AV Issue 31

WHITE NIGHT: MELBOURNE COMES ALIVE WEB RTC: VC ON YOUR BROWSER

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06

Editorial It may be 21st century but our cultural cringe lingers on…

Way back in the 20th century nobody in this country was considered to be any good at what they did unless they had proven themselves overseas. The actual overseas achievement itself was relatively insignificant in the scheme of things, because due to the law of Magnification of Distant Achievements, mixing the sound in a club in regional UK or a 15-seat basement venue in New York was considered much more significant than mixing a national arena tour back home.

A decade and a half into the next century it’s just about possible to have a successful career without ‘making it’ overseas but some aspects of our cultural cringe remain stubbornly in place. The law of Magnification of Distant Achievements, which increases the value of an achievement by the cube of the distance between the event and its re-telling, is why Australia is seen as a potential goldmine by would-be experts the world over.

It’s impossible to read a newspaper, watch TV or browse your favourite news feeds without receiving the unbidden wisdom of an ‘overseas expert’. Conference organisers, marketing companies and lobby groups (it’s often impossible to tell the difference) go fishing overseas in think tanks, research institutes (think the Ponds Institute) and minor academic institutions for someone with an opinion they like, or whose opinion is up for sale.

Suddenly, the overseas expert, often with a North American accent, appears on every media channel admonishing Australians to take more of some diet supplement, wear protective garments when playing sport, adopt some party’s taxation policy, allow minerals to be mined in unsafe places, cover the landscape with some flavour of renewable energy device, or teach our children a particular religion or foreign language.

The outside expert phenomenon is especially rife when it comes to hiring in consultants. Why would you hire someone with plenty of expertise, experience and a wealth of knowledge of the local conditions when you can bring in an expert from outside? This perplexing phenomenon leads to some amazing results at every level of our community. Regional councils hire in experts from the ‘big smoke’ in the state capital, or the east coast, or the mainland, while in turn state capital consortia hire in experts from at least half a world away.

A common feature of these outside expert consultants is the significant absence of knowledge of local conditions that could have a critical impact on the advice they provide. Why bother to specify

materials suitable for the climatic conditions, that meet the local building code, or devices that operate in the permissible wireless spectra, or that have insulation suitable for 240/415V mains, or that have parts and support available within a day’s air travel of the site? If you’re an expert who knows so much about your field that some hapless client will pay you a significant multiple of your normal rates just because you’re not a local, you would be foolish to decline the offer. Besides, if you’re far enough away from the project you’ve left only partially functional, nobody will find out about the cost overruns required to eventually have the local experts brought in to remediate the problems arising from your advice. The client will be anxious to hush up any problems and the media coverage about the project will look good on your web site, thus helping to convince yet another long-distance client about competence.

Interestingly, our local AV industry is often involved in the exact opposite of this subterfuge in the home countries of these overseas experts.

As a result of promoting themselves as successful consultants on the world stage, some of these consultants get jobs in their own region that are beyond their capabilities. The solution is to get a new batch of polo shirts embroidered and hand them out to the staff quietly imported from Australia and New Zealand to get the project done. While many of these local companies and individuals are recognised by the rest of the world as masters of their field, their work frequently goes unheralded in this country.

When people excitedly send me YouTube links to some amazing mapped projection clip, I’m intrigued to notice that the job was done by local producers and technical supervisors, and often use image material developed in one of our local content houses. That’s why the AV Industry Awards include projects that have been undertaken in Australia and New Zealand or undertaken in other places by Australian and New Zealand companies or individuals.

If you were involved in an exciting project that was undertaken in the calendar year 2012, you should be thinking about your entry for the 2013 AVIAs to get at least some of the recognition you deserve from the industry and in the pages of AV magazine. If you need some advice about your eligibility or how to work your way through the nomination process, don’t hesitate to give a call or drop me an email: andy@av.net.au or 0419 925 730.

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Crew Derek is an audiovisual consultant with AVDEC, specialising in tertiary education projects.

Starting in broadcast TV and radio at the ABC, he bounced between event AV and video production before settling for 12 years at the University of Queensland. He is past president of the Association of Educational Technology Managers and has been a regular judge of the AVIAs. He now divides his time between consulting, writing and the occasional video production assignment.

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 Director: Stewart Woodhill (stewart@av.net.au) Editorial Director: Christopher Holder (chris@av.net.au) Publisher: Philip Spencer (philip@av.net.au)

Marcus has worked in the entertainment industry for over 15 years. He has lit everything from TV to tours, corporate to circus, galleries to garages, and yet he’s still smiling and always up for a joke. He spends much of his time looking after a large client base for Melbourne lighting company Resolution X. He is currently a committee member of the Australian Lighting Industry Association, a member of the AVIAs judging panel, and has a continuing passion for lighting in all fields.

Art Director: Dominic Carey (dominic@alchemedia.com.au) Graphic Design: Leigh Ericksen (leigh@alchemedia.com.au) Associate Editor: Jen Temm (jen@av.net.au) News Editor: Graeme Hague (news@av.net.au) Accounts: Jaedd Asthana (jaedd@alchemedia.com.au) Circulation Manager: Mim Mulcahy (subscriptions@av.net.au)

Starting out in life training as a dentist, Stuart soon saw the error of his ways. Instead he started up an AV company in London in 1984, and has been in AV ever since. His expertise is in vision for live events, from 35mm slide to videowalls, projection, and more recently, blending and multi-projector systems. He has worked as technical director for touring television shows and corporate events of all sizes, and has spent the past 10 years as General Manager at Haycom.

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 © 2013 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. 10/4/2013

Jonathan is the co-founder of Advanced Control and Acoustics, CoTag Media and QuayPay. He’s all about making the web physical, with a focus on collaboration, education and media. He has a passion for digital strategy and design, working across multiple industries to provide solutions that solve big problems. Jonathan has a Masters of Design Science from the Uni of Sydney, a Diploma of Project Management, and has presented papers at international conferences on media technology.

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Issue 31 REGULARS NEWS AV industry news.

14

INFOCOMM ASSOCIATION NEWS News and important dates for the Oceania region.

54

TERMINATION Microphone techniques and the twometre rule.

58

FEATURES

36

BHP BILLITON’S 35 FLOOR FITOUT Mining a vein of success in WA.

22

STAR EVENT CENTRE Australia’s best-sounding performance venue is complete.

28

WHITE NIGHT TO REMEMBER Arts festival dawns on Melbourne.

36

APPEALING TO VIEWERS Managing 26 hours of unscripted Telethon mayhem.

40

TUTORIALS

40

22

WEB RTC IT giants converge on AV.

46

JOB COSTING Track costs accurately for maximum profit.

57

REVIEWS DPA D:FACTO II High-end vocal microphone for studio and live performance.

50

MEGAPOWER ML138 Pocket rocket projector.

52

28

52

50

46

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NEWS

BRIGHT LIGHTS SHINE ON A MESSE

TAHOMA SCORES A FOUR

AV FOR EVERYWHERE

Philips Vari-Lite gave visitors to the recent Prolight + Sound show in Frankfurt the opportunity to view the new VL3015, VL3015LT and VL3515 luminaires. Also on show was the newly released software for the VLX wash luminaire. This version enables individual cell control of the seven 120W RGBW LED light engines inside. The software update is applicable for all existing VLX fixtures. The VL3015LT Spot luminaire provides 42,000 lumens of output and 10:1 zoom optics. It comes complete with CMY colour mixing, a variable CTO wheel, two five-position colour wheels, three gobo/effects wheels, a beam size iris, a separate dimmer, ultra-fast strobe mechanisms and a standard palette of gobos, effects and colours. The VL3015 and VL3515 Spot luminaires feature 6:1 zoom optics along with CMY colour mixing, a six-position colour wheel, variable CTO colour temperature correction, gobo/ effects wheels, and ultra-fast strobe mechanisms.

The VL3515 Spot luminaire has the added feature of a four-blade shutter mechanism that allows the blades to be operated independently or in unison.

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

Apantac is launching its new Tahoma Ultra 4K Multiviewer featuring four outputs for driving a single ultra hi-res monitor with 4K resolution (3840x2160 pixels), promising high quality resolution for multiimage display processing and monitoring. It is ideal for high-end applications that use 4K monitors or a 2x2 video wall consisting of four 1920x1080 displays. The model is based on the Tahoma DE, LE, and DL platforms. Tahoma DE supports the universal family of multiviewers that accept both computer and broadcast signals – 4-16 HDMI, DVI, VGA, YPbPr, YC, Composite as well as 3G/HD/SDSDI sources for multi-image display. The Tahoma LE platform supports composite inputs all the way to 3G inputs, and the Tahoma DL supports a mix of both multimedia and broadcast type inputs. As with all Tahoma multiviewers, the Tahoma Ultra-4K includes an integrated CATx extender for extending video and computer sources up to 35 metres, along with redundant power and a choice of control methods.

Techtel: (02) 9906 1488 or www.techtel.tv

AverMedia Technologies, specialists in HD video capture and streaming solutions, has announced the release of the AverCaster Pro, a media streaming server with input signal flexibility and a strong encoding/transcoding capability. It can broadcast live TV and SD/HD video content to audiences over LAN or WAN. The new server suits any application that needs to integrate live video content and a variety of TV channels, and is designed to address the proliferation of IPTV and OTT video streams in use today. The AverCaster Pro accepts digital TV (DVB-T in SD/HD), analogue TV and analogue video sources.

It uses H.264 encoding to deliver a combination of image quality and low bandwidth usage, as well as to provide maximum compatibility and interoperability.

It is compatible for output on network TVs, IP-set top boxes, computers, iOS and Android devices. Multiple encoding controls allow the selection of video resolution, bit rate, frame rate and audio bit rate. The unit is a standard 1RU design.

Anywhere Corporation: (03) 9212 8400 or www.anywhere.com.au

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Digital connectivity solutions provider Gefen has appointed Rod Sommerich to the position of sales director for the Far East and Pacific Rim, overseeing all sales efforts throughout the important region. Sommerich, who is based in Sydney, has previously held positions at Image Design Technology, SpinetiX and Amber Technology.

Gefen: 0430 925 777 or rod.s@gefen.com

Barco recently developed an Android app that serves as an advanced remote control for its projectors. The app offers all the traditional remote control functions, plus it indicates the current status of a projector. The app is designed for smartphones and tablets running on Android, providing quick access to test patterns, simple switching between internal projector test patterns, fast setup and switching between projectors. The app is available for the CLM, RLM, FLM, HDX, HDF and HDQ families of projectors.

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

The Open Control Architecture (OCA) Alliance, the non-profit industry collective developing a media networking system control standard for professional applications, has added three new associate members – Attero Tech, Audinate and Waves Audio.

OCA Alliance: www.oca-alliance.com

Digital media integration specialist Digistor has appointed Sarah Palmer as manager of the Digistor Training Centre. The centre provides an extensive list of classroom-style training at the company’s facilities in Sydney and in other states, plus training at customers’ own premises. Palmer has more than 16 years of digital media business experience and previously worked for Adimex as operations manager, introducing the Cinema 4D range to the Australian market. She left the industry in 2006 to follow creative pursuits.

Digistor: (02) 9431 6000 or www.digistor.com.au

The Hills SVL Group has been appointed as distributor for speaker manufacturer L-Acoustics. The agreement covers Australia and New Zealand, and sees Hills promoting and supporting the range through its seven sales offices and warehouses across the two countries. Everything has already been rubber-stamped and no doubt celebrated with fine French champagne, so you can contact the Hills office for more information.

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

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A DISPLAY FOR DISPLAYS Vogel has developed a furniture display unit specifically for videoconferencing. The PFF 5100 can house one or more monitors and all of the necessary equipment including cameras and speakers. It can be integrated into almost any environment and comes fully assembled so there is minimal set up required, and is mounted on wheels for easy manoeuvrability.

