Installation June 2015 Digital Edition

Issue 180 / June 2015

AV INTEGRATION IN A NETWORKED WORLD www.installation-international.com

InfoComm preview

Looking ahead to Orlando p32

Walls have earnings

Make videowalls work for you p36

Win an Apple Watch!

Fired up for change

How to improve the EN54 standard p42

Turn to page 14 to find out how

POWER OF ATTRACTIONS New approaches for enticing and engaging visitors p46

MORE connectivity MORE exibility MORE MEDIORNET

The new MEDIORNET MICRON

www.riedel.net

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21/05/2015 18:08

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WELCOME 03

June 2015

Editor’s comment I

Paddy Baker, Editor pbaker@nbmedia.com

generally don’t use this column as a noticeboard.

However, there’s so much to tell you about this month that I have to depart from my usual practice.

First, we’re getting excited as the InstallAwards 2015 is just a few days away. On Thursday 4 June, in the glittering venue that is the Bloomsbury Ballroom, the great and the good of the industry will gather for the presentation of 15 trophies. The winners of the judged categories will only be revealed on the night, but if you turn to page 7 you can find out who will be the recipients of our two special accolades, the Grand Prix and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Next, I want to tell you about our InstallFutures conference, which will take place in London on 29 September. This thought-provoking event will explore

‘There’s so much to tell you about this month...’ how the industry is set to change over the coming years – through new technologies, new ways of working and new application sectors. Whatever your role within the world of installation, you’ll find plenty of insight there to help you develop your company roadmap. The advertisement on page 50 of this issue has more information – and the www.installfutures.com website will go live early in June with details of the programme and speakers.

If you’re involved in the education sector, you’ve probably seen our sister publication Tech&Learning UK – the most recent print issue of which was published in April. Up to now, its online presence has been a microsite within the Installation website. Now, I’m pleased to report, we have launched a completely separate website with an airy, modern design (responsive, of course, so it reformats to whatever type of device you’re reading it on). In the coming weeks Tech&Learning UK will be launching regular newsletters – which you can sign up to receive at www.techandlearning.uk.

Finally, we’d like to get your thoughts on audio networking: how much do you use it, which protocols do you like (or dislike), what advantages does it bring, what might make you use it more? Turn to page 14 for more details on this: we have an online survey form that we would very much like you to complete – and, thanks to Audinate and RH Consulting, there is an Apple Watch to be won by one lucky respondent.

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Subscriptions to Installation are free to qualified readers. Register online at www.installation-international.com/subscribe Installation is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media London, 1st Floor, Suncourt House, 18-26 Essex Road, London N1 8LR, England Editorial tel: +44 (0)20 7354 6002 Sales tel: +44 (0)20 7354 6000 Please send press material to ukpressreleases@nbmedia.com Circulation & subscription enquiries Tel: +44 (0)1580 883848 Email: installation.subscriptions@c-cms.com Editor: Paddy Baker pbaker@nbmedia.com

US sales – Executive vice president: Adam Goldstein agoldstein@nbmedia.com

Managing editor: Joanne Ruddock jruddock@nbmedia.com

Production manager: Jason Dowie jdowie@nbmedia.com

Staff writer: Duncan Proctor dproctor@nbmedia.com

Digital content manager: Tim Frost tfrost@nbmedia.com

Head of Design: Jat Garcha jgarcha@nbmedia.com

Publisher: Steve Connolly

Designer: Tom Carpenter tcarpenter@nbmedia.com Sales manager: Gurpreet Purewal gpurewal@nbmedia.com

Contributors: David Davies, Franck Ernould, Manfred Freiberger, Rob Lane, Ian McMurray, Steve Montgomery, Liam Norris Special thanks: John Houston, Winnie Leung

Account manager: Peter McCarthy pmccarthy@nbmedia.com © NewBay Media 2015. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owners.

Printed by Pensord Press, Wales

Print ISSN: 2050-6104

Online ISSN: 2052-2401

Cover image: Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth, courtesy of Sysco AV

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Association

A sister title to SCN

21/05/2015 16:59

04 CONTENTS June 2015

36

News & Data 07 12 16 26 30

InstallAwards 2015: And this year’s Grand Prix goes to…

Update Appointments Industry Data Use of solid-state light engines to rise Regional Voices: France

07

Features 36

People 18

24

Opinion Rob Lane flies the global flag Liam Norris advises on choosing the right videowall Manfred Freiberger on breaking into the US market Interview CDEC’s Toni Barnett and Andy Duckworth take time out from their sales conference to talk about the education market

24

42

46

32

Solutions 60

62

Technology 51 56 58

Show Preview

Videowalls: The market is growing, but how can integrators make the most of the opportunity this presents?

PA-VA: The EN54 standard is being reworked, but what changes would you make?

Museums and Visitor Attractions: Demand for creative content is keeping the market buoyant

New Products Demo of the Month Meyer Sound Leopard and 900-LFC system Showcase Steerable speakers

Liverpool Philharmonic Hall: A new audio system has been installed as part of a multimillion pound refurbishment Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg: A huge AV install has created an immersive experience for visitors

60

56

InfoComm: With almost 1,000 exhibitors, we help you navigate the floors of the Orange County Convention Center

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21/05/2015 16:06

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1/23/2015 10:24:37 AM

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4/15/2015 3:33:52 PM

INSTALLAWARDS 07

June 2015

Celebrating excellence in the professional AV & systems integration marketplace Supported by:

Following their successful launch last year, the InstallAwards return on Thursday 4 June, at London’s Bloomsbury Ballroom. Over the following pages we list the finalists for Best Project Awards and Star Product Awards in six categories, plus the Team of the Year Award.

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Announced on the night, the winners in each category have been chosen by a poll of votes from independent industry judges. Here we also present a preview of the two special awards made by the Installation team – the Grand Prix and the Lifetime Achievement Award.

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08 INSTALLAWARDS June 2015

Grand Prix

This year’s InstallAwards will see Harman Professional being honoured with the InstallAwards Grand Prix. The company has grown from its audio roots to acquiring lighting and control companies, broadening its remit and creating significant growth in the installation sector One of two special accolades presented at the InstallAwards, the Grand Prix is given to a company or organisation that has played a major role in shaping the integrated systems landscape. This year, the award goes to Harman Professional, which, not content with creating and building a range of successful synergistic audio brands, has broadened its remit in recent years, notably through two key acquisitions: Martin in 2013, which added lighting to the company’s technology portfolio, and AMX last year, which has brought control and video into the mix.

Erik Tarkiainen, vice president of global marketing Harman Professional, comments: “Our strategy has been heavily influenced by the installed sound market, but installed sound is only part of the picture – we’re looking at the entire communication

Audience Venues

Best Project Award Estádio da Luz – Bosch Security Systems A new sound reinforcement system provides homogeneous and powerful coverage at this 66,000-seater arena.

Manchester City FC: City Football – Tripleplay A digital signage and IPTV system for the club’s entire property estate, including stadium, training campus, football academy and offices in New York and Melbourne.

07-10 Install180 InstallAwards_Final.indd 2

mix, and so video, control and lighting had to be part of that. That’s been a long-term goal of Harman Professional since Blake Augsburger took over as president in 2006.”

Tarkiainen sees the market as having evolved decade by decade: from audio components in the 1980s, via audio systems in the 1990s and AV systems in the 2000s to applicationspecific AV systems today.

A lot of this development has been customer driven, he points out: a company that presents itself as a systems solutions provider needs to provide the types of systems that its customers are looking for.

“You’ve got to work out how you’re going to deliver exactly what it is that your customer wants – and that way we can guarantee that we can carry through all the criteria that we’ve stood by, like being protocol agnostic, network agnostic, and being as open as possible, to allow third parties to link

Moesgaard Museum – Panasonic This archeological museum goes beyond displaying artefacts and presents an animated picture of the people who used them.

SoundBox at the San Francisco Symphony – Meyer Sound Both a venue and a programming concept, SoundBox uses a Meyer Sound Constellation System to provide a wide range of performance environments.

Wuhan Movie Park:

Erik Tarkiainen

into our systems.”

The strategy has seen Harman’s installation market grow “quite significantly”: the company has been successful not just in traditional AV application sectors such as boardrooms, conference centres, shopping malls, airports, stadiums and concert venues, but also in less mainstream areas including hospitals,

recording studios, post houses and TV studios.

A year after AMX joined the Harman fold, Tarkiainen reports that “everyone is very pleased with the way things are going at the moment and we are already realizing significant synergies and benefits.

The AMX team is a very entrepreneurial group, very open to working with the different entities within

Ultimate Energy Theatre – 7thSense Design / Industrial Light and Magic / ITEC Corporation / Wincomn This features a 3D 8K display and 37m x 16.5m screen – as well as live actors, props, stunts and special effects co-ordinated with content and technology.

to project video sequences of costumes being made onto mannequins and set designs onto a scale model of the stage.

LG bespoke LED displays – Etihad Stadium Two 97.5sqm LED displays inform fans and provide a platform for sponsors and advertisers.

Peerless-AV Xtreme Outdoor Display – Columbus Zoo and Aquarium The 39 Peerless displays provide a weatherproof signage solution without

Star Product Award Casio ultra short throw projectors – The Making of Don Giovanni Casio projectors were used

Harman.”

Regarding the award itself, he says: “We’re very humbled to accept the InstallAwards Grand Prix. To receive an award of this stature is a great endorsement of the strategy we’ve been rolling out over the past few years. It sends a great signal to the market, and is a credit to our customers and our staff.”

needing additional vents, filters or exhaust fans.

Powersoft Ottocanali amplifier – Mackay Stadium Aside from improved intelligibility, the amplifiers have created a future roadmap for the stadium sound system and maintain performance in demanding conditions.

Riedel MediorNet – Quantum of the Seas The Riedel system enables flexible management of signals throughout the ship and facilitates

22/05/2015 17:28

INSTALLAWARDS 09

June 2015

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement trophy at the InstallAwards 2015 will be presented to Greg Jeffreys, founder and CEO of Paradigm. We’ve spoken to him previously about his time as an officer of InfoComm International, including being the association’s first president from outside North America; here he talks about his work in industry standards and education Greg Jeffreys says he started his academic work as a sideline many years ago. “The drivers for me were fairly basic and commercial: I was selling fancy screens that you could see in side-by-side analysis were superior to other screens, but I wanted some numbers to prove their relative merits.”

This sideline got a boost when he was asked by UMIST (now University of Manchester) to write a module for an MSC degree.

Around the same time, Paradigm’s involvement in rear-projection led Jeffreys to work with dnp’s management team: “They have the most incredible labs and test facilities; as a self-taught engineer it was very inspiring. My particular angle [into standards work] was asking questions from the point of view of a user – and it became clear that there was some work that needed to be done there.

“We formed some

communications across its entertainment venues.

Education

Best Project Award Cardiff Business School postgraduate study centre – GV Multi-media The centre aims to develop a collaborative business environment with highlights including collaborative desks and two custom LED tickers displaying stock information.

Carlo Anti High School – Vivitek

07-10 Install180 InstallAwards_Final.indd 3

committees – with integrators and consultants, mainly from the UK and northern Europe – to look at producing either a standard or some best practice work. From that I wrote a best practice paper that is still in use today.”

The Projected Image Systems Contrast Ratio ANSI standard came about for a number of reasons, he says. Once InfoComm had become a registered standards development organisation with ANSI, it was hoped that Jeffreys’ existing work around projector contrast could be developed into a standard fairly quickly. “In fact it took us a bit longer than we wanted – such is the nature of committee work.” Additionally there was some confusion in the market, “because the contrast ratios that projector manufacturers quote – what a projector can pump out – are very

A collaborative learning zone has been created in the school to promote creativity featuring BYOD capability enabling students to share content from different devices.

Leicester BSF Project – CDEC The council received funding to rebuild/remodel every secondary school in the city, integrating bespoke and futureproof AV solutions.

National Judicial College – Kramer The fully integrated

different from the contrast ratios that apply to an image.”

Now the standard is central to Paradigm’s business, “because we’re building systems that can achieve the quite exacting contrast ratios that that standard demands”.

He sees potential for other companies to use standards to raise their game as well. “InfoComm promulgates standards in general as they enable designers and resellers to operate at a higher professional level. Those who care to skill up on them can get all kind of competitive advantages – and that’s important in an industry where margins are being eroded on what seems like a daily basis.”

That aspect, he stresses, is “just part of a bigger picture” for InfoComm.

And how does he feel about receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award? “I’m delighted and

system provides the college’s mock courtroom with reliable communication through each room with the touchscreen panel switching any signal to any location.

Star Product Award Atlona AT-PRO2HD88M – City University of Hong Kong The matrix used has upgraded the classroom AV system to send video, audio, IR and RS-232 signals over one cable and

Greg Jeffreys

a bit dazed. It’s really very exciting. Because I’m self taught, there’s a part of me that’s always expecting to get found out – but I seem to have got away with it so far. Being on the board of InfoComm was the professional achievement that meant the most to me; after I came off the board, although I was desperately glad to get my life back, I did miss it a bit, because I worked with some incredible people, both on the InfoComm staff and

allows future modification.

Crestron CaptureHD Pro – Austrian agricultural training college The AV system was built around this streaming and capturing solution, which can stream and record from all main rooms.

Panasonic PT-RZ370 – Kingston University The existing stock has been replaced with 170 Panasonic projectors across the university, which emit less heat and noise and provide 20,000 hours of maintenance-free use.

the other volunteers. Life has changed a lot for me since then professionally: I sold control of Simulation Displays at the tail-end of last year – I’m still involved as a major shareholder – but I’ve effectively refreshed my relationship with Paradigm, we’ve refreshed the business plan and we’re starting again. It’s a funny mixed feeling: Paradigm’s going through a new lease of life, and now I get this old geezer’s award. But I’m genuinely honoured.”

Kramer VS-162V and VS-3232DN – National Judicial College Vivitek NovoConnect – Carlo Anti High School

Residential

Best Project Award Bismarck, North Dakota install – Atlona Every family member now has access to media entertainment through their own suite with full control of all 14 displays from the master bedroom.

22/05/2015 17:28

10 INSTALLAWARDS June 2015

Kingston upon Thames – KNX Controls/Ivory Egg To create this integrated home solution, a faulty control system was replaced with a smart home system to control lighting and heating reliably and efficiently through touch keypads.

Home in Naples – RTI An all-inclusive home automation system was installed in this apartment providing control of the home’s electronic systems as well as a number of AV entertainment components.

Surrey Family Home – ClearSphere The fully integrated control system provides control of AV, heating and lighting on a room-by-room or floorplan overview basis.

Star Product Award Basalte Sentido – Kingston upon Thames Atlona AT-PRO2HD1616M – Bismarck, North Dakota install Crestron TSW-1050 touchscreen – Surrey Family Home

Corporate and Industrial

Best Project Award

Fédération Nationale du Crédit Agricole – Analog Way A renewal of the bank’s AV system, which would allow the client to display at least three sources all operated through a single touchscreen.

Humberside Police Station – Revolabs To improve record keeping around firearm use by the police, the command centre chose a recording solution that provided failsafe audio capture capabilities with a series of customisation features.

Jaguar Land Rover Experience – Holovis

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Jaguar Land Rover’s Warwickshire HQ fitted a three-phase virtual reality experience including a VR Cave that can amend product designs in real time.

Sky Sports News HQ – Shooting Partners For this project a new camera set was needed with 24/7 capability that could ensure all the different types of displays matched on camera.

Vantaan Energia – Genelec Visitor centre of the new waste-to-energy plant features interactive exhibits and scale models to help visitors understand the plant’s processes.

