trusty Vari-Lite: “The 2500 Spots are bright, have very fast colours and most importantly, a great stock gobo selection.

Their zoom is probably the best in the fixture’s class and I’ve always found them to be reliable.

I love the Martin MAC 301s, and they proved themselves time and time again on Mardi Gras, with their massive amounts of colour. Not having to worry about shutters in long strobe sequences is a bonus. On stage, VL5s will always make their way into my work because the fixture looks as good as the light that comes out of them. You have to give them some love to work nowadays, but they still have no competitors.”

CLEANING THE SLATE

For Richard Neville and fellow designer Alex Grierson the visual design process began with a

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PRODUCTION CREDITS Event Management: mixitup – mixitup.com.au Event Producer: Brad Wright Production Manager: Craig Maroun Technical Event Manager: Danny Lander Production Assistant: Tiffany Bawden Lighting & Visual Design: Richard Neville, Mandylights – www.mandylights.com Lighting & Motion Control: PRG – www.prg.com Audio: Norwest Productions –www.norwestproductions.com Vision & cameras: Technical Direction Company (TDC) – www.tdc.com.au Lasers: Oracle Attractions – www.oracleattractions.biz

Photo: Daniel Mercer

clean slate, aware that a large number of people in the crowd have been to all 34 previous Mardi Gras parties and 30 Sleaze Balls. “They’ve seen it all,” Neville said. “A failure to reinvent the design results in loud and long complaints from the patrons, so it’s an accepted challenge – with a tight budget and inflexible bump-in time – to create something fresh each year.”

For technical event manager, Danny Lander, many of the complexities stemmed from the addition of Kylie’s performance. “Once Kylie came on board in late January, a redesign of the stage and set was required and we shifted focus from a set of walls and flats to a set which featured technology. Richard came up with a look that incorporated a rig shaped like two Vs of box truss covered with LC LED panels and movers, with the front V operating on motion control Kinesys,” he said. But the real challenge came with determining positions for the lasers, and with a cargo net which had to instantly appear – be performed on – then be struck within seconds. Then there was the balloon drop, a new stage design which allowed maximum space and entrances for dancers in an already full room and a roof full of rigging points, truss and air-conditioning ducts. All this while working out how to broadcast Kylie’s

show live to the Hordern Pavilion LED screen and across the road to a PRG Superscreen in the coach carpark.

Riedel Communications ran a MediorNet fibre line between the Royal Hall of Industries (RHI) and the Hordern Pavilion to carry audio and vision links, while a microwave link carried signals from the Hordern to the carpark.

THE RIGHT MOVES

Over the last few years, Mardi Gras has seen Richard Neville reintroduce moving trusses above both the stage and crowd, and he’s taking baby steps each year as to how many moves and how far he can take the automation. “We had some elements this year which we would have loved to automate but weren’t able to for a number of reasons – but we’ll get there in coming years I’m sure,” he said. Moving elements do add another dimension, but must also comply with strict WH&S requirements. Every truss movement must be ‘scripted’, with each being signed-off before the event by the various stakeholders.

When the party begins, each move is executed at a particular time and then logged by the Kinesys operator. Four staff act as safety spotters for each truss move, to identify any hazards in advance. “Anybody who understands

DJs and parties will know that it’s impossible to anticipate what will happen during a DJ’s set,” said Neville, “so it’s even more difficult to plan truss moves. That said, any movement is better than no movement at all, and I think the crowds really appreciate the automation elements, so we work with what we have.”

Brad Wright was particularly impressed with the PRG M-Box media servers introduced

by Mandylights. “I’m pretty hands-on with production and was blown away with the speed and content options of the M-Box. I’m more than sold and thank Richard for introducing me to the server. Richard also hung LC panels sideways, which sounds quite straight-forward, but presented challenges. For the first time in eight years we were able to use full-colour laser systems in the RHI. Oracle Attractions supplied two 10W full colour systems,” Brad said.

RENDER UNTO KYLIE

Mandylights used the full power of its design and rendering studio in the pre-production process and were able to share with the client (and then subsequently Kylie Minogue’s global production team) how the various scenes would look.

“We fully visualised the rig in 3D before installation,” Neville explains. “It gives the

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Photo: Mark Dickson – Deep Field Photography

artists a chance to see their performance space and also allows us to experiment with different looks to fine-tune the lighting and video before we get on site. We also visualised all of the video content as it was created especially for the LC panels, so it was good to show the client exactly how the content would look on the low-res panels. Kylie’s performance had a sort-of ‘future tribal’ influence, so we used a lot of geometric content and icons to create bold video sequences. The video design in the RHI featured 32 segmented LC panels, so we wanted to really exploit the layout as opposed to just running stock content through it. In previz, we isolated each panel and almost treated each one as its own screen: we chased words, icons and graphics across panels, pulsed different groups to the beat…it was great to play with.”

THE LONG MARCH

Neville generally begins discussions about the design in November the year before. Solid concepts are presented to Mardi Gras and the working groups in January, and if the stars all align, by the beginning of February the plot is handed over to PRG to begin costing and prepping.

“We’ll typically do a week of pre-programming in our studio with the consoles and media servers here, while PRG down the road are prepping everything before we spend the week in the venue.

Probably the biggest challenge is getting everything done in time. There are six venues to bump in, over a dozen full production shows including the four major events inside the Royal Hall of Industries and of course, ten hours of dance party to program; all in less than a week.” Neville noted.

As for Brad Wright, he couldn’t be more pleased: “I’m super proud of the whole gig. What we delivered was truly amazing and we brought Mardi Gras production and creative standards to a level beyond expectation.” 

KEY VISUAL GEAR ROYAL HALL OF INDUSTRIES

HORDERN PAVILION

BYRON KENNEDY HALL

Moving Fixtures 28 x Vari-Lite VL2500 spot 18 x Vari-Lite VL5 wash 11 x PRG Bad Boy 20 x Martin MAC 301 4 x Martin Atomic strobe 30 x ProShop LED Par Conventional Fixtures 17 x ETC Source 4 26-degree 4 x 400W UV cannons 12 x 8ft zip strip 2 x Xebex follow spots Video 32 x Martin LC panel 2140 Atmospherics 2 x Jem Glaciator low fogger 4 x HighEnd F100 fogger 4 x ReelFX DF50 hazer 4 x AF1 fan Control 1 x MA Lighting grandMA series 2 Full Size with backup 1 x PRG MBox Extreme media server

Moving Fixtures 26 x Vari-Lite VL2000 Spot 20 x Vari-Lite VLX Wash 13 x Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48 4 x Martin Atomic strobe 24 x LED Par Conventional Fixtures 10 x ETC Source 4 36-degree 6 x Strand 8ft zip strip Video 36 x Lighthouse R10 LED panels Atmospherics 2 x HighEnd F100 fogger 2 x Unique 1 hazer Control 1 x MA Lighting grandMA series 1 Full Size with backup 1 x PRG MBox Extreme media server

Moving Fixtures 12 x Vari-Lite VL6C spot 12 x Vari-Lite VL5 wash Conventional Fixtures 4 x ETC Source 4 36-degree 120m x dipped fancy-round festooning Atmospherics 1 x ReelFX DF50 hazer Control 1 x Flying Pig WholeHog 2 with wing THE HIFI (Formerly Stage 11, City Live and the Forum) Moving Fixtures 8 x HighEnd Cyberlight Turbo 6 x generic LED moving wash Control 1 x HighEnd WholeHog 3 with wing

Previz render courtesy Mandylights

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Lava Good Exhibit Volcanic 3D: Melbourne Museum’s immersive (and explosive) exhibit.