The aluminium panel on the front is simple to remove, allowing access to the interior where a codec and other peripheral equipment can be installed. Using Vogel’s Connect-It interface bar and strips, one or more displays can be installed to achieve portrait or landscape mounting – and single or dual display.

There is a suitable interface for almost every display.

A separate PFA 9110 bracket allows for a camera and speaker to be securely mounted on the unit. In addition, Vogel’s PFA 9111 video conferencing speaker has been specially developed to achieve clear sound, completing the entire AV presentation.

Canohm: (03) 9644 7888 or www.canohm.com.au

• • • • •

PLASA CEO Matthew Griffiths will appear alongside members of the London 2012 Opening Ceremony creative team to represent the entertainment and installation technology industries before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at the House of Commons. The invitation follows a period of intense political lobbying by PLASA on behalf of its members, many of whom were dissatisfied with the restrictions surrounding the promotion of their involvement in the Olympic events.

PLASA: www.plasa.org

Rosco Laboratories has signed an agreement to acquire the assets of Los Angeles-based GAM Products. The addition of GAM’s range – GAMColor, GAM Patterns, Blackwrap and TwinSpin among others – will significantly expand the creative solutions Rosco offers to designers, technicians and artists. GAM has provided high quality lighting products to the theatre and film community for more than 35 years.

Rosco: (02) 9906 6262 or www.rosco.com/australia/

It had happen sometime. Lee Filters has made the call to discontinue its full gobo range and will no longer be a gobo supplier. Patterns have all been removed from its website and Lee will not accept any new orders, but will honour all orders already placed. The company has also offered to help come up with solutions if this decision causes serious headaches for any of its customers.

Lee Filters: www.leefilters.com

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016

NEWS

HOLD THE PHONE

VIDEO WALLS MADE EASY

NEW FOR-A SWITCHERS

Cisco has selected Revolabs to develop its latest IP conference phone. Powered by Revolabs’ FLX platform, the new Cisco IP Conference Phone 8831 features a sleek industrial design. The base unit houses a dual speaker configuration with four HD capable microphones, and uses a corded dialer. The conference phone is available with three options to expand coverage for larger rooms: a daisy-chain kit to link two base units together, and wired and wireless microphone kits, each featuring two omnidirectional microphones. The optional wireless microphone kit calls on Revolabs’ expertise with wireless microphones and acoustic echo cancellation to deliver flexibility. With the kit, users can easily place the additional microphones anywhere they are needed in the conference room to expand coverage and maximise sound quality. The IP Conference Phone 8831 is also optimised for Cisco’s Unified Communications Call Manager.

Cisco Systems Australia: (02) 8446 6000 or www.cisco.com/web/ANZ

Aurora's Dido Jr video wall processor and video image rotation engine promises image quality superior to much more expensive video wall processors.

Integrators can design video walls with up to 64 monitors and the monitors can be mounted in portrait or landscape position. On-screen display menus make the processor simple to set up, and input and output resolutions are completely configurable to match the displays’ optimal resolutions. User presets allow for easy manipulation of the video wall. You can set it up to go from a single large image shown across all monitors to unique images on several groups of monitors. Modes of operation include side-by-side (split screen) images, image rotation (for digital signage), and translucent overlays to maximise the main image size while still seeing PiP. The Dido Jr isn’t fazed by more unique mounting styles like totem pole, jigsaw, diamond and such. The small size of the unit allows mounting behind the display or in a rack, and it accepts digital and analogue video inputs.

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

For-A Company Limited is introducing the HVS-XT100 and HVS-XT110 HD/SD portable video switchers.

The HVS-XT100 comes with a separate main unit and control panel, while the HVS-XT110 features a compact, integrated design. Based on FOR-A’s HVS300HS switcher, the units include and expand upon the HVS-300’s functions with mixed HD/SD input, frame synchronisation, multi-viewer capability, re-sizing engine, 2.5D wipe effects, DVE and keyer with chroma key. Two freely assignable keyers and DSK channels also come standard, allowing operators to use Aux to expand the range of production when displaying video on a monitor other than the main system. The HVS-XT switchers have a built-in web server that allows users to adjust settings from a PC or a tablet terminal. A clip memory feature within the still store supports complex moves such as CG wipes. The switcher’s event memory function enables storage of up to 100 events and allows users to customise their control panel. The HVS-XT100 comes standard with eight HD/ SD-SDI inputs and four outputs (+ one HDMI output).

The HVS-XT110 has a more compact design and comes standard with 12 HD/SD-SDI inputs and six outputs.

Magna Systems & Engineering: (02) 9417 1111 or www. magnasys.tv

Professional Audio Technology has supplied Global Television with key audio equipment for its high definition ‘super truck’, HD9. Designed and built in Australia to the specifications of Global’s broadcast engineering services team, HD9 boasts a new level of integration and user features. At 13.2m long with 52sqm of internal space when fully expanded, HD9 can accommodate up to 22 operators and 20 cameras. Of course, the really important question is; can you watch the footy with it?

Professional Audio Technology: (02) 9476 1272 orsales@ proaudiotechnology.com.au

Coolux is presenting its new Pandoras Box Version 5.5 at this year’s NAB, Prolight+Sound and InfoComm China exhibitions, showcasing its perspective projection mapping capabilities for virtual and augmented reality applications. This latest version of the Pandoras Box family includes a 3D object calibration feature that will automatically map an appropriate 3D file on to a physical object’s surface.

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

Due to the vagaries of publishing we might not be telling you this in time for the first show, however: Just Lampless is holding three seminars on the impact of longlife LED and hybrid laser light projectors on the industry. Dates are: 19 April at the Stamford Plaza Brisbane, 23 April at the Stamford Grand in North Ryde, and 3 May at Stamford Plaza in Melbourne. Seminars run from 9.30am to 1.00pm and refreshments are provided.

Just Lampless: (07) 5449 9483 or ruth.bird@justlamps.net

NSW Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner, recently announced that the Sydney Harbour Bridge itself will be the centrepiece of a new light installation for Vivid Sydney, extending the Light Walk across into North Sydney. Intel Australia, has teamed up with Sydney's 32 Hundred Lighting to create a projection onto the bridge’s western face which will be controlled by the public from a touch screen on the Luna Park boardwalk. It will operate from 6.00pm to midnight every night, from 24 May to 10 June.

32 Hundred Lighting: (02) 9516 3488 or www.32hundredlighting.com

Calibre UK made motioncompensated frame-rate conversion the focus of attention at NAB this year. FoveaHD made its global debut last year and has since established itself as a way of providing motion-compensated HD and SD standards conversion for the price of a standard linear video converter. However, behind the scenes Calibre engineers have been looking at ways of enhancing its performance and broadening its appeal with even more applications. This NAB the company debuted an enhanced version of its FoveaHD standards converter.

AVglue: (07) 3376 4745 or www.avglue.com.au

National Audio Systems has announced the release in Australia of the new BMA Series range of mixer amplifiers from inDesign. The BMA Series comprises four models: BMA 30, BMA 60, BMA120 and BMA 240.

Each features four mic/line inputs, master bass and treble equaliser, and master volume control. The rear panel features balanced XLR, Phoenix and dual RCA connectors on each of the four input channels. Channel 1 features a master mute override with variable threshold and switchable 48V phantom power.

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

KVM AT 10GBPS Matrox Graphics has announced that its Avio KVM extenders are compatible with APCON IntellaPatch Series 3000 XE network switches, supporting 10Gbps and forming the world’s highest-bandwidth KVM extension and switching solution. Avio takes advantage of the full bandwidth available in 10Gbps SFP+ transceivers to transmit two uncompressed HD video signals, USB keyboard and mouse, USB 2.0 devices, and stereo analogue audio over a single fibre-optic duplex LCLC cable. Once each workstation is connected to its own port on the IntellaPatch XE switch, administrators can use the APCON software interface to route a workstation or server to a remote location. The combined MatroxAPCON solution allows enterprises to take advantage of 10Gb throughput, with significant capacity to support up to 143 desktops per chassis from a remote user location.

The IntellaPatch Series 3000 Extended Capacity (XE) network switch is a high capacity network monitoring aggregation switch that supports connections up to 40Gbps including the 10Gbps connection rate supporting the Avio solution. The IntellaPatch Series 3000 XE is managed through APCON’s management system, WebX. New Magic: (03) 9722 9700 or sales@newmagic.com.au

The future is

PROJECTION FOR A GREENER FUTURE

New eco-friendly, portable long life LED & laser hybrid light engine projectors are changing the face of the projector industry.

NO MERCURY LOW POWER CONSUMPTION

Today's Lampless projectors are mercury free & Canon has announced the development of firmware updates for three of its Cinema EOS System cameras, as well as a selection of new functions for its Cinema RAW Development (CRD) software. The EOS C500, C300 and C100 will now offer support for a new magnify function that allows users to check focus in different parts of an image on the camera LCD as well as the centre. This offers enhanced control and flexibility during shooting. The C300 will also be upgraded to support additional features designed to assist independent videographers. The EOS C100 will add support for continuous AF when used with Canon’s EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens.

Canon Australia: 131 383 or www.canon.com.au

Canada’s The CAST Group and Rushworks of Texas have announced a partnership between the award-winning BlackTrax Solution real-time tracking technology and the VDESK Integrated Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) production system, to add robotic cameras as the latest downstream robotised technology to produce real-time tracking control from BlackTrax. A system of small beacons attached to targets allows PTZ cameras to accurately track motion through a defined space. For example, a presenter could wear a beacon and walk across a stage and the PTZ cameras would follow.

The system was demonstrated in action at the recent NAB show.

The CAST Group: www.cast-soft.com

economical to run. Some are so portable they run off batteries, others are high lumen short throw and will run all day in a classroom for over 10 years without

$ LONG LIFE ENGINE

regular maintenance or bulb replacement.

Take the high quality service and technical expertise that you have come to expect of Just Lamps over the last 10 years and remove the lamps. What you get is Just Lampless - The Solid State Projector Specialist.

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07 5449 9483

PORTABLE

018

NEWS

MCEC $1m PROJECTOR REFRESH Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) has upgraded its audiovisual capability, while also reinforcing its environmental credentials, by purchasing 36 projectiondesign projectors. The old Barco HD8 8000-lumen projectors have been replaced by 18 x F85 and 18 x F35 models. Projectiondesign’s projectors are now used in 24 rooms at the convention centre and six meeting rooms in the exhibition centre – many with alternative pairings of projectors and screens so that they can be used as long, deep rooms or as wide, shallow spaces. “Mostly we shoot down the room but the meeting rooms have an alternate screen,” explains MCEC’s director of technology operations, Michael Walsh. “Not many projectors cope well with the change of throw when being spun around — they don’t have a lens that will do both. That requirement limited the field considerably.

“We went to the market with a set of expectations,” Michael Walsh continues. “The type of content we needed to display, the colour reproduction we required, and what was working well with our previous fleet and what wasn’t.”

According to Walsh, projectiondesign came back with a very competitive offer. “They also picked up on the fact we’re a green venue and sustainability is very important to us. Some of the features around the operation of these devices, with the low maintenance and long lamp life work really well for us.”

MCEC’s technology services manager, Paul Rumble, explains that environmental considerations were included in his team’s planning of the equipment upgrade.

“We value the environment and seek ways to lead industry in all areas of our business. When it came to the procurement process, parameters such as power consumption and lamp usage had to be identified for each model in the proposal, as well as current replacement cost for servicing and replacement parts like lamps, filters and coolant.”