Star Product Award K-array KZ12 – Royal Automobile Club, Mountbatten Room The loudspeaker system met all the demands delivering a natural sound, seamless coverage and the ultra miniaturised line-array element suited the room’s architecture.

SiliconCore Peony 2.6 with anti moiré filter – NRK broadcast studio The LED wall features Common Cathode rather than Common Anode technology to drive the LEDs and generates brightness in a more efficient way.

Analog Way AW VideoCompositor – Fédération Nationale du Crédit Agricole Holovis VR CAVE – Jaguar Land Rover Experience

Hospitality

Best Project Award Avalon Hollywood – Powersoft The subwoofer system installed in this nightclub is an advanced system tailored to the lower frequency range while

producing a cleaner and clearer sound.

Oliveto Restaurant and Café – Meyer Sound The active and passive acoustics from Meyer Sound create a precisely calibrated acoustic environment within the restaurant.

Quaglinos – SSE Audio Group The London restaurant installed an invisible audio system for background music, live music and DJs, which also needed to solve the acoustic challenges that the old system struggled with.

Star Product Award K-array Kobra/KK Series – Quaglinos Meyer Sound Libra Acoustic Image System – Oliveto Restaurant and Café Powersoft M-Force technology – Avalon Hollywood

Retail, Transport and Public Space Best Project Award

Melbourne Central – Nanolumens This eye-catching DOOH display is the largest 6mm NanoSlim LED portrait display ever installed.

Melissa’s London – Intevi Imaginative deployment of 3.9mm LED panels has produced a show-stopping retail backdrop.

Shell digital signage network in Turkey – BrightSign The country’s biggest out-of-home advertising network is planned to roll out to over 1,000 locations.

South Bank Tower HD Projection – Inition This ultra-realistic panoramic installation was designed to show customers the view of the London skyline that would

be available from luxury penthouses still under construction.

World Duty Free Store, Heathrow Terminal 2 – Blynk Digital Media A suite of AV technologies to deliver the ‘retail theatre’ aspect of airside shopping were designed, supplied, installed, commissioned and are being maintained by Blynk.

Estádio da Luz – Bosch Security Systems

Star Product Award Absen LED AIO3 – Melissa’s London Harkness Translite Grey rear-projection surfaces – South Bank Tower HD Projection LedGO flexible LED panels – World Duty Free Store, Heathrow Terminal 2 Nanolumens NanoSlim – Melbourne Central

Team of the Year

2M Audio / Tingo Gmbh / Auviso AG – KKL Lucerne Fixing an unsatisfactory concert hall installation by including additional d&b audiotechnik speakers resulted in an original solution.

Heijman / Felix Clark Dick / Bruns / Rapenburg Plaza / Kossmann.dejong – National Military Museum This integrated lighting design, multimedia, audio and show control system was a year in the making.

7th Sense Design / Industrial Light and Magic / ITEC Corporation / Wincomn – Wuhan Movie Park Auerbach Pollock Friedlander / Meyer Sound / BBI Engineering – Soundbox at the San Francisco Symphony CDEC / Capita / Leicester City Council – Leicester BSF Project

Vivitek NovoConnect – Carlo Anti High School

Kingston upon Thames – Ivory Egg

Oliveto Restaurant and Café – Meyer Sound

Vantaan Energia – Genelec

Absen LED AIO3 – Melissa’s London

www.installawards.com

22/05/2015 17:28

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12 UPDATE June 2015

Bright side Lighting Technology Projects (LTP) has completed a 27-storey architectural lighting scheme on The Tower in Brentford, Middlesex, one of the tallest interactive sculptures in Europe.

LTP designed, supplied and installed the spine lighting solution for The Tower, comprising 53 horizontal runs of six point sources of light at 1m intervals up the north side of the building. In addition, LTP designed a cable containment system to support the feature lighting, consisting of 396 RGB IP67-rated LED spotlights (Traxon/ Osram’s LED Dot6 String) powered by 13

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LED drivers. The company integrated Traxon Technologies’ Lighting Control Engine mx for control with built-in e:cue software paired with two Butler S2 units.

During the installation, LTP’s engineers used a window cleaner’s basket that was suspended from above and lowered down the face of The Tower.

The energy-efficient development includes 178 apartments and has an internal area of 13,600sqm. www.ltprojects.com

21/05/2015 14:44

UPDATE 13

June 2015

Sea change Royal Caribbean International´s Anthem of the Seas cruise ship turned to Amptown System Company (ASC) to design and integrate a multifaceted entertainment system for the ship’s Two70° venue. ASC has been charged with refurbishing 40 entertainment centres on Royal Caribbean’s Quantum-class cruise ships, which are among the largest in the world.

In the Two70°, six RoboScreen LED walls create visualisations from projections and control image content on the floor-to-ceiling window surfaces, which have 64 light sensors integrated into the frames. Before the show starts, the sun shields that serve as the projection surfaces are rolled down, via the rolling screen system, known as Vistarama.

The image content is geometrically adapted for the

surface by 18 Panasonic projectors.

The image, which has a resolution of 12,480 x 2,280 and a projection size of 36m x 6m, is generated using a Pandoras Box media server and coolux Widget Designer show control software, which can adjust content in three dimensions in real time. www.amptown-system.com

New Partners Gefen has appointed CommTec as the master distributor of its products throughout Central Europe. The company has distributed Gefen products throughout Europe for many years and will now provide centralised support and services for all Gefen solutions in the region. www.comm-tec.de www.gefen.com

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RV Sun Acoustics has been named as the distributor of Pan Acoustics products in China.

The Beijing-based distributor will handle the German manufacturer’s Pan Beam family of self-powered speakers and the Pan Speaker passive range.

Kling & Freitag Americas Inc, a new distribution company based in Montreal, Canada, has celebrated its launch with the announcement that it has taken on exclusive distribution rights for German loudspeaker brand Kling & Freitag throughout Canada, the US and Mexico. The intention is to develop the brand throughout this region.

As part of the reorganisation of the sales structure, GLP and FOCON Showtechnic have entered into a programme of wide-ranging cooperation, including product distribution for the German market. Consequently all GLP products are available with immediate effect from Lotte-based FOCON Showtechnic.

www.jyrs.com www.pan-acoustics.de

www.kling-freitag.de www.kling-freitag-americas.com

www.focon-showtechnic.com www.glp.de

21/05/2015 17:01

14 UPDATE June 2015

Tell us your audio networking experiences RH Consulting’s recent white paper The death of analogue and the rise of audio networking included detailed research on the number of networked audio products available for different networking protocols. While CobraNet was found to be the leader, because of its heritage in the industry, Dante was not far behind and, with a far greater rate of product introductions, was set to take the lead position before long: based on the growing number of Dante licensees, RH Consulting predicts 130% growth in the number of Dante-equipped products over the next two years.

So the industry is poised on the edge of explosive growth in audio networking.

However, as Roland Hemming wrote in our March issue, “The biggest challenge for digital audio networking is to get people to use it over conventional analogue connections.”

Installation has teamed up with RH Consulting and Audinate to help progress the next stage of this analysis. We want to build up a picture of the extent to which audio networking is currently used, and find out more about real-life attitudes to it.

This is where we would like your help.

We’ve published a survey form on the Installation website. If you’re involved in audio projects, we’d like to know what you think about digital audio networking, how much you’ve used it to

14 Install180 Update_Final.indd 1

date, and how much you’re likely to use it in the near future. If you’ve used the technology, what advantages do you think it brings? If you’ve only dabbled in networking so far, what might make you use it more? And if there’s a protocol you’re not keen on using, what don’t you like about it?

The form can be found at www.installation-international.com/audio-ntwksurvey. You don’t need to give your name if you don’t want to.

As an incentive for completing the survey, an Apple Watch Sport (38mm white model) will be given to one randomly selected respondent.

Don’t delay – survey entries close on Friday 19 June. www.audinate.com www.rhconsulting.eu

26/05/2015 14:27

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5/12/2015 9:49:47 AM

16 APPOINTMENTS June 2015

LIGHTWARE USA

Adamson

Four new hires to sales and technical staff

Jasper Ravesteijn has been named European sales manager for Adamson Systems Engineering. He will work with Jochen Sommer, director of European operations, to manage sales and support for new and existing customers in Europe, Russia and Africa. He brings more than 20 years of pro-audio experience.

New faces to support growth at the US distributor for Lightware Visual Engineering

L

ightware USA, the US distributor for Lightware Visual Engineering products, has announced four new hires, Chris Auger, Olya Luke (pictured), Brad Spurgeon and Jim Kosmerick. The new employees fill sales, marketing and technical roles at the rapidly expanding firm.

Auger joins as regional sales executive/ Central US. For the past five years he served as inspection manager and in sales, marketing and training posts at Crane Technologies Group.

Luke comes on board as regional sales executive/western US. A graduate in civil engineering at the University of Belgrade, Luke most recently was an account executive with Toshiba.

Peerless-AV

Spurgeon is Lightware USA’s new technical support specialist. He has been working as a freelance media producer and technical advisor and also spent time as technical support/operator for Sonitrol.

Kosmerick comes to Lightware USA as director of marketing. Kosmerick, who has over 17 years of marketing experience, will lead the company’s marketing strategy and implementation efforts including advertising, promotions, public relations, digital and social media strategy, marketing partnerships and companywide branding initiatives. Additionally, he will oversee the monitoring of KPIs, digital trends and marketing analytics.

www.adamsonsystems.com

Clear-Com Ann Williams has joined Clear-Com as director of sales Asia-Pacific. She comes from Envivio where she held various regional sales roles. In addition to the south-east Asia region, Williams will have supervisory responsibility for the China and India markets as well as Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

www.clearcom.com

EAW Frank Lokyo has returned to EAW as vice president of North American sales. Lokyo began his career at EAW before moving on to holding sales roles at Loud Technologies, TC Group Americas and Digidesign/Avid Technologies.

www.lightwareusa.com

Nanolumens

www.eaw.com

Customer support team expanded

Focus on business development

New hires to enhance trade and logistics processes

Two appointments confirm company’s global outlook

Peerless-AV has expanded its customer support team with the addition of Reuben Dayan as sales administrator for UK and Europe’s German-speaking countries (DACH region), and David Pelletier as business development representative for France and Spain.

Fluent in German and practised in multiple other languages, including Italian, French, Japanese and Mandarin, Dayan will be working with customers in the UK and DACH to manage and fulfill orders, monitor stock levels, and ensure on-time delivery.

Pelletier joins as a native Frenchspeaking sales support representative to assist with business development in France. Also fluent in English and Spanish, his remit includes business development and product marketing translation assistance for Spain as well.

Burt Smith has been named executive vice president for business development while Karen Robinson moves to focus on the company’s mergers and acquisitions initiatives.

Nanolumens says Smith comes with the global business development experience it needs to achieve its sales objectives in the UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia, as well as North America. He has more than 25 years of sales, marketing and operations experience as well as strong international channel sales development experience in the UK, EU, Middle East and China.

Robinson has been executive vice president of sales and marketing since 2010. She will be charged with identifying companies and technologies that complement and extend Nanolumens’ offering.

www.peerless-av.com

www.nanolumens.com

16 Install180 Appts_Final.indd 1

IDEA Joan La Roda has been appointed senior loudspeaker designer at IDEA. A telecommunications engineer and an audio professional with more than 25 years’ experience in several fields in the audio industry, from live sound to loudspeaker design, La Roda has travelled the world providing audio training and seminars to professionals within the audio industry.

www.ideaproaudio.com

Martin Audio Richard Van Haim is the latest addition to the UK sales force at Martin Audio. He has been appointed account manager, working alongside Al Brown. Van Haim joins from Martin dealer LMC Audio.

www.martin-audio.com

21/05/2015 12:47

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5/13/2015 9:49:35 AM 12/03/2015 17:24

18 OPINION: ON THE HORIZON June 2015

Rob Lane

Flying the global flag Installation on a global scale, integrated and efficient

I

t’s a well-worn cliché, but we live in a small world. A world where, thanks largely to the internet and more effective videoconferencing, we can conduct business easily and efficiently from anywhere and with anybody. For many global businesses the reduced requirement for air travel is thanks to AV installers who are creating the appropriate technological environments for effective and efficient virtual communication, with the best possible videoconferencing applications and hardware. For large, multinational corporations, these ‘collaboration suites’ are a necessity and a burgeoning market for installers.

But how do integrators themselves reduce the need for costly air travel? For one-country operations (let’s assume the UK) doing business abroad, the emails, calls and videoconferences will – assuming a deal has been done virtually – inevitably lead to one thing: flights. And these won’t just carry human cargo; a deal in Dubai will lead to integrator staff being accompanied by some, if not all, of the necessary equipment to get the job done. This could end up being expensive and very complicated in terms of support networks, equipment sourcing on the ground, and so on. And if this project leads to a second, cloned installation at the Dubaibased business’s New York office, how does the London-based installer ensure that the installations are exact replicas of each other?

Tricky.

However, there are a small number of global integrator alliances working together to provide solutions, services and support for their clients across the globe. One huge, renowned videoconferencing-facing and

18 Install180 Opinion 1_Final.indd 1

‘business acceleration’ alliance, Dimension Data, has offices in dozens of countries, with many boasting sub-offices. So, corporations looking to accelerate their global business with interactive solutions can be confident that the results from Dimension Data will be consistent across all regional offices.

Global presence More modest in size and scope than Dimension Data, but no less ambitious and growing year on year, is the Global Presence Alliance (GPA). Working more broadly in AV (including consumer electronics), but with IT and unified communications – videoconferencing – also key offers, the GPA is a growing alliance of AV integrators working together to provide a “streamlined, consistent approach to the deployment of audiovisual and videoconferencing technology on a global basis”. The GPA consists of a framework of global expertise and is committed to sharing best practices across members to guarantee a consistent customer experience, regardless of location.

“We provide a sole-source solutions approach to global AV delivery, bringing greater simplicity through a consolidated service operation,” recently appointed Alliance programme director Mike Stead told me. “Combining technology and services from around the world, our members provide new and existing customers a means of creating worldwide strategies. GPA customers benefit from gains in operational efficiency by having a single global contact for design, engineering, integration and ongoing maintenance of their technology systems.”

Comprising 19 members across 30 countries

and 170 cities with approximately 3,500 employees, and with combined AV revenue in excess of $1 billion, the GPA is looking to expand. Additional members have just been announced for Russia and Argentina, and according to Stead more will follow throughout 2015. Notable Alliance members include US integrators Whitlock, UK-based Feltech, Ayno in Italy, Germany’s Global Media Services and ProAV Solutions in Australia.

The latter was responsible, as part of the GPA, for The Cube at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), featured in these pages in 2013 and pictured above: the world’s biggest interactive multi-touch installation and the largest continuous array of unlimited touch displays. Twenty 55in multi-touch displays edge-blended with a projection system create a two-storey representation of the Great Barrier Reef, while around the back of The Cube, an additional 24 multi-touch displays create further educational zones.

Had there been a requirement for a Cube installation elsewhere in the world, a GPA member would have been able to deliver the same experience as seen at the QUT. “The Cube was a very challenging installation in just one member country,” Stead explained. “But this is just the sort of challenge the GPA rises to, and our mission is to ensure that the size of the world is no barrier to consistency and efficiency of installation.” The airlines would doubtless approve of this ‘global village’ mentality.

Rob Lane is founder/managing director of Bigger Boat PR Ltd, the UK-based specialist media agency with the global reach.

21/05/2015 12:52

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5/19/2015 9:36:52 AM

20 OPINION: ON SITE June 2015

Liam Norris

Choosing the right videowall There are numerous factors to consider when selecting videowall solutions

O

ver the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the use of videowalls in many applications.

Due to their size, they have a high visual impact and are a great way for an organisation to get its message across.