Text:/ Matt Caton Images courtesy of Museum Victoria

LAVA DOMES

The world of 3D imaging has managed to infiltrate its experience into most of life’s finer (and not so fine) entertainment activities: movies, television, video games, pornography.

In fact, I opened the newspaper today to find a voucher to collect my free 3D footy cards. As far as fads in entertainment go, 3D is clearly this year’s clubhouse leader. But with this saturation, has come a difficulty to ever really be impressed by the 3D experience. It’s almost come to the point where most of us can say “I’ve seen it all before”. But if you haven’t been immersed by 3D in full-surround stereoscopic 360 degrees, then I’m afraid to inform you that you really haven’t seen (or heard) it all before.

Rio Tinto Volcanic 3D in AVIE by iCinema UNSW, is the centrepiece of Melbourne Museum’s exhibition Dynamic Earth, and takes the 3D experience to a whole new level.

The highly visual and immersive exhibition

explores the story of the Earth’s formation, structure and power, and is highlighted when visitors discover the computer animations of volcanic activity presented in a seamless 360° image. Wearing polarised glasses, the dualprojector passive 3D technology allows visitors to be immersed into a world of falling lava, ash, rocks and minerals and at times, even interact with it.

Developed by the iCinema Centre for Interactive Research at UNSW, AVIE (Advanced Visualisation and Interaction Environment) is a large-scale solution for immersive interactive stereoscopic 360° visualisation. Museum Victoria entered into an Australian Research Council partnership with the iCinema Centre to supply and install the AVIE for Volcanic 3D. During the development of the exhibit, Rio Tinto executives were invited to view the work in progress and were so impressed by the project that they agreed to provide a corporate sponsorship.

“The AVIE exhibit offers a unique way for visitors to experience environments which would be impossible to visit in real life,” explains Joe Coleman, Museum Victoria’s technical manager on the project. “Underwater volcanoes, bubbling lava tunnels, and eruptions take visitors on quite the memorable journey, while the surround sound enhances the immersive nature of the experience.” Joe and his in-house team were responsible for coordinating the installation of the display hardware and software, integrating lighting and audio systems, and developing the sensor technology for the interactive components of the presentation.

The Interactive volcanic world is brought to life on a custom-made 4m (H) x 31.4m (W) cylindrical silver-surface perforated projection screen from Tüchler. The 3D video projection comes from six stereo-pairs of Projectiondesign F22 SX+ projectors, fitted with wide angle

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a great opportunity to take the museum’s in-house AV team to a whole new level of geekiness

lenses. The projectors are secured to a truss ring that sits above the cylindrical screen providing front projection positions to all 360° of screen.

Signal routing is handled via a Gefen 16 x 16 DVI Matrix and is distributed over Gefen Dual Link DVI cables.

The space is rounded out by some subtle floor lighting, courtesy of Osram Dragon Point LED strip from Lamp Replacements.

INTERACTIVE VOLCANOES

The cylindrical cinema space can accommodate up to 30 people and, thankfully, it doesn’t try to push its participant’s patience by running for too long like say, the movie Avatar. The whole experience can clock in somewhere between 12 and 15 minutes, depending on the level of interactivity triggered. Users can choose to interact by standing on glowing floor rings at certain segments of the presentation, which allows more information to ‘fly up’ in front of them. “We don’t explain how the show works

to visitors before they enter, we prefer it to be an experience that they create and discover for themselves,” explains Coleman.

Ethernet-linked Sick DS60 IR laser range finding sensors in the floor rings trigger a control computer that activates additional text, video and animations to provide the extra layer of information. The Museum Victoria in-house production team built the interactive electronics, provided the content, conceptual design and the hardware. This allowed the iCinema Centre to modify the existing software to enable the interactive function.

THE FORMATION

Each of the cylinder’s six sectors is fed by its own high-performance Xeon workstation with an Nvidia Quadro FX graphics card to generate the left and right eye image playback.

An additional Xeon workstation synchronises the whole show and handles the input from the

interactivity sensors, coordinates the lighting, and interfaces with the museum’s multimedia control system.

The playback software was originally developed by the iCinema team for real-time applications such as a motion tracking system.

The Volcano 3D exhibition saw the AVIE environment animated for the first time. As a result, the technical direction, stereoscopic software development and high resolution rendering required to play animations in the AVIE system, were developed specifically as part of this project.

The content for the show was a collaborative effort. The pre-rendered animation sequences were produced by Mike Hollands and Cam Crighton of Act3 Animation, while all other original content including photos, video and text was sourced and produced internally by Museum Victoria.

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Project Credits Client: Museum Victoria (www.museumvictoria.com.au) Exhibition Producer: Kathy Fox Head Curator: Kate Phillips Multimedia Production Coordinator: Jenni Meaney Technical Manager: Joe Coleman AVIE system design and install: iCinema UNSW (www.icinema.unsw.edu.au) 3D animation: Act3 Animation (www.act3animation.com) Sound Design: Wax Sound Media (www.waxsm.com.au) Lighting Design: Brenton James Technical assistant: Wayne De Ingenis In-house interactive sequences: Stephen Dixon and Warik Lawrence

THE SOUND DIMENSION

Realistic sound effects and evocative abstract sounds enhance the dramatic nature of the animations, while the sound for this experience provides the ambient soundscape for the rest of the exhibition. David Chesworth of Wax Sound Media worked closely with the animation designers and programmers to provide tightly-integrated sound effects and compositional sound. While the compositional score is in many places incidental, it helps to enhance the immersive atmosphere.

Audio playback for the six stereo-sector (12.2 channel) surround-sound system comes from a pair of RME Fireface 400 audio cards which feed 12 x Genelec 6010A active studio monitors and two active sub-woofers. iCINEMA

The AVIE environment was originally created and developed (and is still owned by) the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research at the University of New South Wales. It uses a suite of high-end hardware and software resources to enable the development of applications in Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. It has previously been installed as core visualisation infrastructure at ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Germany, the City University of Hong Kong and Rensselaer Polytechnic University in New York, where it forms the centrepiece of many research and teaching programs.