Michael Walsh continues: “There aren’t many ‘dark’ days in these rooms — they’re in use around 80% of the time. But it wasn’t so much the lamp replacement costs or even, in the case of the old Barco HD8s, the replacement of coolant, it was the manhours it took to swap out the projectors and maintain them.”

The F35 and F85 are designed for 24/7 operation, with no filters and a variant of UHP lamp technology to increase longevity.

“This upgrade is a considerable investment,” observes Michael Walsh. “And we expect to get about four to five years life out of these projectors. When we went to make the purchase we did investigate other technologies, but at this current time this is still the right product. In five years time I’ve little doubt that laser or some other technology will have come of age.”— CH. MCEC: www.mcec.com.au Hills SVL (projectiondesign): (02) 9647 1411 or www.hillssvl.com.au Rigoni Hall (Integrator): (03) 9696 6854 or vwww.rigonihall.com.au

ROOM MONITORING APP While AV were introduced to the new projectiondesign fleet, Michael Walsh took the opportunity to show us a rather natty new ‘value add’ to offer conference organisers. It’s an iPad app that allows the organiser a bird’s-eye view of all its rooms. The organiser can click on an individual room and have real-time video of each space. Audio is also available. Being a mobile device, the organiser can be anywhere in the facility. Michael Walsh: “We already have the integrated PTZ cameras in each of the rooms, so it was a matter of making that stream available to our clients in a meaningful, portable package.”

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The AV Industry Awards machine is cranking up for its 2013 run, so it’s time to start thinking about which of your projects from last the year is most worthy of boasting about to the entire AV industry.

The AVIAs are sponsored by us here at AV magazine and actively supported by your industry associations AETM, ALIA and InfoCom, who provide the industry expertise for the independent judging panel.

Buoyed by the overwhelming success of their decisions in 2012, when on that occasion not one of them received a

seriously abusive email, the same team is back for the 2013 season.

To be eligible for the 2013 AVIAs, a project must have been completed during the calendar year 2012, and must have been undertaken in Australia or New Zealand or have been primarily designed or executed

by A/NZ teams.

2013 AVIA JUDGES TERRY COE - AETM

MARCUS PUGH - ALIA

MATTHEW LOUPIS - INFOCOMM

PAUL VAN DER ENT - INFOCOMM

JOSEPH MERCURIO - ALIA

JASON WHEATLEY - AETM

Entries will be judged for excellence and innovation of AV in the categories:

COMMERCIAL AND GOVERNMENT APPLICATIONS EDUCATION APPLICATIONS PRODUCTION AND EVENTS EXHIBITIONS AND DISPLAYS (MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES)

ALIA

Experience, Independence, Technology, Assurance.

The P.A. People is a full-service communications company; the world’s leading independent supplier of large-scale event communications systems and equipment.

Global sports, cultural & celebration events -

Sydney 2000 - Rugby World Cup 2003 - Athens 2004 - Melbourne 2006 Asian Games 2006 - Vancouver 2010 - World Youth Day 2008 - World Expo 2010 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix - Sydney New Year’s Eve 2012 The P.A. People - Equipment Partners, Sydney NYE 2012

The P.A. People

Event Communications

papeople.com

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FEATURE

A Skyscraper Showpiece in the West AV integrator Vizcom tapped a fertile vein of success in Perth’s landmark new highrise tower.

Text:/ Derek Powell

David Jones from Western Australian integrator Vizcom Technologies has quite a story to tell about a large-scale project for BHP Billiton. But he has some firm ideas about telling this tale.

“I’m never a fan of articles that are written when everything’s shiny and new,” he told AV. “This project’s a year old and we purposely waited until it was well and truly bedded down before we even started speaking about it.”

The project is a fitout of 35 floors of the 45-storey Brookfield Place skyscraper in the heart of Perth for the major tenant BHP Billiton in WA. You would expect a 35-storey job to be big, and this one certainly is enormous. There are more than 200 audiovisual-equipped rooms and, according to Crestron Australia, it is the largest implementation of Crestron Digital Media anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

Size certainly does matter but more importantly, Vizcom has re-invented its role as an integrator by adding value in areas you might not expect.

The project was designed and well-documented by consultants Norman Disney Young before being put out for tender on a tight schedule for delivery over a nine-month timeframe. Vizcom won the bid and Jones, along with Vizcom project manager Bruce Gillon, started work with the clients to understand their requirements and develop some standard room plans for the 200-plus spaces in the fitout.

DRILLING DOWN

The project was built around Crestron Digital media products.

Typically there is a central rack room on each floor with signals to and from each room distributed by a fibre optic matrix. “The whole video infrastructure is based on fibre,” Jones explained.

“There’s really only a couple of cable types – either fibre or Cat6 – plus occasionally a bit of speaker cable.” In each room, tabletop-mounted Shure Microflex multi-element boundary microphones were converted to Cobranet by interfaces under the tables before being sent across a dedicated audio subnet to the Audiaflex digital signal processors in the rack rooms. With raised computer flooring throughout the project, access to table boxes and wall-mounted equipment was greatly simplified. Vizcom partnered with electrical contractors Everett Smith which ran all the cables, and Jones reported a great team spirit amongst the building, electrical and data teams on the construction.

A 120-inch (3m) HoloPro glass screen suspended over the presentation area provides a powerful central feature.

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“We had regular meetings multiple times a week,” he said.

“There was no one banging the desk at each other when there were problems. Everyone worked together, which was something I’ve never seen before on a project of this scale. I still believe that’s why we had such an excellent result and a project that was delivered on time – despite growing considerably.”

Each of the meeting and training rooms was fitted into one of a series of templates with screen sizes based around InfoComm standards for viewing distances. Each room is controlled by touchpanel – ranging from a 150mm wall panel in four- to sixperson rooms, to larger screens in videoconference spaces and the medium and large training rooms. Notably, every room also features a 150mm external touchscreen, which runs the real-time room booking system. The booking panel displays the meetings for each day and can be used to reserve the spaces on the spot. This information is also available on the panel inside the room, which provides the ability to view upcoming bookings and extend meetings if needed.

DIY SOFTWARE

While room booking integrated with a client’s own Exchange servers is becoming more common, the scale of BHP Billiton’s implementation created some issues of its own. Their Exchange servers are not on-site and Vizcom programmers needed to integrate third party software to cope with the latency inherent in the system.

This was to be just the first of many crucial software challenges. “We don’t like to think of ourselves as a software company so much, but we like to think that we are able to write the glue in between the bits that don’t work too well,” Jones said.

Although there are no electronic whiteboards (a design decision made early in the project), in the tender every meeting room LCD was specified with a touch overlay, allowing them to be used as whiteboards with suitable software. Vizcom facilitated a series of workshops with BHP Billiton personnel to find the right software.

“We demonstrated every known piece of touchscreen software on the market,” Jones recalled. “All were too complex, too many buttons, too many features and they weren’t getting to what they really wanted, which was just to replace an electronic whiteboard.”

So Vizcom software developers were contracted to create a custom application for the project, which was dubbed ‘Vizboard’.

It was a perfect fit.

“Vizboard will allow you to draw over websites and PDFs, save out to a network share and keeps things really simple. The application has now been wrapped into BHP Billiton’s SOE and it’s on all company laptops. So everyone that walks into the building has software that’s ready to go and works on any LCD screen in the building,” he explained.

The lower four floors are known as Infrastructure Zone A and are filled with spaces used for meetings with external clients and contractors. “It’s pretty intense,” Jones said. “Each of these floors has four individual racks, each with a 32x32 fibre matrix. It makes for a helluva lot of inputs and outputs on one floor!”

The ground floor also has a showcase presentation space used for a range of functions. Twin 10,000-lumen projectors light up 180-inch (4.5m) screens flanking the main area, while a 120-inch (3m) HoloPro glass screen is suspended above the floor in an atrium.

These are complemented by a series of wall-mounted LCDs running a Spinetix digital signage system.

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Multiple monitors (connected via the fibre backbone to the central distribution systems) line the walls of the emergency response rooms.

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Sony LED LCD panels with SpinetiX digital signage players provide information at every turn.

WAYFINDING

Standing out in the foyer are the super elegant Holo terminals, curved glass touchscreens that act as wayfinding kiosks. It was yet another system that Vizcom software wizards were called on to integrate with the room booking screens.

If you’re counting, you’ll see that so far Vizcom developed or integrated four separate software systems: room booking, whiteboarding, wayfinding, and signage. To boot, they had to wrangle four separate IP subnets (VC, audio, control and VOIP) plus Dynalite and BIM (building information management) integration. All this and we haven’t even mentioned IP TV and the extensive Crestron Fusion monitoring, which provides oversight of all the AV equipment.

I suggested Vizcom’s abilities with software development were setting the company apart from firms still relying on traditional installation and integration skills. “We like to think it has been something that’s driven our business forward,” Jones agreed modestly, “…having the ability to do

something other than just respond to a tender spreadsheet”.

There’s plenty more to the job we haven’t the space to cover in detail such as the Samsung videowall displays in the 24/7 remote operations centres, dedicated high-bandwidth videoconference spaces and the emergency response rooms.

So after a year of operation, Vizcom can now look back in satisfaction at a job that is, as Jones noted at the start “well and truly bedded down”. Once again, it’s Vizcom’s hard work on the software that gives him the confidence to pronounce the project a success, having implemented Crestron’s Fusion to monitor and report on every system.

“Fusion has proved to be very valuable,” Jones commented. “Every day we are pulling metrics out of it that are amazing. There’s hardly a time when every room isn’t being used.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, has got to be the one metric that counts. 

MORE INFORMATION Audio Products Group (Biamp): www.audioproducts.com.au Crestron: www.crestron.com.au Holopro: www.holopro.com Jands (Shure): www.jands.com.au Madison Technologies (SpinetiX): www.madisontech.com.au Samsung: www.samsunglfd.com EQUIPMENT LIST HIGHLIGHTS Touch panels: 400+ Crestron (6-inch/9-inch/15-inch) Matrix switchers: 50+ fully- populated Crestron Digital Media (DM) frames (32x32/16x16) Fibre Tx/Rx: 800+ Crestron DM fibre transmitters & receivers V/C codecs: 40+ Cisco C40 video conference systems Projection: 70+ Sony projectors (various models) LCD panels: 300+ Sony LED LCD displays (various sizes; 250+ fitted with touch overlays) Audio DSP: 50 Biamp Audiaflex frames (over 450 AEC channels) Desk mics: Shure Microflex Ceiling speakers: 600+ Tannoy CMS Series

See us at NAB Stand C4937

WHEN IT REALLY MATTERS ...

YEARS

Real-Time Networks for Video, Audio, Data and Communications

Sports

Outside Broadcast

Events

Space Jumps

Riedel Communications in Australia

NEW ADDRESS

Unit 2 / 38 Morley Avenue Rosebery NSW 2018 +61 2 9669 1199 australia@riedel.net

Theaters

Broadcast Studios

Stadiums

Houses of Worship

www.riedel.net

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Main Event The $100m Event Centre tops The Star’s $870m transformation.

Text:/ Christopher Holder

So it is finished. The Star’s $870m transformation has had its multi-faceted $100m Event Centre jewel neatly placed into the crown, and the job is done.

Featuring an overall capacity in theatre-style for up to 3000, and the ability to host 1000 for gala functions – with the help of a new commercial grade kitchen – the Event Centre is being branded as ‘Sydney’s premium events and entertainment destination’.

But titles can be misleading.

What’s not trumpeted quite so loudly, is the fact the Event Centre is arguably the best-sounding performance venue in the country.

Simon Lappas, Director of Audio Systems Logic – which was part of the integration joint venture, together with Stowe Electrical and Jands – is a little less equivocal: “It is the best amplified concert venue in Australia. I can comfortably say that. And there won’t be anything to rival it for quite some time. Echo Entertainment had the money, and was not shy to spend it. But they wanted to ensure that what they were spending money on would be the best they could achieve. They certainly did get that.”