Alongside this, applications such as command and control, oil and gas exploration, and showrooms have all contributed to the growing popularity of videowalls. Today’s digital videowall solutions are ideal for dynamic digital signage and informational display needs.

New technology has been a key driving force for this growth as it has become more widely available, and more affordable for the end-user. In the main, there are two different types of display for an integrator to choose from: LCD and LED, which is emerging as a powerful alternative to the traditional choice. As flatpanel displays become ever cheaper, their appeal to end-users for use in large videowalls has increased. Manufacturers have responded by decreasing, and in some cases eliminating, bezels around the display modules, to enable uninterrupted screens to be created.

Also these units contain the hardware necessary to stack similar screens together, along with connections for power, video and signals between screens. Videowalls made of LCD displays can be limited by the size of the panels available as they come in standard sizes. With LED displays, you have a smaller building block so that it is possible to be more creative and flexible with the size of your finished display.

Obviously a prime requirement when choosing a videowall is what is the client going to be using the display for? The type of application is crucial in the specification process. Depending

20 Install180 Opinion 2a_Final.indd 1

on whether it is a retail application, boardroom environment, or a large command and control room, the type of content displayed will vary significantly; for instance, it could be images, text or a combination of both. Viewers should be able to easily read text or see images at all intended viewing distances without eyestrain. The level of detail required will affect the level of resolution for the display technology chosen. The image quality available with LED is impressive, with 3.9mm pixel pitch considered as an entry level before stepping up to pixel densities of 2mm then 1mm. The vibrant images created by the high brightness, contrast and colour combined with a truly seamless display deliver visual performance that is hard to equal.

Another consideration is location – where will the screen be placed? When considering legibility, it is important to take into account the viewing distances and the size of space that is available. Furthermore, location also comes into play for maintenance and serviceability. It is important not to overlook the requirement for rear access for LED screens, and LCD ventilation needs will have to be factored in. Also this point brings into play factors around reliability: the failure of an LCD panel will result in the need for a complete replacement, while if an LED module fails on a videowall it is possible to repair down to component level.

The importance of proper site evaluation before the specification of the technology should not be underestimated. Of course, the client may

also have special requirements. For example, the desire for an interactive display, capable of communicating and reacting to the audience, such as a touchscreen or with gesture-based motion sensors.

In short it all comes down to functionality required, location and of course, budget. From a cost perspective, the higher the resolution of the LED screen, the higher the cost – but equally the more impactful the display may be. My advice is to do your research – go to a location where you can experience the different technologies, side-by-side for proper independent comparison.

The PSCo Assessment Centre is the only place in the UK where you can review the very latest high-definition LED and LCD display technologies, side by side: if you’re buying a visual solution, it is best to see it perform so you can compare your choices to know which one is right for you.

Liam Norris is a product manager at PSCo. www.psco.co.uk

21/05/2015 17:05

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21/05/2015 18:34:48

22 OPINION: ON THE AGENDA June 2015

Manfred Freiberger Bridging the divide

A new partnership aims to help European manufacturers break into the US market

T

hrough my two-and-a-half decades working in the international AV industry, I have noticed an increasing number of unique and high-quality products that are manufactured in Europe. Yet few of these products are marketed within the US. I have found multiple reasons for European AV manufacturers to be reluctant to enter the US market. They face numerous daunting challenges: communication, gaining name recognition, brand awareness, sales implementation, ordering logistics, warehousing of products and technical support. Another major concern is that the business/sales model that applies in the US is totally different from that in Europe. While European AV products are sold through distributors, US AV sales are channelled primarily through dealers and integrators, who for the most part purchase their products for resale and integration directly from the manufacturer. There are a few distributors, but dealers and integrators in the US prefer an open communication and relationship with the factory via factory personnel or independent manufacturers’ representatives.

I believe I have found a solution – by going into partnership with a company that already provides assistance to US manufacturers.

Founded in 2013, Successful Sales Consulting assists in the recruiting, training and co-ordinating of efforts of regional independent manufacturer representative firms for the purpose of creating and building the US AV dealer/integrator channel. The company further facilitates dialogue and discovery to clarify channels, analyse the competition and define marketing strategies. By collaborating with AV

22 Install180 Opinion 3_Final.indd 1

manufacturers, specific goals, objectives and programmes are created, which give management an opportunity to measure the results.

I have now set up a partnership to expand Successful Sales Consulting, so that it can offer assistance and guidance to European manufacturers of AV-related products, to give them a fast, effective and sustainable entry into the US market. The challenges mentioned above, among many others, are all made easier with the US-based professional services that we offer.

Successful Sales Consulting was founded by my friend and associate Ron DeVoe, after over 35 years in channel development. Ron has contacts throughout the ‘AV rep’ network and fully understands the role of the independent representative and how to build a strong partnership between representatives and manufacturers. The combination of our collective experience, both internationally and domestically, will be a great resource for our clients.

As a native German, with over 25 years in the AV industry, I bring multilingual expertise and technical experience, having worked internationally with a variety of AV manufacturers.

As founder of MCF and AVCom, I specialised in developing new markets while conceiving and implementing innovative approaches.

Successful Sales Consulting’s other services

will include pre-and after-sales support, product and sales training, and support for consultants and architects. It will also offer US-based order handling and processing, warehousing, shipping and tracking, and technical support.

ISE is just barely over and InfoComm is fast approaching. We have found that despite having presence at these major trade shows, manufacturers that are new to a market have time-sensitive ROI issues that can be greatly stalled without the correct strategy, personnel and market understanding. It is exciting to be able to offer manufacturers such wide-reaching services and benefits.

Manfred Freiberger has over 25 years of AV industry experience, including as founder of MCF and AVCom. www.successfulsalesconsulting.com

21/05/2015 12:58

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21/05/2015 17:53 17:30 21/05/2015

24 INTERVIEW: TONI BARNETT, ANDY DUCKWORTH, CDEC June 2015

Sun, sea – and sales

Not many integrators arrange for 70 staff, suppliers and members of the press, and £100,000 worth of equipment, to be flown to a sunny location for a sales conference – but that’s just what CDEC did last month. Paddy Baker packed his overnight bag and caught up with the duo at the top of the company We’re here at your sales and suppliers conference in Mallorca. How long have you been doing these events, and why do you do them?

Andy Duckworth: This is our third sales and suppliers conference. We’ve been doing it since 2011, but in between that we’ve been doing sales conferences for our own people – I think we’ve done 12 now. We see teamwork and team bonding, and sales increase massively after sales conferences. The sales and supplier conferences are about making partnerships – what we see afterwards is suppliers can phone our salespeople up and have a rapport immediately.

How would you describe those social and networking aspects?

Toni Barnett: Very tiring! It’s nice to have that relationship with suppliers. Business is about relationships – people buy from people You’re selling to your suppliers as you’re selling to your customers – it’s about them having the confidence that you can deliver what they need.

AD: Even at sociable times, conversation revolves around products. We all want to increase business, and networking in a relaxed atmosphere really helps.

How would you characterise your position in the market, and how does this event help to move the company forward?

TB: CDEC has been going 15 years – we sell to education, although we have one or two corporate customers. The FE and HE sector isn’t new to us, but previously we weren’t on any [supplier] framework agreements. Now we’re on a framework it allows us to drive our company in the direction we want to grow it – it’s in our growth plan and has been for the past five years.

We wanted to apply for the framework five years ago, but withdrew as we weren’t ready for it as an organisation. We applied again last summer and the results were announced in January.

Now we’re ready, we need to go into this contract with a different strategy. Rather than trying to tender for everything, you’ve got to pick your battles as the tenders are so complex.

Can you explain how the framework works?

AD: It’s organised by purchasing groups – HEPCW

24-25 Install180 Interview_Final.indd 1

(Higher Education Purchasing Consortium, Wales), LUPC (London University Purchasing Consortium) and SUPC (Southern University Purchasing Consortium) – although it can be used by any university. The framework is split into three categories: supply only (lot 1), supply and install (lot 2) and supply, install and design (lot 3) – I think there’s a grey area between the last two. The universities decide which lot to choose, and send out a tender to the relevant suppliers. We’ve had 68 tenders in a month. So you still have to tender for the work, but if we weren’t on the framework we wouldn’t get the opportunity.

How did you get onto the framework?

AD: We had to tender! Possibly the biggest tender I’ve seen in my life – it took us four months. It was a tender for each lot: there were specific questions, there was a price exercise, but also a quality exercise – do you have CTS qualifications, PRINCE 2 qualifications, ISO 14001, what are your processes for this and that, and so on. The good news for us is that we came top, out of all these established AV companies in that sector.

When we were talking to Extron just now you mentioned getting some of your people CTS accredited and Extron trained. Is that an ongoing process as the company develops?

AD: Absolutely – you’ve got to do training.

TB: It’s a lot of investment – when you release people to go on those training courses, even if it’s only for a couple of days, you’ve still got tenders coming in and customers to support.

It’s about finding the right time to do all of this.

We’ve just got a contract and thought ‘this is going to be brilliant’ and suddenly voom! It’s all coming at us and we’re having to duck. It’s great – and one thing about CDEC is we rise to a challenge.

AD: We’re also honest about what we do. If

we don’t think we’re working to our full potential, we’ll say so, and that we plan to get there. Part of this conference has been looking for help and expertise, and sharing good practices.

We’ve got some good manufacturers who want to get behind us.

TB: And we’ve got some really good people working for us as well. We wouldn’t be where we are today without good, passionate salespeople – we don’t have a high turnover of staff. Yesterday I kept hearing people say ‘CDEC family’ – and that’s what we are.

AD: We’re a sales-driven organisation, and we understand that our business has to grow.

We’ve got a clear aim: we want to be the biggest university AV supplier in two years, and the biggest education AV supplier in two years – and we’ll get there.

21/05/2015 17:13

INTERVIEW: TONI BARNETT, ANDY DUCKWORTH, CDEC 25

June 2015

How do you think you’re seen in the market by your customers and your competitors?

TB: I think the perception from our suppliers is that we are driven, and we deliver to them. Our competitors don’t like it because we have that ethos of passion and desire, and they see something a little different about us.

It creates issues because people have perceptions of us. We’re not about driving the price down – we’ve never been about that. We compete with a couple of companies that are doing deals at cost and just take the rebates back. That’s a ludicrous situation – none of us want to play in that game.

AD: I think it’s change.

When you’re comfortable on a contract and you’ve got the same suppliers year after year, and then you have the new kids on the block who have proved what they can do over 15 years, and they’re customer

focused… I think the competition are worried. Which is good fun…

How do you cope with the enormous seasonality of the education market?

AD: We’ve always wanted a flat-rate company, where we have the same

income each month, but it’s never been like that, it’s always been seasonal. The amount of installs we do in the summer is phenomenal.

We have a fantastic network of installers, but we don’t use an installer if we don’t know them, and they’re not allowed to subcontract unless we look at their work. Every installation we do has been audited by our special projects manager.

To answer your question – we’re used to it. We don’t want to do it like this, but in education, it’s what we know, it’s what we’re good at – we just have to accept it. We bring in loads of strategies but it’s always seasonal and we just get on with it. And we’ve never failed yet.

Toni, you’re the MD – Andy, you’re the founder: beyond that, how would you describe your roles and responsibilities?

TB: We’ve worked together for about 20 years, and I’ve worked for CDEC for 12. We have a very good synergy between us – nobody is better at selling our business than us because we are the business – we create the passion, the desire – but we do it very much between us. Sometimes I might look at something and think I don’t like it, but once I sound it off I see a different point of view, and vice versa. It grounds you to run the business in the right way. Though I take the role, we run it together.

At the conference you’ve got suppliers here, some of whom are manufacturers, some are distributors. Does that approach cause any tensions?

Toni Barnett and Andy Duckworth – brief biographies During his career as a maths and IT teacher, Andy Duckworth was one of the first users of interactive whiteboards He launched CDEC in 2000, and was also managing director of 3Ducation between 2009 and 2012 Toni Barnett worked in sales roles in the computer industry for Elonex and Tiny PC before joining CDEC as managing director in 2003

24-25 Install180 Interview_Final.indd 2

AD: We’ve got a number of projector manufacturers here – they’re all in competition with each other, and would prefer it if the others weren’t here. Plus we’ve got a number of distributors, some of whom are selling the same brands. But we want them all as our partners – there are 19 suppliers here, all hand-chosen, and if we can spread the business across them, that’s what we want to do.

The manufacturers talk to us and push their products, but then

they aren’t really worried which distributor we go to. Whereas the distributors will say, “You buy that manufacturer, why don’t you buy from us?” Well, why would we?

That’s value-added stuff that they need to talk to us about.

Is there a lot of bespoking in education projects, or do you find that a system you put into school A will also go into school B? TB: I think they are relatively similar, but the market is changing: it’s about interactive touchscreens rather than projection.

AD: Our Leicester project last year comprised 16 schools in a council-run project. You might think that all those schools would have similar set-ups, but you couldn’t be further from the truth. One school would have an interactive projector from maybe Epson, another would have NEC, another would have touch technology – there was no consistency because it was down to the schools to decide, which I thought was an interesting approach. Other authorities, such as Telford & Wrekin, have basically done the work themselves, found out the best solution for their schools and their IT infrastructure, and deployed that right across the county.

As an integrator, are you getting more into services and recurring revenues?

AD: We’ve got quite a lot of maintenance contracts out there.

We’d like to increase it. Sometimes in some educational contracts, maintenance is expected as part of your rollout.

TB: Recurring revenue is a must.

Some companies – including one of our competitors – focus everything on recurring revenue. For us it’s about finding the happy medium: making sure that those services sit where they need to, and not just charging for the sake of charging.

That’s your value-add – particularly in education where maintenance is expected as part of our service.

www.cdec.co.uk

21/05/2015 17:13

26 INDUSTRY DATA June 2015

Solid demand for solid state The use of solid-state light engines in projectors will rise over the next five years, starting with high-brightness devices and spreading to lower-output projectors as production costs fall, discovers Steve Montgomery Demand for solid-state illumination (SSI) projectors across all application segments is high, but is greatest in installation and large-venue devices.

SSI currently represents 2% of projector sales over 5,000 lumens, and is set to rise rapidly following several recent launches of higher brightness models from major projector manufacturers. Demand in this sector can be largely attributed to feature benefits presented by SSI, and less to the total cost of ownership advantages commonly cited by end users in more mainstream applications.

Mass adoption will gradually filter down to lower brightness levels as SSI ranges begin to match lampbased models in resolution and brightness. However, this impact will be largely retained within high-end applications as entry- to midlevels of the market will continue to be dominated by capex.

Consequently, SSI is forecast to hit only 10% of projector sales by 2019, but will rise significantly as economies of scale allow cheaper SSI-based products to be distributed.

Solid-state projector light engine types – worldwide, 2014

25% 3%

72%

LED/Laser-Phosphor Laser-Phosphor RGB LED

www.futuresource-consulting.com

68%

Growth of SSI in worldwide projector shipments 2,000 1,800

Expected level of worldwide installation and large-venue projectors that will be SSI by 2019

1,600

(Volume, 000s)

1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0

2014

26 Install180 Industry Data 1_Final.indd 1

2015*

2016*

2017*

2018*

2019*

Source: Futuresource Consulting *=Forecast

21/05/2015 17:21

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21/05/2015 11:59:03

28 INDUSTRY DATA June 2015

A clear picture As TV manufacturers look to enhance TV features and picture quality, Steve Montgomery considers the likely effect on sales LCD TV makers are responding to the challenge of OLED with quantum dot, curved screens and other innovations. Quantum dot technology delivers more faithful images, which are very close to the full viewable range of the human eye and benefit all screen sizes. Shipments are expected to rise from 1.3 million in 2015 to 18.7 million in 2018. Curved TV screens are a popular feature, but have limited opportunity for growth and sales are expected to peak at 8.2 million in 2016.