“Working with such cutting-edge technology made this a highly rewarding project to be involved with,” says Coleman, who also jokes, “it was also a great opportunity to take the museum’s in-house AV team to a whole new level of geekiness.”

It’s always a challenge for museums to keep their exhibitions fresh and relevant to their audience, and with so many other competing forms of entertainment and education, it’s refreshing to see Museum Victoria embracing technology such as this and creating an immersive environment that could excite even the most jaded of 3D game-playing couch potatoes. 

Above: stacked stereo pairs of F22 SX+ projectors with polarising filters provide full wrap-around image coverage.

Ethernet-linked Sick IR laser range-finders on outrigger arms cover the circled audience interaction points on the floor.

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Telstra Experience Centre Telstra builds the Great Wall of MicroTile.

Text:/ Chris Holder

Remember when the bloke from Telecom would drop by in a ute to set up the phones and then you paid one bill every month for making calls? No, neither do I. Times have changed. Telstra isn’t a phone company, it’s an integrated telecommunications solutions provider – offering everything from the traditional phone through to digital signage and everything in between.

Telstra is strong in the big end of town, and would like to be stronger. It has identified the need to court bigger clients with a very personalised pitch and the Telstra Experience Centre helps them do that. The Experience centre is a multi-faceted showcase of new technologies (except for the ‘museum’ of oldschool phones and telegraphs, which are intriguing in themselves), designed to inspire staff, customers and potential new clients with the possibilities and confidence in the telecommunications giant. New to the Experience Centre are the Experience Labs.

CLIENT FOCUS

The original vision was to have a hi-tech room that allowed Telstra’s sales teams to blow away clients (and potential clients) with stunning sights and sounds. For example, if Telstra was trying to win the account for Whammy Burgers’ chain of 100 stores, it could bring Whammy executives into an ‘Experience lab’ dominated by visuals and sounds of a Whammy outlet that places decision-makers in a world they intimately understand – and, by inference, Telstra intimately understands. From there, the display could demonstrate Telstra’s proposal with sophisticated concepts and 3D renderings of its product/services.

Mind you, for this to plan work, the display would need to be huge… and immersive… overwhelming even.

The audio would obviously need to be in surround; there would need to be video conferencing, of course…

Oh, and actually, there will need to be three of these labs, not just one, but the combined space would need to act as one large Experience Lab, with the three screens acting as one in those occasions.

SHOWING INITIATIVES

Corporate Initiatives won the installation and integration contract for the job. Technical Director, Chris Gauci picks up on the story: “We started evaluating our technical options back in mid-2010.

The client wanted screens that filled the entire end space. They wanted something hugely impressive, uninterrupted and seamless. We looked at video walls of LCD/plasma panels (bezels just weren’t fine enough, particularly at that time); blended rear projection (seamless, but there wasn’t enough real estate behind the screens – even if we used mirrors); and, coincidentally, around that time, Christie released the MicroTile. We didn’t know anything much about MicroTile, but we were immediately attracted to its very narrow bezel.”

In all, 260 Christie MicroTiles would be required.

Many reading this article would be grabbing their HP calculators and doing the sums… surely that’s a colossal investment?

“Cost was a key factor,” noted Gauci. “But if you’re working this out by the square metre, the MicroTile is competitive. What’s more the cost of ownership is good. The MicroTile has a very low power consumption.”

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

Chris Gauci took the client along to the initial MicroTile roadshow when it hit town and everyone was suitably impressed – the green button was pressed.

“This was a totally new product, to us and to the market, so we needed some guidance from the manufacturer and the Australian representative (VR Solutions), which we got. The installation went largely without hitch. But we had to be very precise.

We wanted the alignment of the MicroTiles to pixelperfect, and that meant better than millimetre-perfect.

“The space is in an older building and the floor was going to let us down – it was uneven. We had to call the tradies in and get them to pour a new, even, slab.”

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BACKSTAGE TOUR Peter Wood is the Telstra in-house Technical Manager.

He oversaw the building of Telstra’s new boardrooms in Melbourne and Sydney, while the Experience Centre has been his pet project for the last 12 months or so. A tour of the Experience Labs’ machine room reveals some of the complexity of the project.

Peter Wood: We have three labs, so all the back-end kit for those labs is replicated times three. In each rack we have Foxtel, an image controller, additional AMX cards, surround sound (there’s a Blu-Ray player as well as Foxtel), and the ClearOne sound system which takes care of all for the video conferencing, sound reinforcement, and also mixes in program audio – it acts as the audio hub. A Brightsign media player feeds the MicroTiles background content – when the screens are sitting idle you can have a moving background behind your presentation.

The Christie Spyder X20 (one per Lab) provides the grunt for the MicroTiles – taking care of all the picture-in-picture

work. The Spyder takes the feeds from the Brightsign players and creates the background for the MicroTiles.

There’s a component router for video cameras and DVD sources and a Polycom video conferencing codec.

In another rack we have an AMX Autopatch Epica DVI router which is common to all three labs. When the three labs are opened up to one large space the AMX system provides us with the ability to have sources from one room appear in all the other rooms.

Shure UR radio mics are shared between all the rooms.

We’re using Powersoft power amps, a Volante videoover-IP video system for all of our signage distribution from the Videro signage players.

We have a smattering of broadcast gear from Black Magic and Aja. The systems allow us to take feeds from TV stations and streaming outlets via Telstra’s DVN (Digital Video Network), as well as allowing us to send them signal. So we’ve got video conferencing internally and via internet as well as broadcast television in and out.

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ALL AS IT SEAMS

Telstra’s original concept had three screens in three labs, with operable walls between. With the walls retracted, the space could operate with one large backdrop – albeit with gaps between the screens. “We thought we could do better than that,” recalled Gauci. “By putting the whole system on wheels and installing ‘tram’ tracks, we could use hydraulic arms to push the two outer displays into the middle display, resulting in one huge 260-tile screen.”

With the sections weighing in at 1.5 tonnes each, moving the screens wasn’t a trivial matter, let alone ensuring a pixelperfect alignment when the hydraulic arms were deployed.

It’s quite a feat of engineering.

The original attraction may have been the narrow bezel of MicroTile, but it’s clear that Christie’s modular baby has impressed in a number of other areas. Overall brightness and contrast are very striking, and screen certainly fulfils its brief – visitors leave the centre with their retinas carrying lasting memories, an image made possible by the tiles.

Chris Gauci and his team went out on a limb specifying a largely untried technology – albeit from a trusted and experienced manufacturer – and challenges arose along the way. The fan noise from 260 MicroTiles is not insignificant, which required some serious acoustic treatment behind the screens. But everyone involved in the job feels the effort was well worth it.