So, yes, Star has an A-grade events centre on its hands, but it has a superb concert venue – something the Australian entertainment community is only beginning to get its heads around.

A SONIC BELTER

We’ll take a look at the lighting and staging a little later, but the real action is in the audio. The d&b PA is a belter and the venue itself has been acoustically treated to get the most of it. As I mentioned – the Event Centre is a thoroughbred concert venue. Stephen Wickham, Entertainment Manager for the Event Centre isn’t complaining.

“The sound is the most talked about element of the venue since it opened; and believe me it has quite a few other amazing features, such as the vision and broadcast facilities.

“The primary purpose however was to be capable of presenting ‘A list’ concert artists with quick turnarounds,” confirmed Wickham.

“Installing a sound system of the highest spec that would be acceptable to any touring artist was part of the plan to achieve this.”

The main PA packs 12 J cabs per side (10 x J8 and 2 x J12s), with 4 x J-Subs flown and six of the cardioid 21-inch J-Infra subs on the floor.

Lappas: “The d&b J-Series provides a very hi-fi like sound: a very smooth and controlled top end,

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LIGHTING Dimming & Power ETC Sensor3 System with 264 x 2.3kW dimmers 12 x 5.0kW dimmers 198 x Hot Power modules (for moving lights) Conventional Stage Lighting 24 x ETC Source Four 19° 24 x ETC Source Four 26° 6 x ETC Source Four 50° 12 x ETC Source Four zoom 15°-30° 12 x ETC Source Four zoom 25°-50° 60 x ETC Source Four PAR 9 x 4-way Molefay Moving Lights 12 x Vari-Lite VL3000 spot 12 x Vari-Lite VLX3 wash 4 x Clay Paky Alpha spot 1200 2 x Clay Paky Alpha wash 1200 2 x Clay Paky Alpha wash Halo 90 x Martin MAC 101 Follow Spot 4 x Robert Juliat Super Korrigan 1.2kW HMI Console GrandMA2 Ultra Light Fittingly, John Farnham – the most bankable Australian artist in existence – christened the room.

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BANQUET HALL WITH THE LOT Crown ought to be watching its back, as the Event Centre in banquet mode is something to behold. The dedicated kitchen and floorspace can accommodate 1000 sitting down. Each table has its own dedicated, permanently installed Martin MAC101 moving light for pinspot mood. As you’d expect, there’s a large (7m) screen upstage-centre for a Christie Roadster HD20K-J to do its work. Either side of the proscenium are two other permanently positioned Christie Roadster HD20K-J projectors. There are two screens either side – high, for when the balcony is in use, and low, for banquet mode – and the projectors move up and down to suit.

very good upper-mid attack, and amazing low frequency energy. Yet, it’s all tightly controlled, and remains quite neutral and dry. It doesn’t add anything extra that doesn’t need to be there.”

“We had Garbage in here earlier in the year,” enthuses Technical Manager, Ben Whatmore. “We had the band sitting at 115dB at the mixing console and the amps were only ticking over at around 30% capacity. There’s mountains of headroom.”

BUILDING THE ROOM FOR SOUND

It’s hard to bring to mind many (or any?) other Australian venues purpose-built to accommodate high-SPL amplified sound.

Rock venues and arenas are mostly fairly acoustically hostile. Theatres and performing arts centres are generally optimised for speech or natural reinforcement of performances.

Even a top-class refit such as Hamer Hall in Melbourne’s Arts Centre has at its root the best possible compromise between an MSO orchestral performance and an amplified gig.

Not so the Event Centre. Not only was the room designed to accommodate high-octane sound, the electroacoustic modelling has had the luxury of knowing what PA would be exciting the space, so the EASE plots were an order of magnitude more precise.

Again, Simon Lappas of ASL was leading

the charge: “We imposed significantly tighter control over how sound reinforcement could be optimised and the acoustic environment enhanced. Through our EASE modelling we defined more clearly the STI (Speech Transmission Index), the direct and reverberant sound pressure levels (we have achieved a very smooth reverb curve), and then applied the very predictable performance of the d&b J system upon it: data provided by d&b audiotechnik is extremely detailed and accurate, for example supplying beamwidth plots. With the system installed, flat, un-tuned, straight out the box, it sounded great; with a less than 2% deviation from the prediction. In a building this size that’s very, very close.”

Making it sound amazing inside the room was the primary consideration but it took acoustic specialists, Acoustic Logic Consultancy, to crunch the numbers on how the space would be effectively sound proof.

The d&b infrasubs, as the name suggests, create tsunami-proportioned wavelengths, so the brief was tough. Models were even run on how the energy was to enter the mechanical ducts and travel throughout the building — we don’t want the bus tour biddies getting a free Farnham concert in the pokie parlour… just kidding. Structurally, the Event Centre is ingeniously built – a little outside the

MAIN PA Clusters Left & Right 20 x d&b J8 4 x d&b J12 12 x d&b D12 amplifiers with DSP Cardioid Flown Subwoofer Cluster 8 x d&b J-Sub 8 x d&b D12 amplifiers with DSP Centre Cluster 7 x d&b Qi7 1 x d&b Qi10 3 x d&b D12 amplifiers with DSP Cardioid Infra Floor Subwoofer 6 x d&b J-Infra 6 x d&b D12 amplifiers with DSP FOH & Monitor Consoles 2 x Digico SD10 d&b: www.dbaudio.com

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The Layout This longitudinal view shows something of the capabilities of the space. Using operable acousnestle under the balcony. Hidden under the floor of the VIP area is the telescopic seating sectic partitions, the room can be divided into two separate soundproofed sections for simultanetion for 720. It deploys in a couple of minutes. Once retracted you have a 1077sqm pillar-free ous events. The mobile ceilings decorated with custom fixtures can be lowered to maintain a floor space. Over the stage you’ll find 40 rigging points with a commensurate number of ASM warm atmosphere in banquet configuration. The balcony section seats 1047. Four VIP lounges Otto one-tonne chain hoists from Jands.

scope of this article – but there’s an entire floating slab throughout to control some of the rampant energy exciting the space and potentially scaring the neighbours.

TURNAROUNDS

Everything about the Event Centre is focussed on efficiency. For a start it was a very difficult space to build – an engineering feat you might say. Due to planning and space restrictions the Event Centre couldn’t build any further upwards or outwards.

Being completely pillar-free, there were some extraordinary measures taken to ensure the venue could handle the weight impositions.

Structural supports extend right down to the light rail level, for example.

The venue is flexible and gets the absolute most out of every square metre.

Having PA bragging rights might sound like reason enough to install a milliondollar sound system, but the technical infrastructure has been selected to make life easier – easier for events and acts to bump in and out efficiently, and easier for technical and hospitality staff to maximise the venue’s occupancy.

Entertainment manager, Stephen Wickham, picks up on the notion of the Event Centre’s enviable position of being able to ‘buy’ A grade international acts: “The venue needs to be set up to work well for the times we buy one-off shows but we’re also geared to hire the venue for those on tour.

“Either way, having the venue high up in the complex (where there’s a distance from loading dock to stage), the idea is to limit the bump-in time. Which is one big reason for investing so heavily in the concert PA – no need to bump that in. If artists can use as

much of what we have in our own inventory then it saves everyone time. [Saying that, the gargantuan stage lift connecting the loading dock with the stage, supplied and installed by Jands, is something to behold.]

“For most big concerts, with the four lighting trusses over the stage, the positions are largely there – it’s easy and quick to throw up a big lighting rig. We went with Vari-Lite moving lights because we knew visiting LDs would use the gear and be happy – especially US acts. If there’s a need for additional lighting, we can get that in.

“The stage grid itself has some 40 onetonne ASM Otto chain motors. Out over the room is a similar setup: in banquet mode the grids can be lowered to create a false ceiling with additional lighting.

“Another fantastic asset we have are the 100-odd Martin MAC101s. For a banquet of 1000, all 100 tables have their own spot, programmed in any RGB colour we like. We don’t have to get up to focus them. We can easily switch to preset looks for the different banqueting setups with the GrandMA console. If we use the floor for a dance party, then the MAC101s can, of course, be used as additional moving lights.

“All up it’s another reason why we can promise such quick turnarounds. You might have 4000 people in for a big concert and be set up for a lunchtime banquet the following day.”

OB? OH YES

There’s no question that The Star is trying to poach some of the red carpet action from Crown and its Palladium room. What with the Logies, the Allan Border Medal and other larger charity balls etc, Crown has had the glamour end of the market

INTERNATIONAL TROPHY CONSULTANT? Much has been made of the appointment of French Canadian consultant Sceno-Plus “creators of The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas”. Clearly, Echo Entertainment wanted to guarantee itself a world-class entertainment venue and did what any responsible casino would do — go to Vegas and hire a lead consultant that speaks that language.

“There’s a lot of talent in Australia that could have delivered the Event Centre. Not taking anything away from Sceno-Plus, but my only disappointment was that there wasn’t more support for local talent.

Saying that, we’re proud to be associated with the project, we’re all proud of what’s been achieved.”

That was Simon Lappas, Director of Audio Systems Logic (ASL). His business was engaged by then head contractor, Brookfield Multiplex, to check on the Sceno-Plus design brief: was it detailed enough?

Were there any omissions? Were there any obvious savings to be made? Part of ASL’s response included recommendations about the technology — incorporating Media Matrix for the digital routing, Crestron control, Digico consoles, the broadcast infrastructure and the consideration of an alternative PA that would have realised a saving (d&b won the day based on a superior solution for this venue).

That was the gear… but the ‘devil’ was more in the detail: Simon Lappas: “‘Tightly controlled electroacoustic performance requirements’ – that should have been the brief. But even though the venue operates in multiple modes of operation, Sceno-Plus hadn’t defined what performance the venue needed to achieve, insofar as direct and reverberant levels, speech intelligibility, coverage... we found that odd. For reverberation time, a requirement at 500Hz was only specified. We defined those additional parameters. We ended up doing all the EASE modelling, taking into account internal noise levels, room acoustic finishes, and we looked at all the modes of operation, which hadn’t been covered by that consultant.

“I should add that Sceno-Plus is very good. As a company it knows what’s required to have a high-quality entertainment venue. But they hadn’t worked in Australia – the contracting environment is different and specifications need to be prepared as a contract document defining exactly what the builder needs to do and what must be achieved. So if you don’t tightly define what needs to be achieved, then the design objectives may not need to be achieved. That’s why we were brought in, to verify that things would work. Sceno-Plus remained the client’s consultant, and in our final role we were the delivery consultant – ensuring the design intent was codified and achieved.”

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The Event Centre in banquet mode, demonstrating how the ceiling can be lowered for extra intimacy.

wrapped up. No longer.

Attracting the high-profile awards to The Star is just as much about selling the venue’s broadcast credentials as it is about wooing Lara Bingle and Rebecca Judd with penthouse suites and a day in the spa.

Echo has invested heavily in the broadcast infrastructure. There are fibre links throughout, and the outside broadcast (OB) bay even has its own electrical substation.

Ben Whatmore, Event Centre technical manager: “Ausgrid built us our own substation for this room. It’s directly over the road, comes in and supplies the venue, the kitchen, the breakout areas and the OB bay with isolated three-phase power.”

Stephen Wickham: “From our control room there are audio multicore and DVN (Telstra’s digital video network) fibre links for the outside broadcast guys. We have one up and one down linking directly to the Telstra hub in the city. This allows for full HD video live broadcast to anywhere without uplink trucks. All up, that’s a big part of the investment. OB trucks can pull up at the loading dock and plug in 12 or more cameras and everything is ready to go – the power, the patching, the comms for telephone and fibre links… no additional cabling required. It means you can stage a large, televised awards ceremony without spending a day running cable. That’s a big achievement.”