“New 4K UHD services promise to encourage another round of innovation, as content creators bring richer, deeper colours to their art,” says Paul Gray, director of European research at DisplaySearch.

ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020 specifies colours that promise a new level of fidelity beyond the range of current high-definition TVs. “While broadcasters and cinematographers have begun to capture such images, the TV industry has just started to respond to the challenge,” Gray says.

8.2 million Expected peak in worldwide sales of curved TVs, 2016

Quantum Dot TV shipment forecast by region (millions of units) 20 18 16 14

www.displaysearch.com

12 10

Curved TV sales forecast by technology (millions of units)

8 6 4

2014 2K LCD 4K OLED

2015*

2 0

2016*

2017*

2015*

2016*

2017*

2018*

Japan

China

North America

Asia Pacific

Western Europe

Latin America

Eastern Europe

Middle East and Africa

2018* 0

2

28 Install180 Industry Data 2_Final.indd 1

4

6

8

10

Source: www.displaysearch.com * = Forecast

21/05/2015 12:59

See it at infoComm Stand #2243

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5/19/2015 2:40:00 PM 19/05/2015 14:29

30 DATA: REGIONAL VOICES June 2015

FRANCE

Although the Eurozone’s second-largest economy has struggled for some time to reduce its deficit to within the EU limit of 3%, business confidence has reportedly improved in recent months. Meanwhile, our survey takes the temperature of the installation market How do you think your company’s revenue will change over the next 12 months?

Reduce by up to 5%:

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To what extent do these challenges apply to your business?

What advice would you give to a manufacturer looking to enter the AV installation market in your country?

‘Hire French staff with at least five years’ experience. Concentrate on a businessto-business approach. Limit the number of distributors to two key companies.’ …and to an integrator looking to enter the market?

‘Don’t try to be innovative – prefer the “tested and approved” approach.’

If you could change one thing about the installation market in your country, what would it be?

‘Avoid unhealthy competition that pulls the market down, both on price and technically.’

30 Install180 Regional Voices_Final.indd 1

GREATLY Managing complex projects Getting paid on time Maintaining a good project pipeline without over- or under-committing people Cost pressures The need to expand into new vertical markets Ensuring staff keep up to date with the latest technologies Recruiting/retaining employees with the right level of skills

SLIGHTLY 21/05/2015 17:14

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32 SHOW PREVIEW: June 2015

The future’s in Orange InfoComm returns to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando – and visitors can expect to see some new features and technologies this year

I

nfoComm 2015 looks set to combine its familiar strengths with some innovative new features. On the familiar side, there will be a strong representation from the audio community, with over 250 exhibitors and, of course, demo rooms.

Unified communications and collaboration will also feature heavily, as will digital signage, worship technology and live events – not just on the showfloor but also on in the education programme.

Turning to the new elements of the programme: this year’s show sees more than 200 first-time InfoComm exhibitors, along with a new Innovations Showcase

– so it’s certain that it won’t just be the same-old same-old on display. And, picking up on one of the hot trends in AV at the moment, there will be a Drone Zone, which will offer seminars on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in applications beyond cinema and broadcast.

Additionally, the Tech Tour and InfoComm University programmes have been refreshed for 2015.

The show is also ringing the changes with its opening keynote: rather than a presentation from a single speaker, this year the event takes the form of a thought-leadership panel on the Internet of Things.

New York Times lead technology writer/reporter

Symetrix will show version 4.0 of SymNet Composer

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Nick Bilton will moderate a panel of senior executives from Cisco, Crestron, Harman and Samsung, who will talk about technologies and actionable ideas surrounding IoT, and share their views on growth potential, security and interoperability in this area.

Audio Turning to the showfloor, over 50 exhibitors at InfoComm will be showing products featuring Audinate’s Dante networking technology.

Audinate itself will be previewing its new Dante Via software application.

Dante Via is a PC- and Mac-based platform that can bridge all existing soundcards, allowing a wealth of applications and devices to be networked easily and inexpensively.

Any computer-connected USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt audio devices, such as local mics and interfaces, can be placed onto a Dante network, and Dante Via will even pick out

architecture design software for SymNet Edge and Radius Dante-scalable network audio DSPs. SymNet Composer 4.0 also offers full support for two new control options: the newly released ARC-3 wall panel remote, which incorporates a new capacitive touch interface with LED feedback; and an upgrade to Symetrix’ ARC-WEB browser-based control interface, which adds a dialler function to allow owners of iOS devices, Android phones,

audio from any networked Dante-enabled device wherever it’s routed.

Similar functionality comes from Attero Tech’s unDUSB Dante-to-USB bidirectional bridge, which is designed to integrate audio from a Windows PC or Mac into a Dante audio network. Applications include bridging audio from soft codecs like Skype or Microsoft Lync into an existing Dante audio system; or taking audio recorded on a PC or a Mac and reproducing it on a Dante audio system.

The unDUSB is powered either externally or via PoE, and can be Bogen will introduce Model CC4062MBT utilised by any application that can play to or record tablets and PCs to conduct from a USB soundcard. call dialling and command Configuration capabilities functions through their for unDUSB are among the SymNet DSP, without features offered by SymNet having to rely on Crestron Composer 4.0, the latest or AMX touchpanel version of Symetrix’ openmodules.

21/05/2015 14:52

Bogen Communications will introduce Model CC4062MBT, the latest model in the CC-Series of 40W compact amplifiers.

The model provides seven inputs (three Revolabs’ new conference phone will be on display mic/line, one aux, one tel, a built-in media player with EQ, as optimum use of the benefits well as Bluetooth source-pairing of the Revoluto technology, capability) and an MOH output. and products with horizontal In addition, it offers individual or vertical arrays can be used phantom power for mic inputs, depending on the request for volume controls for each input, design, room acoustics and PA priority muting, bass and treble system. In this way different controls, and a record output. situations and customer requests These amplifiers are half the can be met. width of conventional amplifiers, InfoComm will see the US making them suitable for debut of Redline, a family of installations with limited set-up powered loudspeakers from space.

EAW. Launched in Europe at Revolabs will show its new FLX Prolight+Sound, the Redline family UC 1500 IP and USB conference consists of two powered two-way phone. This USB solution lets loudspeakers – the RL12 (12in) users add two directional and RL15 (15in) – along with the microphones and can bridge calls RL18S 18in powered subwoofer. between VoIP and UC desktop The RL12 and RL15 are said to applications – providing what the offer consistent directivity via company says is the industry’s beamwidth-matched crossovers first all-in-one conferencing on 90º x 60º user-rotatable horns. solution specifically designed for Four-aperture ports provide large meeting environments. massive bass support with no Additionally the manufacturer turbulence while maximising will be introducing wired transducer-cooling air flow for gooseneck models to its line of reliability. The self-powered wired microphones. Available loudspeakers feature 1,250W in 6in and 12in variants, the of fanless Class D power factorgoosenecks come in the same corrected amplification. The colours – black, white, and RL18S subwoofer is cardioid-ready brushed nickel – as the company’s via simple rear-panel controls, directional and omnidirectional enabling users to achieve high wired microphones. levels of low-frequency control New from beyerdynamic without using complex processing will be a range of vertical array or calculations. microphones. The vertical array construction gives a horizontal Networking and IP corridor (horizontally cardioid, Crestron is showcasing vertically lobed), offering users DigitalMedia 3.0 at InfoComm15, increased freedom of movement following its launch at ISE earlier to the left and right. It is also this year. DM 3.0 integrates possible for a mic to be shared various requirements for deploying by two participants, or by several AV on IT networks: uncompressed people during videoconferences. bit-for-bit 4K/60 distribution and Gain before feedback is optimised scaling; streaming AV to leverage for ceiling systems. the IT infrastructure and deliver These new Revoluto content anywhere in the world; microphones (from the Classis centralised enterprise-class RM 30/31 series) are available monitoring and management; and as installation mics and as mic end-to-end scalable solutions units for the Orbis conference on a single, validated platform. system. Both variants make It also provides the foundation

32-34 Install180 Show Preview_Final.indd 2

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12.05.2015 14:05:49 21/05/2015 14:52

34 SHOW PREVIEW: June 2015

for a Crestron Certified Design – a complete, endto-end Crestron engineered enterprise solution that is said to provide maximum performance, reliability, and total visibility on the managed network – along with a consistent user experience, maximum uptime, and full visibility to every device in every room.

Exterity will showcase its ‘Beyond the LAN’ enterprise IP video solutions. This range facilitates the distribution of high-quality video content to a wide range of screens across multiple networks, including the corporate wired LAN, WiFi, WAN and the internet.

The ‘Beyond the LAN’ range is aimed at corporations looking to make video content

VITEC will launch MGW Ace

32-34 Install180 Show Preview_Final.indd 3

consistently available across their HQ and regional offices; SMBs giving staff access to multiple news channels to inform decision making; and airports, stadiums and hotels looking to send visitors high-quality entertainment on their mobile devices.

Matrox Graphics will present a videowall demo featuring 4K over IP, as well as demonstrating C-Series multi-display graphics cards, Maevex Full HD over IP H.264 encoders/ decoders, Mura MPX videowall controller boards, and zero-latency Avio fibreoptic KVM extenders. On the same stand, Matrox Video will showcase the new Monarch HDX dualchannel H.264 encoder for broadcast streaming and recording, as well as the VS4Recoder Pro multi-camera event recording app.

VITEC will launch the MGW Ace, described as the industry’s first 100% hardware-based HEVC portable

device for encoding and streaming video. This features HEVC (H.265) bandwidth-efficient compression as well as legacy H.264 capabilities.

Also being shown for the first time at InfoComm is the MGW D265 Portable H.265 & H.264 IP Decoder, designed to provide decoding for any IPTV and full-motion-video application.

VITEC will also be showcasing its EZ TV IPTV system, which allows any facility to deliver live, on-demand, or recorded video over its existing IP infrastructure.

Signal management Gefen’s InfoComm offering will be focused around key technology drivers such as wireless, AV over IP and 4K. The Gefen Mark V racecar simulator will give attendees a chance to experience 4K Ultra HD competitive gaming, with lifelike speed enhanced effects and zero latency.

The Gefen TV Wireless for HDMI 60GHz will beam camera images of players.

Venue: Dates:

Orange County Convention Center 13-19 June (education and conferences) 17-19 June (exhibition) Exhibition opens: 09:00 Exhibition closes: 17:00, except Friday 19 (16:00) Next-generation shortand long-range wireless solutions for HDMI will be shown, and a new scalable wireless HDMI matrix solution will also be displayed, allowing complete cross-point switching among up to eight sources and four displays.

One wall will be given over to AV over IP technology, integrating HDMI, DVI and VGA over IP distribution solutions with the new Matrix Controller, which gives users full control of a virtual matrix system of Gefen’s AV over IP products. Also on show will be three new HDBaseT 2.0 extenders; a range of 4K Ultra HD solutions, including four new matrixes; and three new 4K Ultra HD

splitters.

Key Digital, which manufactures HDTV technology, will launch the new Phantom Series KD-HD2x1ProK and KD-HD4x1ProK HDMI switchers with audio de-embedder and 4K support. Designed for commercial and residential applications, these models can switch two or four HDMI inputs to one HDMI output and can support SD, HD and VESA up to Ultra HD/4K resolution, with the capability to pass 3D stereoscopic signal formats. They can both de-embed audio from the HDMI input and send it to their external digital or analogue audio outputs.

www.infocommshow.org

21/05/2015 14:52

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36 BUSINESS FEATURE: VIDEOWALLS June 2015

Key Points n A detailed understanding of what a customer is looking to achieve is a vital prerequisite

SiliconCore Peony 2.6mm LED videowalls are installed in the studios of NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Company) as dynamic backdrop displays

Windows of opportunity?

According to Futuresource Consulting, the videowall market has been posting a CAGR of 60% in recent years.

But can that growth be profitable for integrators? Ian McMurray asks the industry’s advice

N

o one seems to know who first used the phrase “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity – but cash is reality”, but that hasn’t stopped it entering the business world as an oft-repeated mantra. As any integrator will tell you, though, profit is a whole lot easier to talk about than it is to make. The fact is: the more complex a job is, the greater its potential for significant profit – or significant loss. Videowalls are a good example of a potentially complex job.

It’s also an attractive, and growing, market – but few integrators can (or are willing to) invest in a videowall demonstration facility, especially as

36-40 Install180 Feature 1_Final.indd 1

individual customer requirements are likely to vary. It would take a sizeable number of successful projects to turn that investment into a profitable one.

Reflex, however, which is one of the UK’s largest integrators, has made that commitment. “We’ve seen exponential growth in videowall solutions,” notes the company’s technical sales manager, Graham Kirkpatrick. “We’ve had to find a way to demonstrate these effectively and have found that working with strategic partners and the display manufacturers has made this task easier.

Reflex has invested heavily in videowall technologies at our London showroom. We

also have several Londonbased reference sites, with installed plasma and LCD walls, as well as Christie MicroTiles.

“So,” he continues, “a combination of manufacturer sites, our own showroom and customer reference sites means we have a wide choice of demonstration venues.

If none of these physical sites are convenient, we can use conceptual animation and imagery – by creating a digital image of the customer’s space we can overlay how the videowall will look in real-life environments.”

Reflex’s approach appears to have paid off.

The company recently completed what it

believes is the UK’s highest-resolution Christie MicroTiles curved screen, and is due to complete the largest touchscreen videowall installed in the UK.

Demos essential “It is essential to see the product in some form, as the specifications won’t inform you about elements such as off-axis viewing angle issues, uniformity between panels and if their greyscales, brightness or colour saturation aren’t as good as expected,” believes Steve Scorse, VP EMEA at SiliconCore. “While it might not be possible to view the full-size solution, an integrator can get a good impression of these key

n The devil is often in the detail. Essential items like mounting are easily overlooked n Planning – and perhaps rehearsal – are key to ensuring that installation time/cost are minimised n Manufacturers and distributors are your friends. Leverage their knowledge and capabilities factors and resolution, contrast and viewing angle from seeing a couple of panels.”

In-house demonstration facilities may be the ideal – and as Enrique Robledo, European marketing manager for display products at Panasonic points out, a demonstration doesn’t have to be a replica of the final installation.

“A small-scale demonstration with a 2 x 2 set-up can be done to show off the key aspects of the videowall,” he declares. “For instance, the customer can see the glossy or matt finish of the videowall, the colour gamut and temperature of the displays, or the brightness level.”

21/05/2015 14:53

FEATURE: VIDEOWALLS 37

June 2015

Thorsten Prsybyl, section manager large format displays at NEC Display Solutions Europe, agrees.

“Some projects are large enough to set up a sample 2 x 2 wall to show the quality of the solution,” he says. “Another way might be to ask the supplier for a reference site to see a live installation. There are significant quality and feature differences such as integrated frame buffers to improve fastmoving content or a comprehensive hardware calibration to achieve and maintain good uniformity – and those can only really be demonstrated, not discussed.”

But, as Kirkpatrick has made clear, in-house is far from the only option.

Manufacturers and distributors clearly have a role to play – as Helgi Sigurdsson, product manager at Matrox Graphics, explains.

“PSCo Technical Distribution has built technology assessment

664 screens

and demonstration facilities in the UK to demonstrate different display options and videowall controllers, including those based on Matrox Mura MPX capture and display boards,” he says. “VuWall Technologies has also recently opened new demonstration and training venues in Germany where it is able to demonstrate a range of systems.”

Using reference sites Chris Ault, reseller account manager, LG Electronics UK, notes that his company is developing strategic alliances to establish a series of reference sites across the UK, from sports stadiums to retail hubs, command and control centres and automotive showrooms so that prospective clients can visit and get the full experience.