And there’s no doubting that Telstra has got more impact and vibrancy than they could possibly have dreamed of: “When I first walked into the room, the experience was amazing. The clarity, the quality, and the sharpness of the images, they are crystal clear and simply fantastic,” exclaimed Shane Budak, the Experience Centre’s Operations Manager. Indeed, the Experience Centre has become quite the secret weapon and the MicroTile video wall the coup de grâce. 

MORE INFORMATION Corporate Initiatives: (03) 8878 9000 or www.ciasia.com.au VR Solutions (Christie): (07) 3844 9514 or www.vrs.com.au AMX: (07) 5531 3103 or www.amxaustralia.com.au Videro: www.videro.com IDT (Brightsign): 1300 666 099 or www.idt.com.au Axis Audio Visual (Volante): (03 ) 9752 2955 or www.axisav.com.au Production Audio (ClearOne, Powersoft): (03) 9264 8000 or www.productionaudio.com.au

Three Experience Labs can be transformed into one large Lab with a 20m-long screen. A hydraulic ram system pushes the outer sections of Christie MicroTile to meet with the centre section. Each section weighs in at 1.5 tonnes, so ensuring the screens meet, pixel perfect, was a considerable feat of engineering. Above, you can see the bezel width within a screen, as well as the join between screens.

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Steel The Show Newcastle Museum: faking the making of steel in a disused railway shed.

It is extremely loud, fiery, smoky, dusty, hot and dangerous

Text:/ Graeme Hague Images courtesy Mental Media

It’s good to see that in our exciting, modern day and age of 3D projection and audiovisual trickery there’s still room for some traditional theatrecraft when it comes to creating an illusion. The Newcastle Museum recently relocated to new facilities at the old railway workshops, adjacent to the Civic Railway Station in the heart of Newcastle, and as part of the relocation – and with regard to the historical place they occupy in the heritage of Newcastle – BHP saw an opportunity to provide sponsorship to develop a gallery devoted to the story of steel making in the region.

As part of the development, which began in 2011, Mental Media was commissioned by the City of Newcastle to design, produce and install ‘a dramatic audiovisual program which will interpret the excitement, colour, drama and noise which is inherent in the steelmaking process’. All of this is to be achieved without anyone getting hurt, burnt or too dirty. An important part of the brief was to enliven the exhibition, expand the visitors’ experience and ‘help to interpret the very large objects on display in the exhibition’. In other words, to impress visitors with the size and scope of the steelmaking process. That was going to take some good, old-fashioned theatrical magic.

OBJECT OF DESIRE

Mental Media proposed a major ‘object theatre’ production that provides a glimpse of the inside of a steelworks. It incorporates two giant objects that dominate the exhibition space – a former BHP steelmaking ladle and a ‘Bottom Fill’ Ingot Car, the container into which the molten steel is poured.

The gallery is designed as a multi-level theatre-style space that provides many different viewpoints. With the museum relocated into an existing heritage rail shed, the area already had a very high ceiling and gritty industrial finishes, thanks to decades of real use (the last owners obviously didn’t get their rental bond back). There was also a high-level mezzanine structure that could serve as the stage for the production.

Still, it was an old railway shed not a foundry, so as part of the concept development, Mental Media, sound designer Kevin Davidson and lighting designer Peter Neufeld made several visits to the real thing, the Bluescope steelworks at Port Kembla.

Here Kevin recorded hours of audio, while Mental Media collected hundreds of video and still images of modern day steelmaking all as further references for the museum production. Peter Neufeld’s research concentrated on how he could properly recreate the myriad different lighting conditions in the foundry, from blinding flashes and glowing sparks to the comparatively gloomy corners, all with fixtures that would require little or no maintenance over a heavy and prolonged schedule of use.

KEEPING IT REAL-ISH

Realistically reproducing the sounds and sights of a working steel refinery wasn’t going to be easy, and punters with a taste for authenticity are quick to dismiss a substandard presentation (something we can probably blame on James Cameron and his gazillion-dollar movie budgets). The daytrips to the steelworks revealed that Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS) assaults the senses. It is extremely loud, fiery, smoky, dusty, hot and dangerous – and that’s just in the canteen kitchen (sorry, couldn’t resist it).

Mental Media’s first and major concern when planning the production was safety. Certain effects such as live flames, pyrotechnics and sparks would be spectacular and given the nature of the display, possibly even expected by the audience, but doing these properly was going to be at odds with the safety of the visitors. The additional restrictions of limited staff availability and the operating costs of such an intensive display was destined to cause budget problems, so Mental Media ruled them out at an early stage.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HARRY

Instead, the show entitled Big Harry’s Place uses very theatrical sound, lighting, vision and

mechanical effects to create an absorbing, upclose experience of a steel pour.

The presentation, which runs on the hour, every hour, has a ghostly host – Harry himself. Using the control room windows as the screen for a Pepper’s Ghost-style effect, a somewhat grumpy ‘Harry’ greets the visitors and invites them to stick around to watch an ingot pour which, everyone is warned, is going to be loud, hot and dangerous. Harry narrates the five-minute show explaining the steel-making process which includes a steel pour from a prop furnace into a real ladle (one of the museum objects), a simulated ladle transit across the 18m wide room at ceiling height and finally a steel pour from the ladle into an ingot car – the second museum object. Of course, molten steel and 19th-century workplace practises aren’t alarming enough, so the moving ladle does experience a small glitch during the transit to suddenly shudder, drop and begin to swing treacherously with jets of smoke shooting from the bottom, alarms sounding and lights flashing as a dreadful accident threatens to engulf everyone in a fiery death – good luck calming the kids down after that. Perhaps Harry needs some retraining.

Five major components combine to produce the effects – mechanical, sound, lighting, video and smoke. Of course, some impressive scenery and props building creates the stage for the whole event.

THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

The image of Harry in the crane operator’s cabin is the aforementioned Pepper’s Ghost.

Unlike the traditional Pepper’s Ghost effect which reflects the image from an unseen screen onto a clear glass panel, this 21stcentury version achieves the effect by projecting the image from a Panasonic PTDX500E directly onto the HoloPro glass panel which forms the cabin window.

The furnace steel pour is simulated by a combination of custom LED panels, several layers of acrylic diffusion panels, smoke and lights. The moving ladle is a two-thirds scale model of the real ladle that travels on

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The steel-making ladle and the ingot car on the floor and the works clock on the wall are the only real museum objects in this entire exhibit, everything else is scenic art, stagecraft and theatrical effects.

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30 °

Image Offset 15 °

This non-Pepper's Ghost is an image projected at an angle of precisely 36.5° onto the laser-etched oloPro film embedded in the window glass.

The window is angled down at 30° for optimum image brightness in the ECIFFO NOITIBIHXE_84_1L audience area.