Little wonder, then, that OB companies are more than happy to back their trucks up.

Smaller events haven’t been forgotten.

They will find themselves getting plenty of production bang for the buck without a legion of cameramen and crew.

Ben Whatmore: “For the John Farnham concert, for example, we used the in-house Sony HD PTZ (pan/tilt/zoom) cameras combined with one manned mobile camera.

Effectively we were achieving a five-camera shoot with one-man labour.”

BIG TICKET

I put it to Entertainment Manager, Stephen Wickham, that Echo was underselling the venue’s concert production credentials, painting itself as a conferencing and events venue. “I understand what you’re saying, but we simply can’t fill the first few months of the venue’s life with A List musical acts.

It takes time to build momentum and to get the word out. On the other hand, events buyers book months and years in advance, so the wheels need to start turning straight away there.”

Fair dues. But if you’re anything like me (and weren’t on the Farnham and Garbage guestlist earlier in the year) you can’t wait to see and hear a first-class music act at the peak of their powers making the most of a room designed specifically for just such an occasion. Mouth watering stuff. 

CONTACTS The Star Event Centre: www.star.com.au Sceno-plus (Consultant): www.sceno-plus.com/en National Audio Systems (d&b): 1800 441 440 or www.nationalaudio.com.au Audio Systems Logic (Audiovisual & Electroacoustic Consultant): www.audiosystemslogic.com.au Jands (Staging, Vari-Lite, et al): (02) 9582 0909 or www.jands.com.au Stowe: www.stoweaustralia.com.au Saltec: (02) 9707 2070 or www.saltec.com.au VRS (Christie Australia): (07) 3844 9514 or www.vrs.com.au Group Technologies (Digico): (03) 9354 9133 or www.grouptechnologies.com.au Show Technology (MA Lighting, Martin): (02) 9748 1122 or www.showtech.com.au Hills SVL (Crestron, Media Matrix): (02) 9647 1411 or www.hillssvl.com.au

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Photographer: Nathan Miller"

FEATURE

FEATURE

White Night to Remember All-night arts festival dawns on Melbourne.

Text:/ Marcus Pugh On a balmy February night Melbourne opened its arms and mind to a cultural event the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Australia.

It wasn’t a flashy affair designed for television cameras or a sales pitch to sell the city to tourists. It was White Night – a conceptual arts event that has been surfacing in cultural capitals across the globe since its inception in Paris.

White Night was initiated in 1984 by Jean Blaise, founder of the Research Centre for Cultural Development. Since then the concept of an all-night arts festival has slowly grown into a worldwide movement, with emphasis placed on hometown culture and artists at each site to attract and engage local audiences.

In Melbourne an estimated 300,000 attendees turned out over the course of the evening to sample music, food, film, art and light showcased over 80 free events in the CBD and surrounding areas.

Forty outdoor areas were converted into performance or installation spaces with more than 50 projectors, 150 moving lights, kilometres of truss and scaffolding, and countless hours of pre-production, show and post production by local designers, producers, manager and technicians.

The event was helmed by artistic director Andrew Walsh AM who, prior to amassing an impressive list of professional credits including the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies, actually grew up in Melbourne. The team at Right Angle Events was tasked with managing the event on the night, and also coordinated suppliers during the pre-production period.

Dream Project

The Electric Canvas, the event’s major production partner, provided the image creation, technical design and large-format projection equipment that formed the main showpieces of the night. Façade projections transformed Flinders Street Station into the Theatre of Dreams, framing a stage (for bands who played until 6am) with a red grand drape to invoke a classic theatre proscenium. The station’s copper dome, meanwhile, was dressed with animated projection. The proscenium projection was achieved using two ETC Audiovisuel PIGI DDRA (automated rotating double scroller) projectors, and the animation on the dome was done with a pair of Christie S+20K projectors.

On the Theatre of Dreams stage, which Element Rigging built over the station steps, lighting designer Lynden Gare designed and operated a rig of Martin MAC 101s, MAC Auras, blinder bars and that rock staple: the Atomic strobe. With a wide variety of acts from the RockWiz Orchestra and Bombay Royale to headliners The Cat Empire scheduled to appear throughout the night, versatility was essential. A sound system supplied by Optical Audio kept the crowd rocking till seven in the morning.

On Flinders Street, opposite Federation Square, six building frontages including the iconic Forum Theatre featured projections of five scenes that recurred at 20-minute intervals throughout the night. The Electric Canvas used a total of 14 PIGI DDRA projectors to cover the 120m long footprint and create the montage. St Paul’s

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Chapter House in particular proved to be a hit with the audience. Spectators gazed on while two Christie S+20K video projectors driven by a Dataton Watchout system animated the building’s fascia.

Over the Princes Bridge, the expansive façade of the National Gallery of Victoria was the perfect canvas for projections of Neo-Impressionist adaptations and other works from the gallery’s collection. The Electric Canvas crew used 10 Christie S+20K video projectors to achieve a stunning result.

White Night Lights

Not unsurprisingly, lighting was a major feature of the White Night event. Local lighting designer Philip Lethlean delivered some impressive results, backed by event support partner and my employer, Resolution X. Projects included Mark 1:28, a lighting piece comprising two faux stained-glass windows portraying an AFL player ‘taking a screamer’ (or for the uninitiated, jumping up to catch a football). This work represented Melbourne’s religious devotion to sports and was achieved with a custom gobo designed by Lethlean, projected from Clay Paky Alpha 1500 profiles.

Lethlean and the ResX team used the Princes Bridge and Southbank Footbridge as a projection surface to great effect.

Employing 25 Clay Paky Alpha 1500 profiles, they used the shaping shutters system to manipulate the beam and colour as it played over the architectural features.

World Without Sun, an installation designed by Canadian artist Christine Davis, was realised with the help of Optical Audio, Element Rigging and Technical Direction Company (TDC) using Barco HD20 DLP projectors and Watchout media servers.

Element Rigging supplied an elegant black truss structure supporting the six satellite dishes that seemed to float in the darkness of Birrarung Marr.

Dancing Over the Streets

Much of Flinders Lane contained small lighting installations designed by Philip Lethlean. The passing crowds were treated to images of ballerinas and a salsa couple dancing across building façades, projected from Martin MAC 700 profiles mounted under Rain MAC covers. Giant inflatables of ever-changing light were created using Air Domes with five-metre and eight-metre cones lit from inside with double LED outdoor floods. Pairs of opaque shoes, lit with LED ribbon provided by Lightmoves, dangled from wires across the street.

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From the Melbourne Museum and Royal Exhibition buildings, which were artistically lit inside and out, all the way down to Degraves Lane and the State Library, specialised lighting spread all over the city. While many areas were individually controlled using one of six GrandMA consoles, ResX also used W-DMX Black Box G4 wireless DMX512 transceivers all over the city to control fixtures in hard-to-reach areas. The W-DMX system functioned well in zones notorious for wireless interference, especially given the number of people capturing their experiences of the event on social media.

Giant glowing spheres floated on the Yarra River, radiating projected messages and pictures sent by audience members via MMS. TDC used Barco R22+ DLP projectors and ProVideoPlayer playbacks to achieve this effect.

Almost 300 mirror balls provided by ResX were hung by Showtech Rigging over Federation Square, creating an enormous dance floor where attendees were invited to kick up their heels and participate in any of the 10 different dance styles being taught throughout the night.

Foam Finish

French artist Michel Blazy’s huge foamproducing sculpture Bouquet Final 2, first exhibited at Nuit Blanche in Paris, was featured at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Great Hall. The installation consisted of a 7m-high scaffold designed and constructed

by Element Rigging, which held seven levels of electric pumps slowly discharging cascading foam.

While the State Library’s famous colonnaded frontage was treated with animated mapped projections, its internal architectural features were accentuated using eight new Martin MAC Vipers offset

by Tri-colour LED MultiPARs from ResX. In a dazzling display that wowed the crowds along the banks of the Yarra, the team at Oracle Attractions showed off their new stock of large-scale water fountains and high-end outdoor lasers.

After midnight Melbourne can take on a nasty vibe and is better known for drunken misconduct from the nightclub crowd.

Instead, the city was filled with families and a well-behaved throng enjoying museums, art galleries, live performance and a side to their city they may have never seen before. 

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1. Flinders Lane. Photographer: Eric Lai - @ericlaihk on Flickr 2. ‘Stained glass’ windows on St Paul’s. Photographer: Darren Arentz 3. National Gallery of Victoria St Kilda Rd. Photographer: Darren Arentz 4. MMS messages on the Yarra. Photo Courtesy TDC 5. Photographer: Princes Bridge. Darren Arentz 6. ‘White Night’ on Princes Bridge. Photographer: Eric Lai 7. St Paul’s Chapter House. Photographer: Nathan Miller 8. Flinders Street Station. Photographer: Billy Chant www.cre8tiv.com.au 9. Flinders Street Facades. Photographer: Darren Arentz

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MORE INFORMATION

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White Night Melbourne: (03) 9417 6690 or www.whitenightmelbourne.com.au Right Angle Events: 03 9416 4609 or www.rightangleevents.com.au The Electric Canvas: (02) 9417 2077 or www.theelectriccanvas.com.au Element Rigging: 0418 525 473 Optical Audio Productions: (03) 9318 00603 or www.oaproductions.com.au Resolution X: (03) 9701 2411 or www.resolutionx.com.au Technical Direction Company: 1300 783 832 or www.tdc.com.au Lightmoves: (03) 9701 2500 or www.lightmoves.com Showtech Rigging: (03) 9587 7311 or www.showtechaustralia.com.au Oracle Attractions: (03) 9391 5482 or www.oracleattractions.biz

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FEATURE

Appealing To Viewers Managing 26 continuous hours of unscripted mayhem, live to air.

Text:/ Graeme Hague

Telethon has been running annually in Western Australia since 1968, making it one of the longest-running shows of its kind. Hosted

by Channel 7 Perth it’s raised more than $133m mostly for children’s charities in the last 45 years with celebrity balls, sports games, car races, auctions and pretty much anything you can think of where people are asked to donate money or buy a ticket. But the name Telethon is most associated with the annual marathon televised panel show that Channel 7 puts on around October or November when finals football is over and the cricket hasn’t hit top gear – it’s not easy finding a spare 26 hours in a programming schedule, even for such a worthy cause.

The panel show has undergone some major changes over the last decade. Right up until 2005 it was held inside the Channel 7 studios and the

emphasis was very much on a televised show coming out of a single studio. The live audience was an important component but it was small.

The studio only held about 200 viewers and punters were cycled through the seating with long lines of people waiting outside for their turn. It was usually worth the wait thanks to the show’s hallmark of constant, merry mayhem – plus you never knew who might drop in. The likes of Michael Jackson, Celine Dion and Stevie Wonder have wandered on stage unannounced, bringing the house down. And back in the good ol’ days it was television’s worst-kept secret that if you put in a marathon effort yourself and watched in the wee hours when the Green Room refrigerator contents had been consumed, you were bound to see some outrageous behaviour that normally wouldn’t get past the censors.

Queued Up

With its success, Telethon inevitably outgrew the Channel 7 complex and moved to the Riverside Theatre, which is part of the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre in the city’s CBD. Now the live audience could number more than 2000 at any one time – and still be cycling through a long queue of people waiting outside throughout the weekend. It’s difficult to estimate the total live audience because so many return time and again but it’s thought to be in excess of 40,000 people, so the in-house audio production has become just as important as catering for the unseen millions on the other side of the television cameras. Now Telethon is a live concert too, although it doesn’t use a multiple stage setup like many festivals do.