“Tradeshows such as ISE and InfoComm are also a great place for integrators to bring their customers to compare displays and controllers from various

According to Guinness World Records, the world’s largest HD videowall is The Big Picture at Suntec Exhibition and Convention Centre, Singapore. Standing over 15m tall, measuring 60m wide and with a surface area of 556sqm, it comprises 664 LG LED flat panel displays and is managed by Dataton’s WATCHOUT multi-image display and presentation software. See it in action at http://www.installation-international. com/?p=1413

36-40 Install180 Feature 1_Final.indd 2

Case Study

Saville, eyevis work together on largest curved wall UK integrator Saville has installed what it believes to be the largest convex curved videowall in Europe as part of a complete AV installation in the reception area of the new mass spectrometry headquarters of analytical instruments company Waters Corporation in Wilmslow, Cheshire. The wall features 48 eyevis OmniSHAPES rear-projection display modules to create an image 3.8m wide by 2.2m high. eyevis offers integrators demonstration facilities in several UK locations, and worked closely with Saville to design and install the videowall. manufacturers,” adds Sigurdsson.

It becomes apparent that manufacturers and/ or distributors have a key role to play in supporting integrators with videowall projects – and that role can have a marked impact on the likely profitability of the installation.

“A manufacturer should support with all aspects of the technical specification during the sale,” avers SiliconCore’s Scorse.

“Modular solutions can be complex to get your head around when scaling up resolutions, calculating the wiring for different power loads and planning cabling for data configurations.

An architect will require all of this information to be accurate so it is often easiest to get it straight from the manufacturer who should know their product inside out.”

“Manufacturers will often have their own frame and front-end processing solutions which have been designed specifically for their product,” he adds, “so taking their advice on these can also prove invaluable.

“Manufacturers have to

support integrators with good-quality and reliable products which are user friendly,” says Robledo.

“They also have the role to train integrators to understand the products and the brand so they can provide a better service to the end user. Panasonic is helping integrators achieve this with the newly launched partner academy, which combines online and face-to-face training.”

Partner early and often “It is vital that integrators partner with the manufacturer early and often in the process,” asserts Jeff Crowley, who is VP of global channel sales for NanoLumens. “We partner with integrators to provide specific technical and product line expertise to the end users. For preferred partner integrators, training and certification on the entire line of offerings is provided.”

LG’s Ault believes that transparency when it comes to product roadmaps is vital in a manufacturer’s role in helping integrators deliver profitable business.

“Inevitably, products

will go end-of-life as we continue to develop our portfolio to ensure that we’re at the cutting edge of technology. However, we aim to take a more consultative approach where possible to ensure that all stakeholders have visibility of the roadmap so that we can avoid any potential issues where ongoing supply/support of the same model is required.”

It’s all about taking advantage of the extensive training that many manufacturers offer, and working with accurate, from-the-source information to optimise decision making. NEC’s Prsybyl makes the point that, typically, you get what you pay for.

“The quality of the display solution is reflected by the pre- and aftersales support of the supplier,” he believes. “A good supplier will help you with questions before, during and after the installation. Cheap won’t be good, and good won’t be cheap. There’s no such thing as cheap with good product and service quality.

If you go the cheap route, prepare for trouble. Cheap

21/05/2015 14:53

38 FEATURE: VIDEOWALLS

Portuguese motorway management company BRISA has installed an 11 x 4 videowall comprising 55in displays from Panasonic

June 2015

products are generally cheap because the manufacturer didn’t invest in the staff to support you.

Don’t expect anything other than the lower price.”

The implications seem obvious: while it may be superficially tempting to bid inexpensive hardware with the theoretical prospect of higher gross margins, that margin may be more than consumed by problems encountered in specifying, installing and commissioning.

Price and quality, of course, are two of three variables – some would argue there are more – in videowall projects, the other being size.

“It is difficult to optimise more than two out of three variables,” claims Matrox’s Sigurdsson. “You can optimise for price and size but then quality will suffer. Or you can optimise for size or quality and the price goes up. Or optimise for price and quality and then size will suffer. In the end, it all comes down to understanding and knowing the customer needs – and every customer is different.

The AV integrator has to understand what problem the end user is trying to solve. That is value-add that builds reputation and locks in future projects.”

Sigurdsson believes that a fourth important variable is scalability. “Matrox Graphics worked with one videowall integrator whose customer wanted to add another row of displays to their wall partway through the installation,” he recalls.

“In that case, this was as easy as adding an extra Matrox Mura MPX card to the same system.”

Mounting importance Prsybyl talks about “the quality of the display

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solution” – and it’s easy to believe that’s about the appearance of the screens or the power of the wall controller.

There is, however, another vital element that, says Peerless-AV’s managing director Gordon Dutch, good integrators never overlook.

“Good integrators understand that the mount is a vital part of almost every videowall project and recognise the benefits of a mounting solution that is as user-friendly, intuitive to install and convenient to service as possible,” he says. “Selecting the right mount, with the required functionality, will very often save time and effort on site and lead to a more productive and profitable installation. However, what they might not fully appreciate is that choosing the correct mounting

solution could add value by increasing the end client’s ROI, may drive additional engagement, would enable the use of larger displays and allow bigger arrays to be created in locations that were previously not considered possible.”

“And,” he smiles, “who in their right mind would want to reach project deadline day only to find that the mount is not compatible with the display? Working closely with screen manufacturers, PeerlessAV guarantees the highest levels of compatibility so this situation can be avoided.”

When it comes to profitability, time is, of

course, money.

“The ability to reduce installation times by up to 60% can have a significant effect on the bottom line for an integrator,” he adds.

“Our custom wallplate spacers are designed to give perfect spacing for a dedicated display model, eliminating the need to calculate and measure the position of each mount in a videowall array.”

“Also, having the ability to make micro-adjustments once installed is a vital consideration in selecting any videowall mounting solution,” he concludes, “to ensure that any display can

be quickly and perfectly aligned to its surroundings, or to the screens alongside it – even in situations where a wall surface might not be flat or level.”

Dutch has an ally, in terms of the importance of mounting, in NanoLumens’ Crowley.

“Mounting a visualisation solution should never be taken lightly, and many things must be considered prior to the first wrench being turned,” he says.

“Where does the enduser want to mount the display and will the wall or ceiling support it? Should it be suspended with high-

21/05/2015 14:53

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40 FEATURE: VIDEOWALLS June 2015

tension aircraft cables? Is it a confined space that would require the solution to be front serviceable?

All of these concerns need to be addressed at the very beginning of the relationship. NanoLumens provides lightweight, front-serviceable displays that have completely rewritten the rules of mounting. Thanks to this revolutionary visualisation solution set, we are able to mount our displays where a typical ‘videowall’ would be impractical, including confined and curved spaces.”

Profitable projects So what is the industry’s advice to integrators looking to ensure their videowall projects are profitable?

“Identifying the needs of the customer from the beginning is imperative,” claims Robledo. “For example, image is critical for a retailer’s business.

That will determine the kind of displays that should be configured, the kind of mounting solution that’s required, the degree of reliability and maintainability that are necessary – and those requirements will be different in other environments.”

“The complexities associated with visualisation solution installations can be addressed with a strong project plan,” says Crowley. “There have been instances, for example, where massive projects have been held up due to the install team showing up to the work site without the proper tools or they realise power isn’t available where the display is being mounted. This is simply due to poor planning.”

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There are other potential pitfalls beyond lack of tools or power.

“We always suggest checking each videowall panel as it arrives, rather than leaving it until you are on site and about to begin the build to unbox them all,” notes LG’s Ault. “Although they are handled with care, one small artefact in a display will affect the whole wall and will set you back during a missioncritical installation. Doing a test rig before the real installation begins also ensures that everyone is clear on the process and their role within it, which will ultimately save time during the real thing.

“LG products all come with shock indicators on boxes which if green show that no lateral movement has occurred during shipping,” he adds. “If this has turned red however, it is an easy indicator that the content needs to be checked.”

Removing risk “I’d always recommend getting the manufacturer involved in the installation as this takes away the risk from the integrator,” adds Scorse. “A videowall will only look its best if it is perfectly installed. If you haven’t worked with a specific manufacturer or technology before, it is very easy to underestimate the amount of time it will take, or make mechanical errors in the alignment – both of which will be detrimental to the quality of the installation.”

“Many integrators may not consider that the choice of mount could make a significant difference to their business, and may even leave this decision to the last minute,” continues Dutch. “However,

at Peerless-AV, we believe our solutions will deliver noticeable benefits and we work closely with integrators to ensure the highest standard of support is delivered so they can trust us again and again.”

Reflex’s Kirkpatrick summarises his company’s approach.

integrator should offer opportunities to create sufficient margins. Working with content creation partners is also vital, in our experience: content has become king in videowall solutions, and can sometimes equal or even exceed the technology costs.”

‘Manufacturers have to support integrators with good-quality and reliable products which are user friendly’ Enrique Robledo

“Careful attention to all the details of the presales design, followed by good project management in delivering the solution, should prevent situations where an integrator loses money,” he says. “The technologies used to deliver the solutions and the technical knowledge and knowhow of the

The industry seems clear. Making a profitable business in the videowall market has nothing to do with gross margins, and everything to do with potential errors in specification and problems with installation and commissioning – errors and problems that can easily turn what should have been

a profitable project into a loss-maker. The good news is: there are manufacturers and distributors out there only too willing to help integrators ensure they get it right. It just needs integrators to tap into that invaluable resource.

The second-richest man in America, and the 20th century’s most successful investor, is Warren Buffett.

He’s worth more than $70 billion. If anyone should know something about profit, it’s Buffet – which is why it’s worth paying heed to one of his many pithy, insightful sayings: “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing”.

www.eyevis.com www.lg.com www.matrox.com www.nanolumens.com www.nec-display-solutions.com http://business.panasonic.eu www.peerless-av.com www.reflex.co.uk www.saville-av.co.uk www.silicon-core.com

Case Study

Airport installation opts for Peerless mounting solution As part of a major modernisation, Quebec’s Montréal–Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport installed a range of digital signage displays and videowalls, with integrator Cablage Expert specifying Peerless-AV mounts throughout the installation. PeerlessAV’s SmartMount full-service videowall mounts were deployed in both landscape and portrait orientations to create a variety of display configurations. The company’s custom wallplate spacers were used to install the mounts, eliminating the need for measuring on site, which was said to save many hours in installation time, and additional costs.

The installation includes a 4 x 3 videowall comprising 55in landscape displays; an 11 x 2 videowall (pictured); a 2 x 2 videowall; and a tripod digital signage display.

21/05/2015 14:53

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42 TECHNOLOGY FEATURE: PA-VA June 2015

EN54: how should we put it right?

Last autumn Installation conducted a major survey that underlined the present level of confusion regarding the EN54 fire detection and fire alarm systems standard. In this follow-up feature, David Davies speaks to manufacturers about the ways in which they think the standard could be improved – and finds out about current efforts to rework some fundamental parts of the standard

C

onflicted views on exemptions to the standard and vastly varying opinions about the issue of legal responsibility characterised Installation’s survey on EN54, the results of which were published in the August 2014 issue.

The observation that confusion existed around the standard was nothing new – but the exact level of uncertainty did come as something of a shock.

Concern revolves in particular around two parts of the standard. Published in 2008, EN54-16 addresses components for fire alarm/ voice alarm systems and voice alarm control and indicating equipment (commonly abbreviated as VACIE). Mirroring the requirement for all fire alarm systems to be accredited by an approved testing house prior to sale, Part 16 means that VA systems have to undergo a similarly rigorous process of assessment.

Approved simultaneously, EN54-24 stipulates requirements, test methods and robustness of voice alarm (VA)

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loudspeakers, along with their “performance under climatic and mechanical conditions which are likely to occur in the service environment”.

The extent and accuracy of EN54-16/24’s implementation have been the subject of considerable variation, so it is some relief to hear that members of a working group under the CEN/TC72 committee are currently labouring on

possible, is to make it easier to understand what is trying to be achieved.”

Hemming outlines in more detail what we can expect from the reworked standards on page 44.

But in advance of these changes, Installation decided it might be instructive to compile a ‘top five’ of recommendations for EN54 changes from a select group of audio manufacturers.

‘In an ideal world there would be a certain defined flexibility in the standard, so that tailormade products could be implemented more efficiently’ Sascha Riedling, ic audio

revisions. “Part 16 is well underway, and Part 24 will follow on from that,” says Roland Hemming, RH Consulting founder and a member of the relevant working group. “The fact is that the existing standards have caused confusion, and our objective, where

1. Specific provision for distributed systems is vital Echoing comments made to Installation on previous occasions, several respondents pointed to EN54-16’s assumption of a ‘single box’ VACIE. From Baldwin Boxall – whose

EN54-compliant equipment includes the Vigil 2 range of VA systems – marketing director Nick Baldwin and R&D manager Anthony Morgan highlight the increasing requirement for modular, distributed systems and therefore call for “greater clarity to be given regarding the announcing of faults. For example, does a modular VACIE mounted in a riser cupboard have to give an audible indication of a newly discovered fault, as there would be no one around to hear it? Clarity regarding which parts of a modular system should announce faults would be beneficial. Again assuming a modular system, is there any point in a microphone that can only page Zones 1-4 announcing a speaker line short circuit fault for Zone 5? If it did, this would surely just give rise to the confusion of the operator of that microphone.”

An ideal situation, continue Baldwin and Morgan, “would be that a device could be designated a ‘Control and Indication’ device that is located in a ‘manned’ area (such as

Key Points n EN54-16/24 are undergoing revision by a working group operating under the overall CEN/TC72 committee n Many feel the revised standards need to take greater account of modular, distributed systems and the needs of different venue types n IP network-based systems are likely to have an impact on longer-term standards work

a reception desk) that announces all faults.

Clarification is also required as to what faults should be announced by this device if it is for some reason disconnected from the rest of the system.”

2. A more ‘holistic’ approach that includes greater consideration of non-emergency needs would be beneficial At present, QSC does not have a certified EN54-16 PA/VA system, although Q-Sys components do have SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) certification and have been installed into several projects under EN60849 in the EU and

21/05/2015 14:55

FEATURE: PA-VA 43

June 2015

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 72 in the US. Nonetheless, the company has been tracking the development of the standard, with install DSP product manager TJ Adams commenting: “It is my personal opinion that EN54-16 and 24 are wellintended but fall short in truly accommodating all the end-user needs of a combined PA/VA system.

The end user is forced today to either install two separate systems to accommodate all their needs for life safety and audio PA, or just live with many compromises in a combined product platform.

Installing two systems is a costly proposition, so there is a desire for single systems which unfortunately tends to be a terrible compromise under the current EN54-16/24 imposed limitations. The products that attempt to conform to EN54-16 and be a general-purpose audio PA are neither a fully featured PA or VA system, at least in my view.

“If you think critically about the situation,” Adams continues, “the VA system is an exceptionbased system that hopefully never gets used unless it’s being tested or there is a real emergency. The audio PA system is used every day, however, and it has the need to be flexible and make use of disallowed audio and control distribution schemes, along with higher-powered speakers and amplifiers that are

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specialised to the purpose in many cases. I think that EN54-16/24 needs some broader [exposure] to these non-emergency end-user needs to fold in and balance more realistic accommodations for the non-emergency use requirements along with the life safety requirements.”

Calling for greater consideration to be made of “the holistic needs of end users”, Adams believes that EN54-16/24 would be more adoptable by manufacturers if it took more account of “the

benefits of allowing greater latitude for combined systems, or even a compromise clause that allows a local authority to approve non-certified products as part of a PA/ VA system solution… or even approve an entirely non-certified product for their venue if it can be observed that it meets certain absolute functional requirements for life safety.”