EQUIPMENT LIST

BUILT STRUCTURES a specially-designed gantry crane built and installed BHP EXPERIENCE

by Harris Movement Engineering. contains SECTION It also CONTROL CABIN ELEVATIONPepper’s Ghost crane control cabin NEWCASTLE REGIONAL MUSEUM lighting, sound, mechanical and smoke effects.

Overhead gantry crane structure The entire mezzanine concrete structure has been Steel ladle (prop) dressed with fake steel girders and finished to replicate BOS furnace mouth and chute the appearance of an old steelworks. Far from breaking Set dressing to columns and balcony out the paintbrushes and sawhorse, Rosemonts Staging and Touring did some painstaking design beforehand LIGHTING & EFFECTS with Rhino and SolidWorks CAD software to build BOS FURNACE MOUTH & CHUTE 3D models, then transfer the finished files into CNC 1 x Martin Magnum 1800 smoke machine (computer numerically controlled) routers on the 3 x Martin Atomic 3000 strobe workshop floor to create the set pieces. The materials 4 x Molefay duet used depended on the level of strength and durability 2 x Custom LED video displays needed, ranging from polystyrene and MDF to aluminium (all fire-treated, of course). Some elements 1 x Electric spark generator also came from 3D printing machines that can STEEL LADLE (MUSEUM OBJECT) reproduce shapes and textures down to the last glob of 2 x Martin Atomic 3000 strobe splattered, molten metal. It’s serious 21st-century set1 x Jarag 25 light array building, and there isn’t a canvas flat in sight.

2 x Molefay duet Designed to provide a 6.1 surround field, the audio 1 x Martin Magnum 1800 smoke machine was fed directly from the Medialon server to 15kW 1 x Martin AF-1 fan of QSC amps without any additional processing.

FAUX STEEL LADLE (PROP) Technical Audio Group provided horn-loaded 1 x Martin Atomic 3000 strobe Martin Audio H3+ cabinets focussed directly at the 1 x Jarag 25 light array audience to maximise the direct-to-reflected sound 2 x Molefay duet ratio in this highly reverberant space, while Martin Audio F218+ subs were used to produce the intense 1 x Martin Magnum 1800 smoke machine rumble and mechanical sounds associated with heavy 1 x Martin AF-1 fan manufacturing.

INGOT CAR Additional lighting, mechanical and smoke effects 4 x Molefay duet are also located in the museum objects, and an upward -facing F12 speaker is located inside the prop ladle to AUDIO simulate the sound of its movement across the gantry.

Martin Audio Blackline Since Harry obviously can’t be trusted (not with QSC Audio PL amplifiers his track record) everything is run via a Medialon QSC Basis922az digital processor Showmaster Pro controller, a pair of Medialon MIP 1 x MAS_24 Medialon audio server media players and a Medialon 24-channel audio server.

The end result is a spectacular show that’s a credit to production values of old – different technologies and VISION & CONTROL skills both old and new combining to create an illusion 2 x Medialon MIP HD media player not just of sights and sounds, but heat and hazards, 1 x Medialon Showmaster PRO controller too. As Harry says, “it’s loud, hot and dangerous”.

1 x Panasonic PT-DX500E projector Thanks for the warning, Harry  Scale Not to Scale

© Mental Media Pty. Ltd. 2010

email

bruce@mentalmedia.com.au

1:25 @ A3

Job No

Drwg No

Rev

5308

003_2

(C)

1 x HoloPro screen – www.holopro.de

PROJECT CREDITS Project Producers Mental Media – www.mentalmedia.com.au – concept, design, specification. production, implementation David Jellings – creative director/producer Bruce Brown – technical director/project manager Lighting Peter Neufeld – lighting designer Mark Hammer – programmer Peter Chegwidden – installation Chameleon – www.chameleon-touring.com.au – hardware supply Show Technology – www.showtech.com.au – hardware supply Herkes Electrical – www.herkes.com.au – hardware supply AUDIO Kevin Davidson – sound editor/mixer Anthony Russo – system design & engineer TAG –www.tag.com.au – hardware supply & install MULTIMEDIA Mediatec –www.mediatec.com.au – LED supply & installation Interactive Controls – www.interactivecontrols.com.au – vision & control systems supply & installation Dean Stevenson – control system programmer MECHANICAL HME – www.harrismovement.com.au – gantry crane design, supply & installation Rosemonts – www.rosemonts.com.au – set & props design, supply & installation Derrick Cox – scenic artist

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044

REVIEW

MA Lighting Command Wing for grandMA onPC2 grandMA Sprouts Wings.

Text:/ Paul Collison

It’s not often a product comes along and gets so many people talking all at once. The grandMAonPC Command Wing is one of those products. So why all the interest? It’s definitely not the name! For starters, it really doesn’t offer anything that you can’t already do. MA Lighting offer onPC2, a software-only version of its control software. You can use this software to communicate to lighting fixtures, media servers or anything that can receive DMX via the many protocols available to us. In fact, the Wing is just a more fancy version of the keyboard in front of your computer… or is it?

The lesson MA has taken from its industrydominating Series 1 consoles was that all Series 2 products must have the same layout across the various options within the range. It’s important that moving between various surfaces (often on the same project) that the user doesn’t get confused or slowed down by variations in the geography of the panel. To that end, MA has painstakingly ensured the layout of the Wing is almost identical to that of its bigger brothers.

NO COMPROMISE

It means that using a Wing for a show need not compromise the speed and agility of a programmer. The inclusion of a dimmer wheel, dedicated Go+/Go-/Pause buttons and two 100mm A/B faders, means that the surface is absolutely at home in a theatre situation and

transposes shows back and forth to the larger surfaces with ease. There are also six executor faders for playback. Why six? Funny you should ask, as Y6 was the development codename for the surface. Mainly due to the fact that MA has based both Series 1 and Series 2 consoles on groups of five executors and on this surface, the sixth executor fader is slightly displaced from the other five. In the interest of keeping manufacturing costs low, standard circuit boards are used where possible. The board that houses the executor faders has the ability to run six faders. The team at MA decided that in order to offer the most features possible, they would include a sixth fader on the wing. This paved the way for six executor buttons, in the same location as the larger surfaces, under the executor faders. Topping things off are the four encoder wheels that allow traditional control of your lighting fixtures.

On the rear of the wing there are all the usual in/out connections you would expect to find on a professional lighting console. SMPTE, MIDI, DMX in and out and analogue input instantly provide an amazing number of features. Many of these features can be included as extras on other surfaces, however, they are all standard with the Wing. The Wing is externally powered via a standard IEC connector and connects to your PC or laptop via a USB A/B cable.