It’s live and it’s busy, centred on the one stage.

Perth-based Audio Technik was brought into

FEATURE

the Telethon family - there’s very much a family atmosphere among cast and crew - in 2012 to provide a turnkey solution for the FOH and act mix roles. The venue and show present them with some interesting challenges, not the least being that the event runs continuously for those 26 hours, which also means it starts and finishes in prime-time.

For a start, the rigging points for the main PA system are behind the first 10 or so rows of seating. FOH engineer James Newhouse opted for a d&b Q Series setup of four arrays of eight across the front of the performance area, but no hanging configuration of these could possibly reach those front rows. Sight lines and clear camera angles still get the most consideration (it is a television show after all) and groundstacking some type of front fill wasn’t a solution.

The answer was to discretely place 10 d&b E Series speakers at the very front of the stage area, outside the line of the monitors, facing towards the seating. According to Newhouse the E3s had to “work pretty hard”, but they did the trick.

Rat Tales

Likewise, the three d&b B2 subs per side weren’t welcome on stage and Newhouse had to improvise.

He recalled a possible solution attributed by audio folklore to Dave Rat, legendary sound engineer for Red Hot Chili Peppers among others (who incidentally has recently been running a series of seminars in Australia). The trick is lining the subs one behind the other, laying them on their ends – on this occasion in a narrow passageway on each side of the stage. Newhouse dialed in individual delay times for each one in

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addition to the delay required to align them with the FOH. Dave Rat apparently refers to it as the “bass cannon” configuration and it worked surprisingly well. Although who are we to doubt someone as esteemed as Mr Rat? Looking at the schematic, the signal path for all the audio is impressive, feeding a network of mixing consoles with plenty of redundancy.

Failure is not an option.

From the single main stage all microphone lines are fed into an active, analogue splitter which diverts into a Yamaha 01V as a backup for the stage acts. The through signal goes to a Midas stage box at the monitor position where there is a Midas Pro 2, then it carries on to FOH to another Midas Pro 2. That same stage box also sends two signals to the “act mix huts”, a pair of demountable rooms outside. A live band Photo: James Newhouse

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mix is created in one hut, where acts that contain live drums or full acoustic sets are mixed on a Midas Pro 6. The second feed is the ‘act’ mix on a Midas Pro 2, which might be just a single microphone with a backing CD or a simple acoustic guitar or piano and vocals performance. It’s all about the amount of preparation required for the act and spreading the setup load. From the two huts, the signals are passed to the OB van provided by the ABC since it’s the only one in town. A big thumbsup to Aunty for helping out.

Charity Calls

On the other side of the FOH mix and separate from the stage are the panel microphones, which go into a second active splitter, plus links from external sources such as outside locations (vision from local hospitals with celebrities interviewing kids, etc.) and in particular the Phone Room where visiting artists and guests take calls from people keen to donate, especially if they get to speak with someone famous. The Phone Room hasn’t been relocated to the Riverside Theatre – for years it’s been hosted by the Sunday Times newspaper where the system is big enough to cope with a large volume of calls. Last year an estimated 35,000 calls were taken on the newspaper’s 140 available workstation positions.

Looking again at that schematic of the signal paths and adding in an enormous amount of video and power cabling, it seems like a small miracle that the end result is a clean feed everywhere – or maybe these guys know what they’re doing?

That definitely can’t be said for what’s happening on stage most of the time. Apart from the first 90 minutes or so of a rehearsed performance to kick the show off, all the acts from that point are largely a mystery. Of course the audio team has a rough idea but rarely is it exactly what they’ve been told to expect. There’s always an extra singer, another guitar, an added 14-piece jazz band (the West Australia Youth Jazz Orchestra usually drops in around 11am on Sunday morning and are unrehearsed, too). It’s all part of

Photo: James Newhouse

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Photos: Glyn Jones

Above: Audio control area in the ABC outside broadcast (OB) van.

Left: Paul Huxham and Nick Kenworthy at the console in the ABC OB van (with Alan Duplex looking on).

MORE INFORMATION Telethon: telethon7perth.com.au Audio Technik: www.audiotechnik.com.au or (08) 9277 4484

Crew List

the fun with the real challenge being to achieve the changeovers, usually in the space of a commercial break – and remember Telethon still runs on a single stage. Most of us curse the amount of ads on television but for Audio Technik, the commercials can never run too long as they scramble to switch the acts. Even if a cross to an outside broadcast or to the panel provides more time, the stage still needs to be reset quickly and quietly because that extra time has usually been allocated for difficult changeover.

Feed the Masses

The video side of things is relatively simple. Almost the sole beneficiary of all the different cameras is the feed to the OB van and subsequently the millions of televisions all over Western Australia. The only other screen is a large display beside the main stage for the live audience, letting them see the live crosses to those

hospital interviews, the Phone Room, and so on. It also shows clips of events such as the charity football matches that take place earlier in the year.

What makes Telethon unique is the long performance time and the non-stop action on stage. It doesn’t let up and everyone needs to stay on their game for every minute of those 26 hours. It’s an exhausting gig. Paul Huxham reluctantly admits to the title of audio director but he’s adamant his crew of 29 people all put in 110 per cent and the credit is theirs. And for the record, Audio Technik donates a significant amount of effort and equipment towards the event.

Nobody minds the long hours, the hard work and the non-existent margin for error that is live television, because the rewards for a successful weekend couldn’t possibly be better – millions of dollars donated to children’s charities all over Australia. 

Paul Huxham: Audio Director Glyn Jones: Audio Director Keith Cooper: Comms Phil Lentz: Audio Director Alex Wong: Act Mix Colin Graham: Band Mix Clancy Travis: Monitors Martin Weibel: FOH James Gueness: Monitors Andy Walters: Monitors Jeff Thomas: Audio Director Damien Lowry: Audio Director Andrew Dunnett: Act Mix Glenn Davies: Audio Director Richard Glover: Assist Nick Kenworthy: Audio Director Paul Indiamo: Act Mix Carsten Frederikson: Assist Allan Than-htay: Assist James Newhouse: FOH Brett Stayt: Location Natasha Thorniley: Assist Michael Leamy: Assist Estefania Diago: Assist Anita Liu: Assist Sam Chalk: Monitors Victor Markov: FOH Daniel Presant: Monitors

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REVIEW

IT Giants Sticking to WebRTC Why Google, Microsoft and Mozilla are AV Companies.

Text:/ Jonathan McFarlane IT is becoming AV in a very big way and it’s called Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC). It’s going to change the way we think about video conferencing, live video and video streaming. In fact, it’s not just going to affect the audiovisual industry – it’s likely to shake up the four trillion dollar telecommunications industry thanks to Google, Mozilla, Opera, Microsoft and the broader online community of web developers.

WebRTC is a set of JavaScript Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that make realtime communication available natively in the web browser. It allows web developers to rapidly build communication features into their websites, apps and digital products without the need for third party software packages or browser plugins.

WebRTC has three main components: Media Stream, Peer Connections and Data Streams.

Media Stream allows the browser to access the camera and microphone and supports multiple channels of communication. Peer Connections does all the hard work for developers by providing a platform for making calls and managing the peer-to-peer connections process.

Data Streams allow applications to communicate over the network through secure private data channels. These three work together to provide

a standard platform with incredible possibilities.

We have already seen native features of the web browser take on proprietary plugins with HTML5 video. YouTube, Vimeo and most news and media sites use an HTML5 video player to reach both mobile devices and desktop browsers at the same time.

Plug Free

WebRTC will extend the capabilities of HTML5, and the combination of WebRTC and other web-standard technologies will be powerful.

Developers can use standard design, layout and interactive features of cascading style sheets (CSS) and JavaScript to add a level of flexibility around video communication like never before.

There are already examples such as real-time facial recognition and Instagram-like video effects and filters built into a video and photo web-app without any browser plugins.

We’ll see desktop software such as Skype move to the browser platform. This makes web conferencing highly flexible, accessible and easy to support – organisations won’t need to manage software licenses and installations, or depend on third-party plugins. It also increases security, integrating with corporate authentication systems

and web standard security protocols.

One of the clear benefits of WebRTC and IT standard solutions in the AV industry is that they will be available in the home. This opens up new possibilities and allows people to work and study from anywhere in the world as the enterprise and education market will have a highly scalable collaboration system that can be customised, will integrate with their security systems and run on either their own standard IT equipment or on an outsourced cloud provider.

WebRTC is still in its early stages but many companies have already released applications.

The main issue right now is that WebRTC is not yet a standard – it is still in the project phase and only available through the Chrome and Firefox browsers. Microsoft is contributing to the standard and has its Skype team proposing updates and fixes, which suggests that Internet Explorer will come to the party, and Opera now uses the Chrome engine so is already WebRTCenabled by default.

Giants Leap

The loudest voice behind the project is Google. The organisation holds workshops and conferences for developers to promote the draft standard,

ReadyStream Project At Advanced Control and Acoustics (ACA) we have always taken a very simple philosophy with our development projects: the solution must be delivered through the web browser otherwise we won’t work on it. Naturally our ears pricked up when we first heard about WebRTC and we were excited about the possibilities for the audiovisual industry. With the help of six developers from the University of Sydney’s School of Information Technologies, we developed a prototype enterprise videoconference platform making use of WebRTC and other webstandard technologies. The resulting platform demonstrated the ability to integrate with a corporate authentication system, create virtual meeting rooms, share video and automatically scale based on bandwidth. The solution was code-named ReadyStream and can now be embedded in our other web-based products including our video platform CoTag Media.

The ReadyStream project demonstrated how quickly real-time communication features can be developed. It took less than six months for the team to build a videoconference platform from scratch, as most of the hard work was taken care of with the WebRTC APIs. This ease of implementation and the availability of examples and source code from the developer community means we will see realtime communication features turn up in many new and interesting ways.

Top: ReadyStream under test.

Bottom: ReadyStream detects the WebRTC capabilities of your browser and directs you to an update site to get a compatible version if your current browser isn't compatible.

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The Doctor is Online

and was the first to release WebRTC in its browser. As Chrome accounts for some 50% of web users, there is already great potential for WebRTC products today.

What makes Google’s role in the project most interesting is its ability to provide a complete telecommunication and AV solution. Google is part of the infrastructure shakeup – while we are slowly rolling out the NBN in Australia, Google has delivered a fibre network in Kansas City, offering low cost internet plans with bundled TV packages based on the Chrome operating system. Every home that joins the network can use Google Chrome over an ultra-fast internet connection that is ideal for WebRTC. Other IT companies are moving into the integration space as well, most notably Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB) unit that looks after Xbox.

I’ve worked on some interesting Xbox integration projects with my company Advanced Control and Acoustics, using the Xbox Kinect camera for automation.

I’ve also seen many great examples of Xbox and interactive AV installation.

Microsoft has been a big part of the success of these projects – the release of its Xbox API essentially invited developers to build applications for the Xbox camera without having to get ‘hacky’. Microsoft’s interest in home automation was also apparent in is its acquisition of the automation startup company R2 Studios, which has now become part of the IEB unit.

Microsoft’s series of future vision videos also demonstrates the IT giant’s commitment to AV and telecommunications technology.

The videos are set in the near future and showcase technology such as interactive displays and advanced videoconferencing

Health is an obvious area where WebRTC can provide great benefits. Patient record systems can include an embedded web conferencing widget enabling links to virtual consulting rooms directly inside the patient file. Doctors could monitor patients’ vital signs through the data stream channels that are built into WebRTC and hold virtual consultancies. By building all these features into one cloud application, remote medicine is more accessible than ever. Any patient with web access can take part in a virtual consultation, eliminating the need to travel and extending modern medical care into remote areas via low cost web devices such as the $25 Raspberry Pi or the $60 Android smartphone.