3. We need to ensure a certain ‘defined flexibility’ in the standards Based in Germany, ic audio has a long-term specialism in 100V audio products and sports a product line featuring a wide range of EN54-24 speakers. “Despite the irritations [felt in every part] of the market shortly after the release of the new standard, EN54-

16/24 is, from our point of view, a success story which has increased the quality and safety of the products dramatically,” says Sascha Riedling, business analyst and controller, ic audio. The result is that “people in the buildings can really rely on a proven and certified quality, which is monitored regularly and is helping to save lives”.

Nonetheless, Riedling

The holisitic needs of end users must be taken into consideration

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44 FEATURE: PA-VA June 2015

observes that “one of the challenges at the moment [relates to] tailor-made solutions for certain projects. Before EN54 it was easily possible to provide a perfectly suitable solution for special requirements (acoustics, mountings, product design, etc). Now every custommade speaker has to be certified, which takes time and money. So this is really a difficult situation for everybody involved in the project. In an ideal world there would be a certain defined flexibility in the standard, so that tailormade products [could] be implemented more efficiently.”

4. Put greater emphasis on venue type “For instance,” remarks Adams, “you can be fairly prescriptive of the system type and its function in a high-rise residential building that does not need everyday background music, paging and other audio PA functions. On the other hand, a stadium or airport has unique requirements that in many cases require

Baldwin Boxall’s BVRD16 voice alarm control microphone interfaces with any Vigil router

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local authorities to have greater design approval latitude to meet the intent of the standard but possibly by incorporating equipment that cannot be certified, at least as it is written today.”

5. Listen to everybody involved with implementing the standards At the risk of making an obvious point… ultimately, developing enduring standards is “all about sharing experiences”, says Riedling. “If you know the challenges of everybody involved in the market, you will get a pretty detailed picture for further adjustments of the standard.”

For his part, Adams suggests that “perhaps

what is needed is an industry forum similar to what NFPA has adopted in the States that brings together manufacturers,

Reworking EN54: an update

Roland Hemming – audio consultant, founder of RH Consulting and a member of the working group under CEN/TC72 charged with revising parts of the EN54 standard – reports that there is “no timescale to the work taking place, but I can say that Part 16 is well underway and Part 24 will follow on from that. We are also taking account of a new German loudspeaker standard currently being written, and may look to bring in some aspects from that relating to the testing of big speakers (active or passive), which is currently very difficult to achieve.

“In general, the objective of the revisions is to clear up confusion and make the standard simpler to understand, as well as address some of the areas of responsibility in legal terms. We are also looking at ways of trying to simplify the tests – although it should be made very clear that that does not mean they will be easier!

“Although I believe that we will have a better standard as the result of this work, it is important to point out that it won’t solve all the problems – if you don’t understand the issues now, you won’t afterwards either. It is not the answer to all dreams or the panacea to all problems.

“For example, there are a lot of issues that sit outside the standard [but which have an impact on system design and installation], such as variations in interpretation from country to country, and different approaches between testing houses. ‘Who guards the guards?’ is an important question that still has to be addressed, I think.

“Ultimately, there needs to be a lot more education about every part of the process. I would argue that there has been too much emphasis on EN54. Manufacturers can have good, tested product, and that is wonderful, but in the end it is about designers, installers and operators designing, installing and operating these systems competently. It seems to me that has been rather forgotten in all the heat surrounding the discussion of EN54.”

Roland Hemming and RH Consulting colleague Richard Northwood are currently preparing a second, extensively revised edition of their Guide to Voice Alarm Systems. Publication is expected later this summer.

systems integrators and end users to review and make recommendations to each revision of the standard as it evolves.”

Looking further ahead, several contributors suggest that there will soon need to be a standard covering networked-based solutions. “This might specify a certain level of switch reliability, quality and supervision features, for instance,” suggests Adams.

For now, it will be good news enough for many manufacturers and integrators that Parts 16

and 24 are undergoing revision. If successful, these changes should pave the way for EN54 to be implemented more consistently and with greater certainty on the part of designers and integrators – and that can only be good news for overall building safety and the preservation of life.

www.baldwinboxall.co.uk www.ic-audio.com www.qsc.com www.rhconsulting.eu

21/05/2015 14:55

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46 BUSINESS FEATURE: MUSEUMS AND VISITOR ATTRACTIONS June 2015

Panasonic LED laser projectors feature at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark

Key Points

Enhancing the experience

The global market for museums and visitor centres is buoyant and the demand for creative content and new technologies to entice and engage is helping. Steve Montgomery investigates

F

aced by competition from a host of traditional and new leisure and entertainment venues, museums and themed visitor attractions have been forced to develop radically in an attempt to attract more visitors in an increasingly difficult economic environment.

They have been extremely successful: museum attendance figures have shown recent healthy annual growth and the market has blossomed globally, particularly in the Far East: China alone has plans to build 1,000 new museums in the 10 years between 2012 and 2022 to cater for an annual museum attendance that is expected to top 1 billion by 2020. Attendance in Asia rocketed by around 28% in 2013, stimulated by extensive renovation programmes, a fact that was noticed by Scott Harkless, director of sales at Alcorn McBride: “It seems like museums and visitor attractions are still pressing forward everywhere. We’ve especially noticed a surge

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in new projects popping up lately in Europe and Asia.”

Exhibits are becoming larger and more complex: the Hong Kong Science Museum hosted ‘Legends of the Dinosaurs’, which accounted for over 2,500sqm of display space and attracted over 750,000 visitors in just five months. For this exhibition, the museum developed a number of multimedia programmes, robotic exhibits, computer animations and interactive exhibits including object recognition, real-time 3D rendering and augmented reality as well as an awardwinning Jurassic World mobile app.

Temporary themed exhibits are becoming a regular feature and new exhibits aid in this process.

The acquisition of the space shuttle Endeavour by the California Science Center boosted attendance by 31%, and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid welcomed a 23.8% attendance increase to the Salvador Dalí exhibition. While these types of exhibition generate income from paying visitors,

many museums are free to enter and this has caused funding issues. “We’ve noted considerable challenges at museums that have transitioned from paid admission to free,” says Linda Cheu, vice president of AECOM Economics.

“Admissions fees represent a huge part of earned revenue. Free admission will bring more traffic but not necessarily higher revenues.

There’s no way to make it up through retail, and the museum has to have other forms of support in place.”

Sponsorship is one aspect of this revenue generation, although this tends to be concentrated on new museum builds and temporary exhibitions.

“Most museums seem to struggle to source funding for upgrades. Much of the money available seems to be for new projects, so we find upgrades occur only when there are few other choices,” points out Ross Magri, managing director at Sarner. “However, we have recently seen a sudden surge in business, across a broad spectrum of leisure and entertainment venues

from museums to theme parks.”

Harkless agrees: “There’s a steady stream of museum and themed entertainment projects in the pipeline. Sponsors have really stepped up their commitments to update and build new attractions.”

Touring exhibitions are becoming more significant within the sector, in many cases combining historical exhibitions with themed entertainment. They may be instigated and developed by museums or sponsoring organisations. “The touring exhibition sector has really taken off over the past 10 years,” says Lars Sandlund, chief operating officer for Dataton. “We have customers on both sides of the equation: production companies who create exhibitions, and the museums which host them.

It’s a great way of evolving a collection or popularising a museum, attracting both new and local visitor groups to the location. We’re also seeing a continued trend towards internationalisation with museums in different countries co-operating on

n Museums and visitor centres are experiencing an intense period of growth in visitor numbers n Competition with other forms of entertainment is driving organisations to look for new methods of attracting and engaging visitors n Entrance fees and retail sales are insufficient to fund most venues so other forms of funding are required, leading to greater industry involvement and expectation n The need to simultaneously communicate with multiple generations of different abilities and interest levels complicates the delivery of new types of technology n Future technological developments will rely on assets created now, so museums should approach content creation with a view to future adaptation

cross-border exhibitions.

Many travelling exhibitions tour worldwide.”

Eric Cantwell, sales manager for Medialon, explains that these types of exhibitions are like mini trade shows: “Touring exhibitions are often based

21/05/2015 15:01

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48 FEATURE: MUSEUMS AND VISITOR ATTRACTIONS June 2015

around popular culture, like fashion and music. In other markets, such as the auto industry, manufacturers take scaled-down events to secondary and tertiary markets in under-served cities, bringing the event to people who would not attend a major national exhibition for that sector.”

Differing demands The need to entice visitors has led to continued development of user attractions. “Visitors expect more than static artefacts on display, or large flat images. They want to choose levels of information, interact, and be impressed,” says Sandlund. But this must be approached with caution, as Hugo Roche, managing director of Sysco, warns: “While the market condition affects the development and deployment of new technologies, and this can be rapid at times, the industry tends to manage its own pace and very

new technologies that haven’t been tried and tested tend not to become mainstream.”

That said, there is a hunger, Roche believes, for technology that links the physical location to the online world, with techniques such as peergroup influence through social media, on- and offsite downloadable content, mobile and barcode scanning, wrist identification bands, RFID chipping, 3D projection mapping, venue Twitter schemes and phone apps. There are two major benefits: visitors tend to stay longer at an exhibition if they are able to interact in a positive manner with the content, drilling down to discover the information that interests them; and word-of-mouth advertising and recommendation can greatly influence visitor numbers. An additional benefit is, as Cheu points out: “The more immersive the visitor experience, the

more they tend to spend on retail.”

The creative designers behind these new attractions are the driving force behind the implementation of new technologies. There are companies that devote themselves to creating these technologies specifically for the industry

‘We have recently seen a sudden surge in business, across a broad spectrum of leisure and entertainment venues’ Ross Magri, Sarner

so that the designers can keep pushing the envelope. One such creative organisation is Kingdom London, as Simon Yuen, the company’s strategic partner, explains: “We deploy a wide range of interactive technologies including gamification, but

The Apparition: Dornier 17 augmented reality app features virtual renditions on the Dornier Do 17 bomber housed in the Dornier 17 Interpretation Zone at the RAF Museum in Cosford and allows users to submit images

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the approach is always to consider the visitor.

Museums and visitor centres are unique in attracting all generations and genders, so you may have three distinct age groups at once.

Techniques like touch and gesture are instinctive to children, but not so to their grandparents. It is

only when a technology becomes more familiar that it can be successfully deployed, despite the intent of the host organisation.

We have experienced requests to switch gesturebased interactive content to joystick control as a museum realised that some visitors may not be comfortable enough with that method of interaction.”

Technology dramatically improves the experience of visitors and in so doing,

attracts and engages them.

Continuous investment in new museums and visitor centres is driving their development and deployment, but technology in itself is not the key factor.

The experience delivered by the institution relies on a thorough understanding of the audience to match content to their needs and interests. The first stage of an iterative process is creating a valid brief and concept and then selecting the appropriate technology.

Inevitably this will involve digitisation of assets and the building of content management systems.

Jessica Akrigg, head of development at Peel Interactive, maintains: “Technology will change; historical artefacts won’t.

Any process to capture and process content and images based on them should be undertaken with a view to application by any of a number of current and future delivery methods.

It should be carried out with a technology-agnostic approach, ready to be deployed on any new adaptive platform.”

What the future holds is difficult to ascertain; what is important is that the link between the digital and physical worlds is seamless and transparent to the user. Many have struggled to achieve this; but as technology evolves, what is impossible today becomes possible tomorrow.

www.aecom.com www.alcorn.com www.dataton.com www.grdd.co.uk www.medialon.com www.peelinteractive.co.uk www.sarner.com www.syscoav.com

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TECHNOLOGY Kit you need to know about

Wolfvision

New Products p51

vSolution Cynap

It’s… a new presentation and collaboration system.

What’s different? Described as a ‘knowledgesharing solution’, Cynap enables users to utilise presentation content material of all types, from an almost unlimited range of both digital and physical sources. Cynap features comprehensive bringyour-own-device, recording, webcasting and media player functionality, and is said to offer an effective solution whether used with or without a connected visualiser.

Details: Cynap is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac devices, and it provides a BYOD solution which allows up to four devices to share information simultaneously on screen, with up to 4K UHD output resolution. With support for AirPlay and Miracast mirroring, and with dynamic content arrangement to optimise on-screen space, it’s said to be quick and easy to get information of all types up on screen, ready for instant display and distribution.

Recording functionality is also available, enabling

This Month

HD capture of all multimedia presentation and lecture content. Additionally, using the WolfVision vSolution Capture app for iOS, Android and Windows enables large numbers of students or work colleagues on the same network as the presenter to receive and record a direct stream of presentations and lectures from Cynap. A live stream of all presentation content, including audio, can be captured and recipients can personalise their own copy of the recorded stream by adding notes and annotations in real time.

Files are easy to access, and Cynap can play, display, record and stream all commonly used media simultaneously, providing almost unlimited media sharing options during presentations, lectures and collaborative sessions. When there is a requirement to utilise ‘live’ materials, Cynap can be used in combination with a WolfVision visualiser system, providing a presentation, collaboration and knowledge-sharing solution.

Demo of the Month: Meyer Sound Leopard and 900-FC system p56

Showcase:

Steerable speakers p58

of t c u d Pro nth o the m

Available: This month

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52 TECHNOLOGY: NEW PRODUCTS June 2015

Vaddio

AV Bridge MATRIX PRO It’s… a full AV room solution for USB/IP-based applications.

What’s different? Based on Vaddio’s AV Bridge and EasyUSB technology, the AV Bridge MATRIX PRO adds audio and video mixing functionality of multiple AV sources directly to a PC for any UC application (Skype, WebEx, etc).

Details: The technology offered in the AV Bridge MATRIX PRO bridges the gap between PC applications and AV equipment. The new technology facilitates the use of multiple cameras, microphones and displays and allows for sound and video mixing. Users retain all the capabilities of traditional conference rooms with the added capability of cloud connection and content distribution.

Control for the AV Bridge MATRIX PRO is provided via the embedded web server with a simple user interface. Once the AV Bridge MATRIX PRO is connected to the network, the user has access to video and audio configuration, matrix mixing and routing, streaming (USB and IP simultaneously), room labels, networking, security, diagnostics, image controls and more.

Available: Now www.vaddio.com

Barco

DP4K-60L, DP4K-45L, DP4K-30L, DP4K-22L It’s… a full fleet of laser-illuminated projectors dedicated to the cinema industry.

What’s different? With brightness levels up to 56,000 lumens, the range is said to deliver bright 3D, high image quality and superior colour performance.

Details: With twice the brightness of any xenon projector, Barco claims the DP4K-60L (pictured) is the world’s brightest cinema projector. Fully integrated, the DP4K-45L reduces complexity. It not only frees users from all lamp-related costs and maintenance, thanks to the single projector set-up it can also be seamlessly integrated into current systems.

The DP4K-30L is designed for medium-sized screens and is said to consume 40% less power than xenon projectors with the same brightness. Also for medium-sized venues, the DP4K-22L is fully integrated and, with no lamp to replace, offers a lower total cost of ownership.