There are also two 5-pin DMX outputs on the

Wing, however more outputs are possible. Simply adding an NPU (Network Processing Unit) or a Series 1 NSP (Network Signal Processor), or even a 2-port node, lets you control up to 4096 parameters without a console. Once a console is introduced and becomes the master, the limit is lifted to 65,536 parameters. For security, there is also a Kensington lock slot for those situations where your precious Wing might be in danger of being abducted.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The Wing is not a lighting console, rather it’s a surface that allows you to connect with your PC running the onPC software. Unfortunately there is no OSX version, nor will there be in the foreseeable future, thus requiring you to have a computer with Windows7 at hand. Although the current versions will work on XP and the ill-fated Vista, Windows7 does a much better job with the software, keeping operations fluid, plus it renders graphics more efficiently. While onPC2 is not heavy on resources, to keep the GUI standardised, a dedicated graphics card is required. However, you don’t need to stop at one.

In fact, as onPC2 can support up to six windows, you can keep adding graphics cards until you run out of space (or money) in order to see all the available windows. For the more frugal, you can run onPC2 with Multi Window turned off, and toggle through all your windows within the one

REVIEW

Multi-Channel Digital Amplifiers DA250D (DA250DH) DA250F (DA250FH) DA550F (DA500FH)

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space. Of course, any windows-compatible touchscreen will help you take advantage of the touch-orientated GUI. It really doesn’t take much to get comfortable behind this setup.

The low profile of the Wing makes it a great surface to use.

On a normal table height with a normal office chair, the wing sits ergonomically on your table. A 23-inch monitor on a swing arm can allow you greater control of the positioning of your monitor, as getting it to sit in the sweet spot above the Wing, and keeping it out of the way of the connectors at the rear of the surface, can be tricky. However, once it’s there, one could argue the setup is just as comfortable as one of the larger surfaces.

You will need to keep a mouse and keyboard handy. Determining the best location for those input devices can also be tricky. However, both are integral to the efficient use of the software.

WHO WOULD WANT ONE?

The Wing is affordably priced which makes it available to the average touring lighting designer. If grandMA2 is your preferred platform then it makes sense to be able to use it no matter the size of your show. There is nothing worse than spending time looking at a screen trying to work out how to control your lights, instead of seeing them in action. So if you’re at home in the grandMA2 world, you’ll want one of these in your kit at all times. Not only as a sole surface to use, but also as part of a larger system.

Nine Network station TCN in Sydney has recently made the leap in to the world of grandMA2, installing two grandMA2 Light surfaces in their control room, with a Wing on the studio floor. As many shows in these studios get ‘plotted’ from the floor prior to moving up to the control room, it was important that the studio floor surface was identical to the control room. Andrew Veitch and Stuart Anderson from TCN are very happy with things. "Most of the shows are programmed when we are on the studio floor,” says Veitch. “To remove one of the MA2 Lights from the control room was just not practical for us, but the MA2 Command Wing can be left permanently on our custom-made trolley in the studio."

Anderson also points out that the Wing remains active even whilst on air “this allows the floor assistants to be able to reset fixtures and make small changes without bothering upstairs” The onPC Command Wing seems to fulfil a number of roles in varied circumstances. From the primary surface in a small theatre, school, corporate show or with a festival LD, to a secondary surface in TV studios or larger theatre installations, this little device will almost certainly be a useful companion on many projects. 

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046

TUTORIAL

Can You Hear me Now? Effective Production Communications: Part 2 Text:/ Cameron O’Neill

Last issue, we looked into the most simple of production communication systems, the partyline, which has become the de facto standard for production communications for about 70 years. While there have been innovations over the years, the basic concept has remained the same: connect everyone who needs to talk to each other onto the same line.

But what about when you need a little more control? Even a modest production has multiple, cross-functional teams that need to talk to each other, but not necessarily to everyone. With a traditional partyline system you would find it hard to get a word in edgewise.

THE KEY GAME

When multiple partyline systems became an important part of many productions, the more central personnel needed a communications station with a separate talk key for each partyline, and thus the concept of the Key Station was born.

Key Stations are the main user interface for modern Matrix systems. They are comprised of a number of assignable buttons: one button might call everyone in the system, the next might just talk to the lighting department. The flexibility of these systems also lets you limit a conversation to

ENTER THE MATRIX

A number of companies started working on solutions to this problem from as early as the ’60s. At that point, TV stations were the main driver of the new systems. The initial approach was to have a system with multiple partylines that could easily be re-assigned to different groups, and these went on to form the basis of the first matrix systems.

By the 1970s there were a number of offerings available to be installed in your TV station or rocket launch complex. These usually had a large central frame of audio crosspoint switches to handle all of the routing. Hence, they were rarely found in the event or touring industry as they were simply too large, complex, fragile and expensive to take out of the equipment room.

Unlike those early, physically-switched systems, a modern matrix communications system works in a similar fashion to an audio matrix mixer, where any of the system inputs can be sent at any level to any or all of the system outputs.

EXTRACTING THE DIGITS

With lower bandwidth and fidelity requirements, the telecommunications companies were well ahead of the pro audio market in adopting digital audio. In the 1960s both RCA and Bell Laboratories were experimenting with what would become the cornerstone for much of the digital audio market – Time Division Multiplexing (TDM). TDM shares the same stream between multiple signals by allocating each signal its own narrow time slot in the data stream and sending a compressed burst of each signal during its allotted time. By knowing the time slot allocation schedule, you can select which of the signals you want to listen to.

productions and events all started augmenting their partyline systems with matrices. Larger productions were already pushing the limits of what partyline could be used for, and so the power of a matrix was a welcome relief. Since most matrices also include the ability to alter the levels of the distributed signals, they have also been used to replace or augment paging and audience recall systems.

The downside of a matrix system is that all of the participating devices need to be cabled back to the actual matrix processor. On a production or an event this usually isn’t such a problem.

However, when installing a permanent system into an existing building, or running an event over a large physical area, things start getting hard.

A number of the systems on the market today allow you to link multiple matrices together via fibre – thus decentralising them and allowing the systems to become truly vast in both numbers of stations and geographic spread. In these systems, every port has access to every other port.

Suddenly the show caller in the main room can call the AV operators in the break-out rooms to let them know the main session is about to finish, or the master control operator can let the director know they’re on air.

WHEN YOU WOULD USE A MATRIX?

two people; a company secretary on-stage at an AGM might be able to talk to an assistant at the mix position without anyone else hearing.

Each Key Station is connected directly via an appropriate cable to a ‘port’ on the matrix.

Most systems these days will allow a port to be pretty much anything; a key station, a partyline, a wireless system or an interface to a radio, telephone or Internet system. While early matrix systems had tens of ports, modern systems could have hundreds on a single physical matrix.

CENTRALISED OR DISTRIBUTED?

Many of the competing communications companies have now headed down the path of standardised cabling (using coax or UTP). Easyto-use software made it possible for matrices to be used outside the TV studios, so theatres,

Matrices are big, and they are powerful. However, they’re not for everyone. A partyline system will still cover you for most events, up to about 10 people per partyline. Given that most partyline master stations cover two to four channels, that’s about 20-40 people (although I usually stick to 20-30).