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REVIEW

HTML5: WHAT IS IT? versions of HTML, a vast range of boltedon technologies were shoe-horned into web pages to encourage them do more exciting things like make changes onthe-fly, scroll text across the screen, generate moving images, play movie files and music, run live interactive games, process forms and embed other web pages in windows on the screen.

HTML5 is an attempt to tidy up the existing mess and produce a version of HTML that will have all the capabilities that a modern web application needs including persistent data storage, image generation, a capable media player, interactive data communications, better page layout tools, more text fonts and the ability to access other devices connected to your computer such as cameras, microphones, fingerprint readers and game controllers. It is due for completion by late 2014 but in the meantime, many of the parts are under development and being implemented in web browsers on an ‘experimental’ basis in their draft form.

Real-time communication is one of the new technologies being developed for HTML5 and WebRTC is the result. — AC

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is one of the key elements of the World Wide Web. Through its familiar markup tags like <H1>, <img src=”images/AV_ Logo.jpg”> and <a href=”http:// www.av.net.au”>, HTML defines how the material on a web page should be processed and displayed by the web browser software (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Dolphin, etc) on the device you’re using to view the web.

Each family of web browsers implements the markup in its own way, so the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) attempts to set down uniform behaviours for the way browser software should process the markup tags.

Early versions of HTML were fairly basic, offering the web designer little more than some basic document layout capabilities, the ability to display a couple of types of image, and of course the cornerstone of the WWW – the links to the other documents and pages that make up the Web. A simple scripting language (JavaScript) was included to allow for some interactivity between the web browser program and its host computer.

Because of the limitations of early

API An Application Programming Interface is a defined recipe for one program (application) to access the capabilities of another. For example, if a weather program needs to get a file of current temperature and precipitation information from a host computer somewhere on the internet, the author of the program can have the data fetching done for them.

Rather than having to write all the code to find that weather data computer somewhere on the internet, ask it for the data, then transport it back across multiple networks, the author of the weather program sends a request through the API of the local computer’s communications program, telling it what’s needed and which computer should have it.

They then let the communications program get on with the job of fetching the data while the weather program goes about drawing its maps, calculating the daily maximum and displaying images of smiling suns or crying rainclouds. — AC

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systems. One scene features a public digital display hosting a videoconference between an Indian busker and a commuter in a subway. The commuter donates a couple of dollars to the busker through an integrated payment system while the busker plays from a remote location, broadcasting to the city subway display. This virtual busking example demonstrates three areas that are converging: AV, IT and online payments, and at the centre of this is a videoconference that will be delivered through WebRTC. Microsoft’s recent acquisition of the display company Perceptive Pixel clearly spells out its plans to be part of the AV industry. The interactive display technology will make many of the company’s future vision videos come true, combining with WebRTC running in Internet Explorer to provide a complete turnkey solution.

The web browser is the most used application on any computer. Browser technology has taken a huge leap forward since HTML5 and WebRTC is the next step – soon the web browser will be all that is needed to host video conferencing, presentations, digital signage or any other basic requirement of an audiovisual system. The development has supercharged the IT and AV convergence, with IT companies now driving the web standard for videoconferencing while simultaneously running infrastructure and manufacturing touch displays to provide a complete audiovisual solution. What hasn’t changed is the need for high quality integration and adaptable AV professionals. 

Not just a magazine www.av.net.au AV Industry Jobs Board: the best place to hire & be hired

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REVIEW

DPA d:facto II Vocal microphone Text:/ Graeme Hague

DPA Microphones is based in Denmark and since its beginnings in 1992 has enjoyed a steadily growing reputation as a manufacturer that aspires to produce the very best microphones, without any compromises to allow for mass production or costeffectiveness. It means that although DPA produces a range of microphone types, within each category the company focuses its energy on only one or two models, and doesn’t bother with budget or entry-level versions of its catalogue for a cheaper market.

An upshot of this is that products like DPA’s reference microphones, the d:fine range of discreet headsets or the d:vote series of 4099 instrument mics all reflect a design philosophy that aims to stand above the crowd and provide true high-end microphones worthy of their price tags. For example, DPA’s flagship large-diaphragm microphones for studio vocals are end-address. DPA isn’t about to shy away from what it believes delivers the best results although many people might be wary of the DPA 4041-T2 simply because it doesn’t have that so-familiar side-address design we associate with expensive studio mics. All DPA asks is that you close your eyes and listen, then make up your mind. What you hear may explain why DPA’s payroll has jumped from two people to more than 100 staff in 20 years.

STUDIO QUALITY, STAGE RELIABILITY

It also explains why DPA chooses to manufacture just one performance vocal microphone, called the d:facto, now in its second incarnation as the d:facto II model.

The d:facto II strives to cover that difficult section of the microphone market as an accurate and detailed condenser mic that’s handy in the studio, and can survive the rigours of a live stage, rough handling and environments fraught with feedback issues.

It also has an extra trick up its microphone sleeve – we’ll come to that soon.

For the sake of a size reference I dragged out my trusty, rusty Shure Beta 58 (remembering the d:facto has an RRP of $1299 in Australia and I’m certainly not lining up the two performance-wise). The d:facto II is a good half-a-pop-filter-grille

longer than the 58 and slightly heavier. The matte-black finish to both the body and grille is nicely unremarkable with no attempt by DPA to make the mic instantly identifiable – although after reading this review you might recognise one in front of Sting’s ugly mug next time you see him out and about. The d:facto II is altogether quite normal and will fit into standard microphone clips.

Plug the d:facto II in, hit the 48V phantom power button and the mic comes alive. You instantly hear a crispness, clarity and a lowend warmth that makes you sit up and pay attention. This thing sounds very nice indeed and within a minute there’s no argument that this is a great microphone. I had a quick listen to what I’d consider a comparable, end-address studio condenser mic and while the difference in sound quality isn’t worth trying to draw a line under, the second test mic didn’t have the same pop-filter protection as the d:facto II does and plosives were a problem. DPA’s claim of creating a studioquality vocal microphone suitable for a live stage was holding up well so far.

HITTING THE ROAD

Out on the road things weren’t quite so straightforward. Handling noise was very low and feedback rejection was excellent. So, what’s the problem, you ask?

Only that you might need to rethink your setup and gain structure with the d:facto II. Where your dynamic vocal microphone is hitting a performance brick wall and things are safely within limits, the d:facto II keeps going and suddenly those evil red LEDs start blinking at you. This is almost typical behaviour from any condenser microphone in this sort of situation, and I’m only mentioning it to emphasise that you can’t just replace your normal vocal mic with a d:facto II and get an improved sound. You’ll need to do some tweaking.

The neat trick the d:facto II has to offer is the SL1 wireless adapter version, which can convert many brand-name wireless microphone into a d:facto II, sort of. I’ll admit to being initially confused by the SL1, expecting that it was some kind of attachable transmitter that turned the d:facto II into a

radio microphone – because the Australian distributor provided both for review.

Not at all, it’s an adapter to which you attach the d:facto II capsule and pop filter, then it screws into the transmitter body of many popular brands of wireless microphone like Shure and Sony. Effectively, you have the potential for swapping the excellence of the d:facto II across to a comparatively cheaper wireless delivery system without any loss of quality. The clever bit is that the SL1 poaches some of the battery power for the radio transmitter to run the condenser element.

At first glance it is a neat trick but the jury’s still out as to exactly how practical the SL1 idea might be. You’re sacrificing one complete radio microphone to create another, albeit a better one (theoretically – let’s not make that call here).

To clarify, for the same price you can either buy the d:facto II as a standard, wired microphone or you can purchase a pop-filter grille/SL1/capsule-only version that, obviously, requires a third-party radio microphone body to work. Alternatively, you buy the SL1 as an accessory.

It kind of muddies the decision-making a little. What’s absolutely clear is the audio quality of the d:facto II and the fact that it can work so well in a live situation.

D:LIGHTFUL

For mine, if you can afford to have a swag of d:facto II microphones in your road case you can’t go wrong – that’s a no-brainer. At the very least, it’d always be great to have just one for those ‘difficult’ vocalists for whom nothing is ever good enough. Put a d:facto II in front of them, tell ‘em Sting uses one, and they can’t possibly complain. They’ll even sound good.  Amber Technology: 1800 251 367 or www.ambertech.com.au Price: $1299 (inc GST)

REVIEW

051

052

REVIEW

Megapower ML138 DLP WXGA LED Projector Tiny projector plays big.

Text:/ Stuart Gregg

What do you do when you turn up to a client meeting and the monitor or projector they promised for your presentation is not there? You pull out your pocket size projector of course.

When a 250mm x 200mm white cardboard box turned up on my desk with a note asking me to review the enclosed projector, I was intrigued.

There are a number of pico projectors in the market from the small to the ridiculously miniature that attach to your smart phone. This unit sits in the middle, size-wise. It measures 170mm x 110mm x 60mm so in my mind, is designed to be carried in your laptop bag or backpack. It won’t put your shoulder out either, weighing around 750g or 1.2kg with power supply and cables.

The brand isn’t clearly stated on the unit but the model number is ML138 and a bit of web research shows it as a Megapower ML138.

When connected via HDMI, it shows up as an Mstar demo.

The projector takes composite video and stereo audio via an RCA-to-mini-jack (3.5mm) adaptor. Audio out is also available via a separate mini-jack. A 15-pin VGA socket takes care of your analogue computer signal and accepts inputs from 640 x 480 up to 1920 x 1080 at 60Hz. It recognises and clocks signals cleanly.

HDMI worked well with all source types including DVD, Blu-ray and computers. I ran a few Keynote presentations from my iPhone via the HDMI adapter and was impressed at the quality and simplicity.

You can run videos and photos through USB and SD card sockets and navigation is very simple. It has a fixed lens with a ratio of 1.4:1, and I managed to get images up to 2.5m (100in) diagonal to focus. While the claimed output is 250 ANSI lumens, I didn’t have access to our test kit on the day so all I can say is at a 2.5m diagonal in a meeting room environment, it produced an acceptably bright image.

Big Performance

Surprising Features

Using DLP technology and three LED light sources it delivers impressive performance for its price and size. The LED lifespan is claimed to be 30,000 hours, which, if even half true, will probably exceed the unit’s working life.

The kit comes with projector, power supply, remote, AV and HDMI cables. In line with the laptop theme the projector has an internal battery, which after initial charging ran a full-length movie and still registered 25 per cent battery life remaining. It has a three-hour battery life claim when run in eco mode, which is acceptable for most situations.

For a simple projector, it has a range of features and functions I did not expect.

There are four image settings, three standard and one user, allowing for contrast, brightness, colour and sharpness. The standard settings I found had fairly crushed blacks giving high contrast but low detail images, but you can achieve a reasonable image with the user settings. The settings for colour balance, keystone and orientation all worked well and were easy to navigate.

Personally I would use it for client presentations and impromptu kids’ movie nights,

and will be looking for ways to incorporate a number of them into events in interesting ways.

The projector is not über chic in design but appears solid and well built, and in the included carry-bag should last well in the bottom of your backpack. At $499 (including GST and delivery), it’s not the cheapest ultra small projector, but it does represent good value.

Just Lampless: (07) 5449 9483 or ruth.bird@justlamps.net Features: Built-in media player formats: AVI, MPEG 1/2/4, RMVB, MKV, MJPEG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, WMA, MP3, AAC Data storage: USB mass storage, MicroSD Built in keypad or IR remote control Output to speaker: 3.5mm audio jack Inputs: AV (composite), VGA, HDMI Specifications: Light source: LED RGB Imaging device: DLP Native resolution: WXGA 1280 x 800 Brightness: 250 lumens Max contrast: 1000:1 Warranty: 3 years Lamp warranty: 2 years Lamp life: 30,000 hours Throw ratio: 1.4:1 Projection distance: 600mm – 3000mm Image size: 510mm – 2570mm Battery life: 120 mins Dimensions (WxHxD): 170mm x 110mm x 60mm Projector weight: 750g

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Samsung LED BLU displays utilise LCD screens with LED edge or back lights.