All four projectors display 2D and 3D images and, with the Barco Alchemy Integrated Cinema Media Processor (ICMP), they are capable of showing 4K content at 60 frames per second and 3D movies in 4K. Available: The DP4K-45L and DP4K-60L are already shipping, while the DP4K-22L and DP4K30L will be shipping in Q4 2015. www.barco.com

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Atlona AT-UHD-CLSO-601, AT-UHD-EX-100CE-RX The AT-UHD-CLSO-601 switcher and its intended receiver, the AT-UHD-EX100CE-RX, are now shipping. Created for classrooms and meeting rooms, the AT-UHD-CLSO-601 is a six-input, 4K/UHD @ 30Hz switcher with built-in scaling and mirrored HDBaseT and HDMI outputs. It is Atlona’s first multi-format switcher with Power over Ethernet and HDBaseT, permitting signal transmission – including AV content, control, Ethernet, and 48V power – over a single cable as far as 328ft (100m). Available now. www.atlona.com

Audac FX1.18, FX3.15 Audac has added to its FX series with the modular FX1.18 subwoofer and FX3.15 speaker system. The FX1.18 (pictured) is a high-output, horn-loaded bass cabinet and includes an 18in woofer, achieving a maximum power of 1,600W. In combination with the FX3.15 three-way speaker system, including a 15in horn-loaded mid-bass driver, 6in loaded mid speaker and 1.75in PEEK (polyether ether ketone) compression driver, this modular system can be scaled and adapted for numerous applications. www.audac.eu

Peerless-AV Xtreme Outdoor Displays Peerless-AV’s 42in, 47in and 55in Xtreme Outdoor Displays are now shipping to EMEA. The displays feature a Ventless Dynamic Thermal Transfer system that makes Xtreme the industry’s first outdoor display without vents, filters or exhaust fans. They are IP68 and NEMA 6 rated, making them the only outdoor display that are dust tight, immersible and impervious to grime, ice or insects. www.peerless-av.com

Guntermann & Drunck DP-HR-DH The DP-HR-DH KVM extender series offers high performance and low latency. It supports any video format within a bandwidth of 300 MPxl/s including applications with 2K at 60Hz or 4K at 30Hz. The system’s transmission quality remains the same over the entire distance. Variants based on Cat cables transmit signals up to 140m. This distance can be expanded up to 10km when using variants based on fibre optics, meaning the system adapts to any predefined infrastructure required for the installation. Available now. www.gdsys.de

21/05/2015 15:03

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54 TECHNOLOGY: NEW PRODUCTS June 2015

Crestron

Hitachi FL-900 lens

HD-SCALER-HD-E, HD-SCALER-VGA-E It’s… two new highdefinition scalers.

What’s different? The Crestron HD-SCALERHD-E (HDMI In, HDMI Out) and HDSCALER-VGA-E (VGA In, HDMI Out) provide streamlined, application-specific HD scaling solutions.

Both automatically scale any input signal to match the native resolution of a display or other HDMI device.

Details: The HD-SCALER-HD-E provides a single HDMI input and output, plus audio embedding and de-embedding. It enables users to display otherwise incompatible HDMI signals on HDMI displays, and upscale standard definition video to HD. The HD-SCALER-VGA-E video scaler is designed to enable an HD, SD, or computer display device to handle analogue VGA, RGB and component video signals with input resolutions up to Full HD 1080p or WUXGA. The HD-SCALER-VGA-E connects to an HDMI or DVI input, enabling support for a variety of analogue signals, and ensuring that every source displays reliably. Fully automatic operation is achieved using the display’s EDID – connect the HD-SCALER-VGA-E to the display and it converts and enhances the incoming signal for optimal appearance on the display.

Available: Now

www.crestron.eu

Screen Innovations Slate.8

It’s… the first massive black ambientlight screen, available in sizes up to 250in diagonal.

What’s different? The Slate.8 gain screen (along with Slate 1.2 gain) features SI’s largest, most versatile ambient-light-rejecting screen technology to date, and is available in Zero Edge FLEX, Fixed and Motorised screen formats.

Details: Slate is made from a flexible, multiparticle optic material that is claimed to deliver a 55% increase in contrast over its nearest competitor, and is designed to blend flawlessly with the décor of any environment. It creates a fully immersive entertainment experience by rejecting 65% of a room’s ambient light, versus a white or grey screen’s rejection of less than 10%.

Available: Now www.screeninnovations.com

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Hitachi has extended the collection of interchangeable lenses for the 9000 Series Installation projectors with the addition of the ultra-short throw FL-900. The lens reduces the throw distance of the range by 60%, opening up a wide variety of new application options, including digital signage scenarios in large public spaces.

Available now. www.hitachi.eu

Electro-Voice PC6.2 PC8.2 EV has released two additions to its EVID speaker family. The PC6.2 (6.5in two-way) and PC8.2 (8in two-way, pictured) add increased power handling (100W), higher output (115dB / 116dB), and wider coverage angles (120º/100º) to the range. www.electrovoice.com

NEC E Series NEC has launched a series of entry-level professional displays for both signage and corporate office applications. The E Series large-format display portfolio now includes eight display models, ranging from 32in to 58in (E325, E425, E505, E585), basic conferencing with 65in (E654), and largeformat conferencing/education models with 70in, 80in and 90in (E705, E805, E905). All displays are designed to fit easily into retail, learning and working environments. Available now. www.nec-display-solutions.com

Kramer VP-444 The Kramer VP-444 switcher scaler is designed for any application requiring selection of multiple HDMI sources. In addition, its two analogue computer graphics inputs allow legacy sources to be supported. The unit scales the video, embeds audio and outputs the signal to two HDMI with embedded audio outputs (with de-embedded S/PDIF and balanced stereo audio) simultaneously. Available now. www.kramerelectronics.com

21/05/2015 15:03

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56 TECHNOLOGY: DEMO OF THE MONTH June 2015

Just listen

Following their unveiling at Prolight + Sound in April, Meyer Sound’s Leopard and 900-LFC system is now touring Europe.

Franck Ernould went to Dushow’s Le Studio, near Paris, for the Leopard’s very first public listening session The drummer begins to play acoustically, then the sound reinforcement is added – and the sound colour doesn’t change

M

eyer Sound distributor Dushow’s Le Studio is, in essence, a ‘private’ concert hall: at 10m high and with a floor area of 900sqm plus a 100sqm mezzanine it is used to prepare Dushow systems before going on tour, or for ‘real-size’ demos – like this one.

Different, but similar The Meyer Sound Leopard active speaker hosts two 9in long-excursion LF drivers and one 3in compression driver, coupled to a CD horn through a patented REM manifold – thus combining the benefits of compression drivers and ribbon drivers.

Each speaker is 69cm long, 28cm high and 56cm deep, weighs 34kg, and hosts three channels of open-loop Class D amplification. It is complemented, for lowend enhancement, by the 900-LFC, which is a 64cm cube that weighs 61kg and has an operating range

56-57 Install180 Demo_Final.indd 1

from 31Hz to 125Hz. For comparison, a LEO speaker weighs 116kg, a Lyon 90kg, and an 1100-LFC 113kg.

“With Leopard, we wanted to make the UPA [one of the manufacturer’s first soundreinforcement speakers] of line arrays,” says Luke Jenks, Meyer Sound’s director of product management.

“When a company buys UPAs, financial people love them because the speakers are always out and no one complains about them.

Renting, touring or installing them, everyone is happy.

The techs like them too: they plug in, it goes, they’re simple to use and sound great. Same thing with the Leopards: LEO and Lyon are both pretty prodigious large systems, but not everyone in the world needs a system so strong. Twelve of them can be hung on a single halfton point, or six Leopards plus two 900-LFC. “Every element is brand new in the Leopard system: drivers and Class D amplifiers, we get 10 times

less distortion with them.

But Leopard’s common point with LEO and Lyon is that they all share the same sort of drivers. They have the same tonal signature, so they’re extremely easy to blend with each other.

The rigging is the same type, the transitions are well thought of, very seamless, and all of these horns have been designed with each other in mind. ” Jenks has much to say about the 900-LFC too: “When we came out with the 1100, we didn’t call it a ‘subwoofer’, we called it ‘LFC’, for low-frequency component. Lots of people said to us, ‘Why won’t you call it a subwoofer, like the others?’ Well, it’s a speaker that makes low frequencies, it was difficult to design, and if people had worked so long and hard on a product, like our company has, they wouldn’t call it a subwoofer either. Now people understand that the 1100 is something different.

It is very successful, but

customers wanted the same thing in a smaller package. The 900-LFC is very similar to the 1100, but it can be controlled a little higher up in frequency, with a slightly extended upper range. The quality is the same: no one would accept the 900 just because it’s smaller then the 1100, without having optimum performance. It was a big challenge for our designers, but once again, Pablo Espinosa and his team in the R&D department did a great job.”

Unobtrusive but powerful The idea behind these Leopard demo sessions is to hear the system per se. In Le Studio, there were three speakers and two subs on the ground per side, plus six speakers and four subs hung. At the beginning of the listening session, the system was used with CDs or DVDs, with the six speakers hung and one then two subs on the ground.

Then the user was free to ask what he wanted, and to listen to whatever CDs he requested or had brought with him.

“People are very much impressed by the capabilities of the system, how musically it sounds, how powerful it is, with so much headroom. One box is 34kg, so you have an excellent power-to-weight ratio. Our customers have major issues regarding size and weight. There are many halls throughout Europe where you only have halfton flying points to hang the systems, so they must be lightweight. And a lot of our customers do not only do touring, but also corporate events, trade shows, company AV events. Their clients do not like speakers that you can see. They like them high up in the air, as invisible as possible, but with high SPL and precision.

With the Leopards, it’s easier to get these results.”

Near the Galileo rack, a sign reads: ‘Without any treatment or EQ’. The choice to hear the system ‘naked’ seems audacious. But as Jenks says: “We prefer, during our private demo sessions, to listen to the system in ‘native’ mode: no processing, no EQ. Users can hear it ‘naked’, and they are intelligent, they’ll listen to it and decide how to apply that. France has the highest level of Meyer Sound membership, I mean people who have signed up for our production programme; I think there is the highest level of system engineering in the

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TECHNOLOGY: DEMO OF THE MONTH 57

June 2015

world. Here, people pay most attention to design a system properly, then to fine-tune. There are more people in France who understand what a transfer function is than anywhere. There’s a lot of very high-level people in the world, but I would say the ‘standard’ level is the highest in France.

“We try to make people’s lives easier. We pay much attention to speakers, amplifiers... But over the years, our competitors did a better job of making packages of their things, and after a while, people started to regard selfpowered systems as more complicated, which is a tragedy! We have to step back, and to make sure that prediction software, cabling, AC distribution, all of these things are

simple. That’s why we now have a distribution module (MDM-5000) for audio and AC, for rental use and standardisation.

Self-powered must be easy to use. We paid a lot of attention to that too.”

Drums colour The listening session itself was very interesting.

It began with six hung speakers per side and one 900-LFC on the ground.

The Eagles unplugged, Diana Krall, Dee Dee Bridgewater, you name it: the sound was very precise, focused and well distributed. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony sounded as played by a real orchestra, not synthesisers or samplers. Then, with a second 900-LFC added by the side, things went pretty loud on bass-driven

music. Peter Schädel, Meyer Sound marketing manager Germany, told us he had measured 110dB SPL on average in the dressing rooms in the mezzanine, far away from the stage, during the day, when trying the system. And actually, with eyes closed, the sound was much bigger than the speakers themselves.

Pretty impressive…

Another experiment was worth listening to: instead of a complete band, there was only a drummer on stage, who began playing without any sound reinforcement. Then the faders of the DiGiCo SD mixing console were raised slowly, and it was obvious that the sound of the drums didn’t change. Level kept rising, reaching high SPL, and the sound colour still didn’t change. That says

something about the design of the system.

“Leopard speakers can, of course, be used in fixed installations, and we think this market will be huge,” says Jenks.

“We will be holding demos like this one in Europe, USA, Asia, Latin America... A major factor of interest for installation will be the speakers, size, of course, but their high quality too, thanks to the low distortion.”

Interest is clearly high in the Leopard and the first orders have already been placed: Bright Norway AS ordered 60 Leopards plus 18 900-LFC and Sonalyst

The Leopard hung system: six Leopard speakers, four 900LFCs behind them

Place (UK) opted for 96 Leopard and 24 900-LFC. Production will begin in June.

www.dushow.com www.meyersound.com

SPORT SOLUTIONS We have started the sport division in order to focus on any kind of sports releated projects. Through our highly experienced managers with the expertise in real projects concerning with sport solutions, and their professional attitude is one of the characteristics of the sport division. Our aim is to ensure not only the special design, but also

the construction made-tomeasure by the individual attitude of our professional designers. Moreover, we also offer you the content management which will make you for a while the real director of your own event. We can guarantee you the use of portable servers, as well the use of professional 4k reck’s.

info@leyardeurope.eu, Jana Pavla II. no.1, Presov 080 01, Slovakia, www.leyardeurope.eu

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21/05/2015 15:05

58 TECHNOLOGY: SHOWCASE June 2015

Steerable speakers

Aside from meeting the principal function of improving intelligibility, manufacturers are adding value with increased user control, connectivity options and networking, writes Duncan Proctor

Meyer Sound’s self-powered array cuts reverb Meyer Sound’s CAL column array is a self-powered installation loudspeaker that improves vocal clarity in reverberant environments and is available in three models: CAL 32, 64 and 96.

CAL’s vertical beam can be angled up or down in 1° increments up to 30° to aim only at target coverage areas.

Two of the CAL versions, 64 and 96, also include beam-splitting capabilities for applications where a balcony wall may cause undesired reflections.

Engineering detail and digital advances boost the performance of the loudspeaker with minimal spacing between each element. The high-frequency and low-frequency drivers are tightly packed in a biamped configuration and are individually

amplified and processed.

CAL features inbuilt digital processing capabilities as a result of the involvement of the digital engineering team in conjunction with the loudspeaker team in the product’s development.

AVB inputs are also incorporated for the first time in a Meyer Sound loudspeaker. This means audio signals can be transmitted across an Ethernet network using the AVnu Alliance’s new AVB standards. Moreover, the user can have control of the loudspeaker beam angle, RMS monitoring and deliver the audio feeds over a single Ethernet cable. www.meyersound.com

TOA combines real-time simulations with DSP functionality

TOA’s SR-D8 active line array speaker can project sound waves to targeted areas with precision as well as processing both analogue and digital audio input.

The SR-D8 harnesses eight builtin digital amplifiers and a single unit can manage 16 speakers (in up to four stacks) through the GUI-operated software.

The software provides control of mixing, DSP and enables real-time simulations that reduce the time required for designing systems and tuning their acoustic performance.

The speaker comes with a wealth of DSP functions, including gain, mute, compression, delay, auto-mixing, high/low pass filters, high/low shelving filters and a notch filter.

Equipped with two analogue

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audio input terminals and four digital audio input terminals for CobraNet connection, the speaker supports 6 x 2 matrix mixing. The Auto-mix function, which can be set for each input, enables users to prioritise selected inputs for broadcasting.

Users can also switch from one preset to another, either directly, using the GUI interface, or remotely, using a web browser and the control unit’s Ethernet connection.

The software enables quick and easy adjustment of settings, with a graph of the simulated sound pressure distribution providing a visual check of coverage areas according to the settings.

JBL delivers precise directivity control The Intellivox HP-DS370 active beam shaping loudspeaker array from JBL combines high output, precise directivity control and low cost of ownership. It is designed to resolve intelligibility issues and can also provide musical reinforcement in reverberant spaces.

A single device has an output capability of 105dB at 30m, along with a frequency response to 18kHz. The horizontal dispersion is 100° and a typical throw is 50m, giving approximately 2,150sqm of coverage per unit.

The HP-DS370 has an efficient power supply and Class D amplification as well as being IP55 rated. It features 14 individual 6.5in loudspeakers arranged in accordance with JBL Intellivox’s patented algorithm, plus two coaxially mounted compression drivers for extended frequency response. www.jblpro.com

Community brings consistent beam width in modular column Community Professional’s ENT-FR ENTASYS full-range column delivers line array performance in a compact weather-resistant package.

The column offers high output and high power handling capability.