Matrices become really useful when the level of complexity in an event goes up. When you’ve got more than three ‘teams’ (say, lighting, audio and staging), you should probably start looking at a matrix. When you’ve got a show caller who is continuously telling everyone else to stop talking, then you probably need a matrix. And as soon as you start involving a broadcast system, you’re almost definitely talking about a matrix. In fact, as soon as you call in an outside broadcast truck, you’re going to be using Matrix comms.

Next issue, we’ll be looking into expanding the reach of both partyline and matrix systems with wireless systems. 

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048

NEWS

InfoComm News

News from the Oceania Region.

NEW DRAFT STANDARD InfoComm has released a new draft of Standard, ‘InfoComm 4: 2012 DS-1 Audiovisual Systems Energy Management’ for public comment. The period for public comment ends 4th June, 2012. You can download a copy of the draft standard and make comments made through the online facility at www.infocomm.org/standards.

Just make your comments on the online form and submit. You can be as brief or detailed as you like and you can comment on just one item or on the entire standard.

We encourage the whole industry to get involved at this stage of the InfoComm standards development process. Your comments help make our AV industry standards more robust.

Following is some brief information about the new standard: Scope of the standard: This is an internationally applicable standard for the control, monitoring, and use of electric power for audiovisual (AV) systems, whereby power is conserved whenever possible through the use of ongoing operational management, design principles, and component selection. AV systems that are managed in conformance with the Standard will include education, benchmarking, monitoring, and control.

Logical outcome is to reduce the power consumption of the AV System • No specific target for power reduction in the standard • Not designed for competitive positioning of manufacturers or technologies.

Applies to permanently installed AV Systems • Extends through permanently installed components and • Other components powered from circuits supplied for the AV System • Exceptions to the standard are as follows Life Safety systems AV systems intended for 24 hour use (eg monitoring stations) Devices that don’t directly affect AV functions of the system (centralised IT) Doesn’t address energy efficiency of individual components Doesn’t form part of other rating systems (eg. Energy Star) Doesn’t apply to battery powered devices.

Requirements of the Standard • General AV system performance requirements System states (Disconnected, Off, Standby, On) Energy management plan Additional required documentation (diagrams, calibration records, etc.)

Display of current power consumption (system power monitoring) • Automation System control System state change

Education/Training • General conditions • End-user operation training Verification Appendixes to the draft standard are the following documents provided to give an example of how such things may look and work.

• Energy management plan • ROI worksheet • Sample energy management displays • Example of user report

Measurement & Analysis • General conditions & methods of measurement • Power measurement of the AV system • Power measurement instruments • Baseline measurement and AV system power states • Baseline measurement procedure • Continuous measurement of power consumption & ongoing supervision • Database logging • User reports

FUTURE DATES (enrolment enquiries to Oceania@infocomm.org) InfoComm University Virtual Workshop – Acoustics Essentials, 21-27 May. Presented by Rod Brown CTS-D, CTS-I, InfoComm Staff Instructor InfoComm University Virtual Workshop - Mics and Loudspeakers, 21-27 May. Presented by Rod Brown CTS-D, CTS-I, InfoComm Staff Instructor Regional Webinar – Solving Real Life HDMI/DVI Installation Problems , 27th June at 1pm AEST. Presented by John Ungerer, CTS, Kramer Australia

INFOCOMM UNI AT INTEGRATE InfoComm University at ‘Integrate in Association with InfoComm International’: Highlights of the program have already been released and are up on the Integrate website www.integrate-expo.com Full details of the program will be available around the end of May. The program includes: Super Tuesday – ‘The Net-Centric Era’ This program is aimed at the AV Industry professional including those that are involved with AV in the Education Sector.

The program will finish with a special event. The program runs on Tuesday (Day 1) for most of the day in The Headroom theatre on the show floor, there will be breaks and the session times will be posted well in advance for those that may need to plan some meetings on the day and attend a selection of the seminars available.

AV in Government Conference: (Half-day Duration) For those that are employed in the Government/Military and Institutional Sectors, responsible for Specifying, Designing, Purchasing or Operating AV Systems. This conference will be presented on Tuesday (Day 1) mid morning to early afternoon in the InfoComm University training room on the Mezzanine Level of Hall 5 above the Café at the rear of the hall.

The Future of Communications in Business: (Half-day Duration) For the CIO, IT Manager, Facilities Manager, and AV Technology Manager. This conference will be presented on Thursday (Day 3) mid morning to early afternoon in the InfoComm University training room on the Mezzanine Level of Hall 5 above the Café at the rear of the hall.

‘InfoComm University Seminars’ aimed at the AV Industry professional but may be of interest to all attendees of the show. There are a broad spectrum of topics with each session running for approx. 60-90 minutes. There will be six seminars presented at various times throughout the show with the larger portion of the program being presented on Wednesday (Day 2) mid morning to early afternoon in the InfoComm University training room on the Mezzanine Level of Hall 5 above the café at the rear of the hall.

coming Soon light+design magazine Independent • Informed • Comprehensive Make sure you receive your complimentary first issue of light+design.

Register online: www.lightdesign.net.au

049

TUTORIAL

Arranging Equipment in a Rack This is an excerpt from the course DES201 Design Online, an interactive course addressing advanced science and technology concepts for the AV designer.

The program is designed to be easy and cost effective for self paced learning. The course outlines design criteria, processes and procedures.

WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION

Heavier components should be placed at the bottom of the rack, if possible, to ensure the rack is not top heavy. Top heavy racks can easily be knocked over, creating a safety hazard.

A typical audio amplifier may be the heaviest device you would put in an equipment rack. Some amplifiers weigh 25kg or more. Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units are also very heavy. Some equipment racks are mounted to a wall or even bolted to the floor. With this added stability it is acceptable to install an amplifier at the top of a rack.

Most equipment is supported entirely by the rack screws in the front mounting rail. Heavier equipment typically occupies two or more RUs, providing more support. Some equipment may need the additional support of a rear mounting rail. This is especially true with gear having permanent ears, because the weight of the equipment can cause considerable torque on the front panel. Check the manufacturer’s guidelines.

Consider how and where the rack will be mounted. What type of hardware will be required to safely mount the equipment and support its weight? What about joinery? What will the carpenters need to know about the weight of the equipment?

RF & IR EQUIPMENT

It is common to have a rackmounted wireless microphone receiver. The antennae for the receiver need to be located so they can receive RF signals from the wireless transmitter. Do not put RF antennae inside the back of the rack. If an antenna is located

in the back of the rack, the equipment rack itself would act as a shield, greatly reducing the amount of RF energy reaching the antennae. Some manufacturers design rackmounted receivers with front antennae to solve this problem.