Samsung Touch Overlays are sold separately.

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054

NEWS

InfoComm News

News from the Oceania Region

INTEGRATE 2013 27-29 August, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre Australia’s largest audio-visual, entertainment, information and communications technology event is on! With more than 500 brands on display, Integrate in association with InfoComm International, brings together the worlds of ICT, integrating all areas including visual, education, entertainment, audio and lighting technology, worship, digital signage and unified communications.

Visit www.integrate-expo.com for more information.

AWARD NOMINATIONS OPEN Nominate a deserving AV professional for an InfoComm award! InfoComm International recognises individuals’ contributions to the industry with seven distinct awards: The Adele De Berri Pioneers of AV – Individuals eligible for this award have made exceptional contributions to the formation of the AV industry.

Distinguished Achievement – Individuals eligible for this award have made significant contributions to the association.

Educator of the Year – Individuals eligible for this award have made important contributions to professional development, education and training in the AV and allied industries.

Fred Dixon Service in Education – Awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions to education in the audiovisual industry.

Sustainable Technology – Awarded to companies and individuals who have implemented environmentally sustainable practices in a variety of ways, from manufacturing products, to the integration of AV systems, to green initiatives in the workplace.

Women in AV – This award acknowledges the contributions of two current female InfoComm members who have taken marked initiative and exhibited strong leadership in the AV industry.

Young AV Professional Awards – Awarded to AV professionals under the age of 35 who have realised great success in the AV industry and are assured to be leaders among AV professionals throughout their careers.

Nominations are due by 19 April, 2013, and winners will be recognised at InfoComm 2013. For more information or to nominate, visit infocomm.org/ awards.

CHANGES TO CTS EXAMS As part of ANSI’s continuous improvement process, your InfoComm International Certification Committee is working constantly to keep the CTS, CTS-D and CTS-I exams current. Changes to the exams to be implemented in July and reflect significant evolution in the AV industry from AV/ IT integration to new business concepts. Explore them at infocomm.org/certification. 

300+ UNI SESSIONS AT INFOCOMM 2013 InfoComm 2013 will provide educational opportunities to more than 3,500 of the 35,000 professionals expected to attend this year’s weeklong event. InfoComm University offers careeradvancing training and certifications, and InfoComm partner organisations and manufacturers will provide additional training sessions to round out the educational offerings. More than half of the classes in this year’s show program are new.

“InfoComm, through its career-advancing educational programming, certification preparation courses and CTS testing, offers attendees an unmatched environment to learn, grow their skills, network and leave the event at the top of their game,” said David Labuskes, CTS, RCDD, Executive Director and CEO, InfoComm International.

“InfoComm University, along with targeted training from partners, manufacturer’s training on specific products and the opportunity to test on-site for CTS credentials, makes attendance an absolute must for the AV professional.”

For more information on education sessions at InfoComm 2013, visit infocommshow.org.

All The AV Industry Employment News Delivered to your IN box with AV Newswire Any time you want it at www.av.net.au

ISSUE #2 COMING SOON

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057

TUTORIAL

ConsiderationsforJobCosting Accurately track your costs to avoid a loss

The following is an excerpt from InfoComm’s new class, CTS Prep Online.This class is free for members. Visit infoComm.org for more information.

Your initial estimate for a project is based on your assessment of how much labour, equipment and materials you think will be required to complete a specific series of tasks, such as installing an AV system at a client site or producing a live event.

This estimate is known as job costing.

Job costing is based on your experience in completing similar projects, so it follows that you can create better and more accurate estimates if you track how close your estimate was to the actual amount of labour and materials required to perform the work. One of the ways to get good at job costing is to have accurate historical data, which means going back and looking at previous jobs and finding out what things cost. This means verifying costs such as rentals rates, shipping charges and the cost of the equipment when you purchased it.

Another item to consider is the cost for an installation technician to go to the job site and install. How much time are you going to allocate for the technician to go in and commission the system to make sure that it is set up properly?

What if you can’t get into the facility until after 5.00pm? That could have an impact on the hourly rate for your employees, so you need to look at these unexpected costs.

You also need to look at how you are using your time. Do you budget for lost productive time stuck in traffic? Do you have everything you need before you go to the job site? This includes tools, hardware, connectors, and wire. Are you going to bill or allocate for every hour?

One way to work this out is to start tracking things and have that data available later. If you allocated 10 hours on a previous job that took 15, why was that? Did you not bill enough hours, or were there unexpected expenses you should have known about, or events that you didn’t plan for?

Documenting the history of each project will aid you in future jobs.

Best Practice: On Site vs In The Shop From a client standpoint, you want to make sure your people can get in and do their job effectively so they can keep their costs down. Completing tasks in the shop, like building racks or testing equipment, is a great way to reduce the time it takes to install a system. It’s always more efficient to do tasks at the shop than on site.

PROFIT AND LOSS

Where can you find the historical data to estimate how much a job will cost? The manager and accounting staff in your company should generate a profit and loss (P&L) statement.

A P&L statement lists the costs of equipment, materials and labour incurred to complete each area of a project and then subtracts the amount estimated. The difference contributes to the revenue generated by the project. If the actual cost is less than the estimate the project made a profit in that area, but if the actual cost was greater than the estimate there was a loss. P&L statements can be used for the company as a whole, or for individual projects.

The project manager can use P&L data to identify areas in which a future project’s activities should be adjusted, or project resources moved, to reduce the opportunity for loss within a specific area. This is a valuable tool for project managers as it can be used to reduce losses and maximise profits.

For example, labour may be exceeding the budget due to a technician with low experience taking longer to perform a specific task than estimated. In such a case the project manager may decide to replace the person with a more experienced staff member, or to use a subcontractor who will perform the task at a fixed cost.

Quick Tip: Invoicing If you can invoice the client earlier, you can get paid sooner and reduce the amount of money you’re borrowing from the bank, saving interest costs.

Ordering at the right time, invoicing quickly and collecting effectively help keep your costs down.

Typically, you should invoice when you reach defined milestones. Do it as soon as each milestone is reached – don’t wait.

UTILISATION RATES

The project manager should track the amount of billable time staff members who typically work on client projects (rather than on general administrative tasks) spend on each project. The percentage of the staff member’s time that is billable to client projects tells the manager how efficiently that staff member is being utilised. A fully utilised staff member is maximising profits for the company, while less than full utilisation may mean the company is overstaffed for the amount of work available.

Each staff member’s utilisation rate can be easily determined by comparing the number of hours spent on client projects with the amount of time spent on other activities. For example, if the work week is based on 40 hours a staff member may have 16 hours on one project, 16 hours on another project, and 8 hours working on internal, non-billable work such as receiving and warehousing materials and supplies from a vendor. In this case, the staff member’s utilisation would be 80% on client work and 20% for internal work.

Each company may have a different target for each staff member or staff labour category.

For example, personnel who staff live event projects may have fewer hours per week that can be directly allocated against client projects than installation staff. In these cases, the company may assign those staff members other internal work, such as maintenance of rental equipment, to ensure their time is fully utilised. 

058

Termination

smirk|selector

Mic Stand & Deliver Text:/ Graeme Hague

Our military and police forces are highly trained in every aspect of their jobs – except in how to use microphones. Have you ever noticed whenever some kind of passing-out parade or graduation ceremony is shown on the telly, the Sergeant Major General is standing about two metres back from the podium microphone?

Maybe they have a little too much faith in all the shouting they do. I always imagine some poor First Class (Audio) Private crouched under the stage and riding a single fader on a four-channel mixer, desperate to get anything except wind-noise into the PA system and too terrified to mention to the Generalissimo that no one can hear anything. They still have firing squads in the army, you know. It possibly explains why Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo – due to poor microphone technique his troops didn’t hear a word he said during the pre-battle address. Mind you, to be fair, back in 1815 Napoleon couldn’t enjoy the benefits of a line-array system. Must have been a ground-stack, perhaps.

PONTIFICATING

The worst culprit is the Pope – yes, the Pope.

Not only the one who recently got the gig, but all of them. I’m not dissing anyone’s religion – each to his own and all that… Okay, maybe apart from Scientology, which is frankly unexplainable. But how come the spiritual leader of something like two billion Catholic faithful and the CEO of arguably the most cashed-up organisation in the world only gets a 30-year-old Shure 58 to address the masses?

Surely someone could dip into the Papal petty cash and buy an SM99 or even one of the DPA d:facto II mics we reviewed in this issue.

It doesn’t help that Pope Francis, along with all his predecessors, has taken the mandatory

two-week course in Incoherent Mumbling (followed by the extra-curricular Incoherent Mumbling in Latin), which plainly doesn’t include a lesson in getting the best out of an SM58. It makes you wonder if it was part of the papal selection process.

Q: “Why do you want to be Pope?”

A: “Because I really want the job and besides, the office is close to my kids’ school. I can drop them off on my way through in the mornings.”

Q: “Can you use a microphone properly?”

A: “Yes.” Q: “Close the door on your way out. Next!”

Setting up a good lectern microphone is a fine art often thwarted by the people expected to use it. One of my favourites has always been having to explain to presenters that the microphone on the right is, in fact, the lectern light and putting their lips on it will only cause a sizzling, then yelping, noise that the real microphone on the left will clearly pick up.

Often, as you all know, there are two microphones carefully positioned for optimal performance and the problem is convincing speakers not to touch them – no, don’t touch them. These microphones will work perfectly well exactly where they are and you don’t have to adjust anything, really…

Not a hope. Someone will inevitable grab a microphone in each hand and aim them directly at their own nose so that every plosive startles the audience into staying awake. That’s after asking, “Can you hear me?”

GLARING PROBLEMS

Another pet hate is guest speakers who don’t know how to speak. Soft-spoken, shy and intimidated by the whole thing they whisper verbatim a prepared speech from notes in front of them as though they’re reading a very long

cake recipe. Riveting stuff, while the audience glares at you and hisses blatantly obvious things like “We can’t hear” or “Turn it up” as if the audio technician behind the audio desk running the audio system is somehow incapable of noticing there’s a problem with the audio. Personally, for these occasions I’ve perfected a facial expression that is a mixture of mild disgust and a kind of, “There’s nothing I can do” look. Works like a charm.

One answer, of course, is to use lapel microphones wherever possible. Unless you have a chest-thumper – a real one. I had to deal with a bloke once who was so passionate about his heart-felt subject he thumped his chest whenever he wanted to make a point. The first time, he nearly blew every driver in the PA rig – and a few pacemakers in the audience, too. I spent the rest of the speech watching his hands like I was sparring with Mike Tyson.

The Chinese military know how to do it.

Whenever they have one of those massive, ceremonial drive-by occasions with rockets and tanks, the Supreme Commander’s podium is always festooned with microphones as though they got them cheaper by the dozen. Either that or it’s all about redundancy and an indictment on the projected failure-rate of Chinese mics.

The only real advice we can offer is support and sympathy. Whether your next lectern presenter is a novice, a major general or even His Holiness the Pope, chances are they will stand two metres back from the microphone and wonder why no one can hear them. It’ll be your fault, of course.

Some things never change. But soon you’ll be able to download that facial expression I mentioned as an app. I’ll make a fortune. 

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© 2012 QSC Audio Products, LLC. All rights reserved. QSC, the QSC logo, and Q-Sys are registered trademarks in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and other countries. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.