Special considerations must also be given if a rack has a door. If the door is metal then it will interfere with RF and IR signal reception for rackmounted receivers. A clear acrylic door however will not interfere with these signals. An RF antenna may require recessing the receiver mounting in the rack so the rack door can shut.

COOLING A RACK

Electronics do work, and work produces heat. The amount of heat generated by equipment is directly related to its power consumption. A 20W equaliser produces less heat than a 40W equaliser. If electronic equipment gets too hot, it may cease to operate. Therefore, manufacturers incorporate methods to circulate cooler air in and hot air out of electronic equipment.

With all the heat-generating equipment contained close together in a rack, it is up to the AV designer to direct a flow of cool air into the rack and hot air out.

There are two main methods of cooling a rack: Evacuation: Evacuation cooling creates a vacuum inside the rack using fans to draw air out of the rack, usually through the top

vents. This is much like sucking on a straw.

Cool air is drawn into the rack from the side and bottom vents. Since there is no filtering over every vent or slot, dirt can infiltrate the equipment rack. It is important to keep the equipment rack dust- and dirt-free with periodic maintenance.

Pressurisation: When you pressurise a rack with air, cooler air is blown into the rack with fans. The fans may have a filter to prevent dust and dirt from entering the rack. Vents on the sides and top of the rack provide an escape for the hot air.

Most electronics have vents where the hot air can escape, typically in the back of the unit and slots or vents where cool air can enter. Pay attention to the heat flow between components’ vents.

Beware of mounting equipment with opposite heat flow next to each other, because it will cause circulation of only the hot air.

You should separate pieces of equipment which produce a lot of heat with blank or vented panels in between.

Equipment producing a greater amount of heat should go near the top of the rack. Keep in mind that smaller, microprocessor-based components generate more heat than other components, requiring more attention to ventilation and placement.

BEST PRACTICE

Amplifiers create a dichotomy. Amps create a lot of heat, which is vented out best if the gear is near the top of the rack. But, they are heavy, so they can cause the rack to tip over. When the rack is securely mounted in place to the wall or floor, then it is okay to place the amp at a higher rack elevation.

Natural ventilation is okay for equipment racks with low power consumption. An exception to that is equipment racks which are embedded into furniture without ventilation. Consider ventilation when designing joinery or furniture around the equipment. Speak to the carpenter to see if modifications can be made to increase air flow. 

050

Termination Piracy? iiCaptain Text:/ Graeme Hague

This is a sad tale of digital piracy. It’s relevant since the recent court case against iiNet finally failed after more reversals than a Kardashian divorce settlement and no one’s quite sure what the result really ended up being – so it’s obvious the only real way we can stamp out piracy is to take responsibility for our own actions. Kind of like that Alcoholics Anonymous thing where everyone takes turns to stand up and declare they’ve had a few beers. We can stand up and say something like, “My name is John Citizen and yes – I have pirated software on my computer”. Then concerned colleagues can gather close and whisper uninstall procedures in our ear, while we shake our heads with furious denial.

Not me. I don’t have a skerrick of pirated software on my PC – honest. I could tell you it’s all about the ethics and morals of being a writer in this industry, but bugger that. Truth is, I’ve suffered more than my fair share of viruses and the resultant weeks of rebuilding an operating system, so any software that’s not 100%, caste-iron legal scares the hell out of me.

However, recently I was dragged down the dark path of illegal content. I was tempted by Beelzewarezbub himself and I failed the test.

It was in one of those CD/DVD shops in Bali.

CONCERT CRAVING

I feel a need to explain. You see, I work from an office in our home while my wife runs her own hairdressing salon in town (stick with me here). Somehow that arrangement translates into the concept that I don’t have a ‘real’ job, and she does. Hence I inherited the role of house-bitch and I’m expected to cook, clean, look after the four-legged kids, do the shopping… I can relate to that Mad Men TV show from the wrong side of the fence, if you know what I mean. Anyway, a part of

my cleaning ritual on Saturday mornings is to put on a concert DVD loud to drown out the vacuum cleaner and my pathetic sobbing at my appalling lot in life. Trouble is, I’m pretty fussy about my concert DVDs. They have to be good – and that’s not easy to find.

So these DVD shops in Bali loomed as a potential solution to satisfying my concert DVD habit. The stores are amazing–in a bad way. They are choc-o-block with not just music CDs and DVDs, but every film and television show imaginable, plus there is software galore. If it’s ever been released digitally or downloaded, it’ll be there. Of course, all of it’s different and looks odd and the artwork is littered with suspect spelling, but that doesn’t stop most tourists from buying discs in bucketloads, emerging from the store looking like they’ve bought a crazy pack of playing cards rather than a collection of CDs. Because it doesn’t matter what it is – CD, DVD or software – every disc costs the equivalent of one Australian dollar. So, why not?

I bought two – really, just two. And one of those was a concert I’d already recorded on Foxtel, so I figured I’d already paid for it properly anyway… I think (iiNet will know the technical legalities). The other was a Doobie Brothers concert from a few years back. I’m not a huge Doobies fan, but I figured it might be interesting. I decided to savour the moment until I got home. Besides, on our luxury hotel room’s stereo system if you pressed the Rewind button the toilet flushed and the mute button drained the swimming pool. Okay, I’m exaggerating – but let’s say Balinese AV technicians need some serious training.

WAREZ MY DOLLAR GONE?

A few days later when the Big Moment arrived, things started getting disappointing. You can imagine what happened and I shouldn’t have

been surprised, but let me point out that the artwork on the DVD was superb. ‘Doobie’ was spelled even correctly. Even the opening DVD menu was damned impressive – this was the real deal.

But the first minute of the concert footage was wobbly, out of focus and looked suspiciously like someone hastily setting up a Handicam in the auditorium after the houselights had gone down. I didn’t panic yet.

Some very famous movie directors use this lo-fi look as an intro effect. Any second now the DVD might blossom into full HD with 5.1 surround sound.

It didn’t. The vision didn’t get any better and the audio sounded like I’d dropped a transistor radio behind the couch. I think you could hear someone eating a packet of chips near the camera. I’d been had, not only by the utterly unprincipled dude running the DVD shop, but the filthy cad who illegally filmed the concert (in Standard Definition, I might add – useless sod). I had half a mind to go back to Bali and demand my dollar back. It’s just lucky for them I had vacuuming to do.

DISHING THE DIRT

The moral of the story is, of course, that you get what you pay for and anything pirated is ultimately going to be disappointing at some level. I succumbed to the Dark Side, bought a dodgy Doobie Brothers DVD and paid the price for my sins.

All right, it was only a dollar, but you get the point, right? The iiNet court reportedly cost $9 million and no one quite knows what was the point of it all. So it’s best to stay away from pirated stuff altogether.

I could explain more, but I have to do the dishes. 

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