It has multiple low-frequency, midrange and high-frequency drivers for consistent, lobe-free coverage, and delivers a uniform, constant vertical beam width.

Each column includes six lowfrequency neodymium drivers, 18 midrange drivers (2.35in ) and six 7in long x 1in wide planar-coupled patent-pending Compact Ribbon Emulator (CRE) high-frequency elements. The ENTASYS line is designed to be modular, with multiple ENTASYS columns used to create extremely narrow focused vertical coverage into the last octave of typical human hearing before vertical off-axis beams begin to form. This helps to keep the sound focused and directed, and minimises unintended reflections from walls and other surfaces.

www.toaelectronics.com www.communitypro.com

21/05/2015 17:20

TECHNOLOGY: SHOWCASE 59

June 2015

K-array’s compact speaker integrates remote control and DSP

K-array’s flagship Concert Series includes the KH2 selfpowered medium-format speaker, which has a number of new features including on-board controls, plug-and-play capabilities and the ability to steer sound digitally.

The KH2 comprises two 8in neodymium magnet woofers with a 2.5in voice coil and two 1.4in compression drivers.

The digital acoustic steering system delivers wide horizontal coverage and has integrated DSP and remote control through RS485 and USB connectivity.

The system also boasts an intelligent integration with a variety of accessories including various stacking and hanging positions; it is weather resistant and features integrated DSP along with multiple analogue and digital inputs. The Concert Series carries the signature compactdesign Slim Array Technology and has a peak SPL of 136dB. This flexible speaker can be used in medium-sized events, for touring sound reinforcement as well as theatres, arenas and concert halls. www.k-array.com

Tannoy enhances steering control and usability Tannoy’s QFlex 48 puts the emphasis on full-range beam steering with steering control of ±70°. The densely spaced transducers prevent the effects of aliasing and provide music reinforcement and high speech intelligibility levels. The BeamEngine user interface allows the designer to specify target areas through steering algorithms and the speaker range is further enhanced by “cutting-edge” DSP. The loudspeaker can maintain even coverage and SPL across the listening plane by steering the beam away from reflective surfaces and is able to create an asymmetrical pattern, which allows similar SPLs in the near and far field.

The speaker is suitable for use in PA/VA systems, and also has AES connectivity.

The QFlex 48 has been weatherised, making it suited to outdoor or harsh environments. Key improvements on this front include Pilot Tone Detection capability, Sentinel SM1 System Monitor and certification to IP53 standards (IP54 is available as an option). www.tannoypro.com

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Dante networking and strong coverage from Pan Acoustics The Pan Beam Series from Pan Acoustics is made up of three models, all offering strong coverage and speech intelligibility fit for a variety of applications including conference rooms, houses of worship and theatres. Options available include ambient noise detection, IP56/64, Powerline technology and Dante.

Pan Powerline technology provides the opportunity to use twowire 100V or speaker cable systems to switch the passive speakers to versatile and slim active beam-steering column speakers.

The Dante option supports up to 192kHz sampling frequency, and the Pan Beam columns allow automatic priority switchover of two audio signals. It also provides a primary and secondary Dante port, which can be used in redundant or daisy-chain mode. www.pan-acoustics.de

Aimline offers IP networking and 3D beam control Aimline Audio’s ALX 8.0 uses Dante networking and features high SPL handling and networking-over-IP as well as both analogue and digital inputs. It includes multibeam 3D technology for horizontal and vertical beam control.

The full-range loudspeaker has a 3.5in transducer for low/mid and ribbon tweeters for high frequencies, each driven by a separate digital amplifier with its own DSP. Column elevation, focus distance, focus elevation and opening angle parameters can be set to determine the beam of each speaker.

The system set-up is via user-friendly Windows software within a network and all columns are connected via a Cat5 cable for audio and network data handling.

Real-time control enables quick room set-up with plug-and-play capability, and

the slim form factor offers more integration possibilities. www.aimline-audio.com

Active Audio provides tonal balance with reduced channels The Active Audio StepArray SA250P with its Digital and Geometric Radiation Control (DGRC) technology reduces the number of DSP and amplification channels, making it more cost-effective with two columns or more.

The DGRC principle synthesises geometric and electronic arrays and reproduces a homogenous SPL and strong direct sound. The channel reduction offered by the technology has the advantage of making it possible to place the electronics outside the columns, which makes for easier installation

and maintenance.

The speaker has been designed to reduce reverb in large rooms and its digitally controlled vertical directivity upgrades clarity of speech and music.

Although competitively priced, the StepArray also includes simple control software facilitating ease of use, and the performance of the column array is assured through consistent build quality and tonal balance. www.activeaudio.fr

21/05/2015 17:20

60 SOLUTIONS: LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL June 2015

All pictures: Deana Kay

of the Month

Four Coda TiRAY front-fills can be deployed across the stage lip to cover the front row of the stalls due to the curvature of the stage

Installed Audio

UNITED KINGDOM

Improving on a classic The varied programme of this 1930s-built Art Deco gem demanded an equally flexible new audio set-up as part of an extensive renovation programme, writes Tom Bradbury

O

ne of the UK’s premier arts and entertainment venues, the Grade II-listed Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (LPH) is in the midst of a £13.8 million refurbishment to improve all elements of the Art Deco building.

Also home to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, LPH hosts more than 250 concerts and events of all kinds each year – from classical, opera, folk, rock, pop and roots music to comedy, film, speeches, conferences and private events. A new audio system was therefore required that offered flexibility but did not detract from the venue’s architecture.

Liverpool-based Adlib was invited to tender for the design and supply of the kit, opting for a Coda Audio ViRAY system with a Soundcraft Vi3000 at front of house.

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“Flexibility and multi-functionality were crucial requirements, as well as delivering top-quality audio for all events, with an infrastructure capable of dovetailing with current touring sound rigs,” explains Adlib installations director Roger Kirby.

“Coda’s ViRAY is impressively coherent, it has a high output and looks elegant, which is essential in a building like Liverpool Philharmonic Hall with its Art Decostyle architecture.”

Kirby and Adlib managing director Andy Dockerty worked closely with Coda Audio’s technical support manager Edgar Krueger, with installation and system commissioning co-ordinated by Adlib system technician George Puttock working alongside GilbertAsh, the venue’s main contractor.

The main PA hangs comprise

14 flown Coda ViRAY per side, with three Coda SC2-F bass extension units flown on each side immediately behind the main arrays.

Three Coda SCP sensor controlled 2 x 18in subs are groundstacked each side, while the curvature of the stage means four Coda TiRAY full-range front-fills are needed to cover the front row of the stalls. Meanwhile, eight Coda G308s are located just upstage of the proscenium arch to provide foldback for the stage and upstage choir stalls. Power and control comes from Coda’s LINUS platform.

A dedicated returns multicore is used to connect the FOH console to the Linus 10 amp racks at side stage, and additional signal processing and control for day-to-day peripherals is managed by BSS Soundweb BLU160 processors. This was picked for its

n Coda ViRAY array modules n Coda SC2-F bass extension units n Coda SCP subs n Coda TiRAY full range front-fills n Coda G308 monitors n Coda Linus 10 DSP dual-channel amps n Soundcraft Vi3000 audio console n BSS Audio Soundweb London BLU-160 DSP

flexible switching and its routing of balanced signals for the SCP subs, in-fills and choir-fill speakers.

“Visiting engineers and our audiences have commented very positively about the quality of the sound and the TiRAY front fills eradicate any sightline issues while still providing an excellent sonic experience for our audiences,” says Richard Curtis, Liverpool Philharmonic’s acting technical manager.

Front of house Adlib also specified a Soundcraft Vi3000 console as the FOH desk.

Liverpool Philharmonic’s technicians attended a Soundcraft open day, hosted by Adlib, followed by an onsite demo which enabled Dave Kay, Adlib’s Soundcraft specialist, to highlight the console’s multiple

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enjoyed the benefits of the new sound system since the venue reopened at n Established in 1984, Adlib’s Rental and Installation the end of last year, divisions can provide professional public address, lighting midway through and audiovisual systems its refurbishment programme. These n Previous clients include The National Cycling Centre, include Graham Leeds University and O2 Academies Norton, Imelda May, John Grant, David n The company is active in the house of worship, education, Gray, Dave Gorman, live venue and bars/restaurants sectors Nils Lofgren, Jacqui Dankworth, and features, as well as its intuitive usermany more. They and anyone else interface. playing Liverpool Philharmonic Hall With four touchscreens, the Vi3000 is can now do so using the venue’s own the only console of its class that can be sound rig without any augmentation. programmed and used simultaneously Curtis adds: “Once appointed for by two or more engineers. this project, Adlib’s Andy Dockerty, Curtis adds: “The Soundcraft Vi3000 Roger Kirby and George Puttock at FOH provides us with an up-to-date worked swiftly. With continuing good control system as well as being easy service and attention to detail from to adapt to any of the event types the Adlib team, we are learning the with which we use the PA – from RLPO many advantages of the new system. concerts right through to pop/rock.”

“Visiting engineers and our As part of the full sound package, audiences have commented positively Adlib also provided on-site training for about the quality of the new sound, the Philharmonic house crew. They and smaller system components started by learning the fundamentals onstage have eradicated sightline and philosophies of the system issues while still providing an excellent so they can optimise the new sonic experience for our audiences.” equipment, including Adlib’s patch and tieline systems and the ViRAY. The Soundcraft and BSS components were supplied by UK and Ireland Harman www.adlib.co.uk distributor Sound Technology. www.bssaudio.com “The installation was completed www.codaaudio.com www.gilbert-ash.com within a tight window of opportunity www.harman.com and we have already experienced the www.liverpoolphil.com many advantages of the new system,” www.soundcraft.com adds Curtis. www.soundtech.co.uk A series of high-profile artists have

About the installer

A Soundcraft Vi3000 was chosen for front of house

60-61 Install180 Solutions 1_Final.indd 2

21/05/2015 15:09

62 SOLUTIONS: CANADIAN MUSEUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, WINNIPEG June 2015

The 360º Indigenous Perspectives theatre features Barco projectors and Tannoy speakers

Installed

CANADA

Human interest The first national museum to be built in Canada for nearly half a century combines striking design with the latest in AV technology to get its message across, writes James Christopher

W

innipeg’s striking new Canadian Museum for Human Rights explores the universal concept of human rights with a special emphasis on Canada. Its intention is to engage visitors in an immersive, interactive experience that offers both the inspiration and tools to make a difference in the lives of others.

Electrosonic was contracted to handle the audiovisual design of the museum’s 11 galleries, and subsequently the company directed the AV equipment installation working with local partner Advance Pro. The museum features theatres, interactive touchscreen stations, projections on a digital canvas and hundreds of video clips.

The project posed a number of challenges due to

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the building’s architectural profile, which was designed

by US architect Antoine Predock, working with Winnipeg’s Architecture 49.

Designed to move visitors onwards and upwards through space, the museum includes alabaster ramps and stone-clad bridges crisscrossing a 170ft atrium.

Theatres Theatres are scattered throughout the museum.

The first one that visitors encounter is in the gallery defining human rights. The open-air theatre format, with bench seating, features a three-projector edge blend on scrim; sculptures behind the scrim form part of the story. Three Barco HDXW20 FLEX projectors are ceiling mounted; a Dataton WATCHOUT system handles edge blending.

The Indigenous Perspectives gallery has a 360º theatre where visitors

watch a video about First Nations’ concepts of rights and responsibilities to each other and the land.

It’s outfitted with six Barco CNWU-61B projectors, with a seventh available for special presentations.

Another WATCHOUT system performs the edge blend.

The gallery devoted to Canadian Journeys has a single-projector theatre with a Barco CNWU-61B unit plus a two-story digital canvas featuring two walls of screen prints and a third wall of imagery displayed by four Panasonic PT-DS20KU projectors.

Another gallery, with a short-throw projector, delivers content about protecting rights in Canada.

A single-screen theatre in the Examining the Holocaust gallery, with a Barco CNWU-61B projector, has walls comprised of plate glass shards symbolising the Nazis’ infamous

Video

Audio

n Barco HDX-W20 FLEX, CNWU-61B, HDX-W14 and RLM-W8 projectors n Dataton WATCHOUT v5.51 system n Panasonic PT-DS20KU projectors n TVOne CorioMaster Mini edge blending system n Elo E220828, 2740L, 3243L, 1247L/E655204, 1537L/ 512043, 4201L/E561836 touchscreen monitors n Samsung UD46C, ME46C, ME32C, ME55C, MD65C and ME75C displays n Microsoft Kinect software n BrightSign XD230 digital signage player n NEC AS241W-BK 24in monitor n Viewsonic PJD8633WS projector n Multitouch MT553UTB 55in touchscreen

n Brown Innovations MF-CT-24; SonicBeam 24/MA, 30/MA, 40/MA speakers n Renkus-Heinz IC7, TRX82/12, ICL-FR DUAL, CFX81 speakers n Renkus-Heinz IC215S-FR, PNX112 subs n Tannoy Di6DC, Di5DC speakers n Biamp AudiaFLEX CM processors n QSC CX-168 amplifiers n James QX1020 subs n Innovox SHA-15.4.4 speakers

Kristallnacht. A second theatre, presenting a film that marks the Ukrainian Holodomor faminegenocide, has a similar setup. Four projectors combine to display an elevated 80ft projectionwall backdrop in the gallery.

A media installation in the Rights Today gallery features three Barco CNWU61Bs projecting onto the wall surface; edge blending is performed by a TVOne system.

Control n Medialon Manager

Mount n Chief HB100B, FSRV, RPA091, VCMU, MTMPU, RPMA1, LSAU, VCM35B mounts n Peerless SF632 mount

Numerous AV displays and interactive stations, many of them 27in Elo touchscreens, deliver content and engage visitors as they make their way through the galleries. To ensure that all museum guests have full access to the interactives, Electrosonic collaborated closely with the museum team to build custom universal keypads easily reachable by people with disabilities.

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64 SOLUTIONS: CANADIAN MUSEUM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, WINNIPEG June 2015

Fifteen AV niches are featured in Canadian Journeys; the displays have, in various configurations, embedded Samsung and NEC monitors, and Viewsonic and Barco projectors.

The gallery exploring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has four interactive stations, each with two portrait-mounted 55in Samsung monitors and Microsoft Kinect gesture

recognition technology.

A digital study table comprises 12 MultiTouch 55in touchscreens mounted face up, sideby-side; it is operated via Tactable software.

Actions Count, a gallery targetted to young visitors, features gesture recognition in a game. This one features three Barco CNWU-61B projectors shooting down onto three tables.

About the installer n Electrosonic was founded in 1964 n The company has worked on many complex projects, both large and small and in multiple geographic territories n It operates on a worldwide basis with a staff of more than 400 people and principal offices in the USA, the UK, Sweden, China and the UAE

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Sound challenges Electrosonic worked closely with SH Acoustics on the audio elements of the project. This architecturally challenging museum deploys Brown Innovations compact linear speaker arrays and 2D focusing ceiling arrays, RenkusHeinz speakers and Tannoy bookshelf speakers to enhance the immersive feeling in the theatres.

In the Examining the Holocaust and Breaking the Silence theatres, customshaped Innovox speakers embedded in the bench seating are used. The long, shallow speakers fire sound to the people sitting in the row behind and are time-delayed to combine with the front speakers to localise sound to the screen.

The 360º Indigenous

Perspectives theatre, with benches around the perimeter for viewing the screens and a central area for guest artists to perform in, proved to be a particular challenge.

Instead of firing sound across the room, Tannoy speakers were placed behind the screens aimed down at the audience. To keep the space ‘wide and exciting’, a fabricated and undulating wooden wall creates perfect diffusion in the circular room and offers another ‘visually unique’ design element. Compact power pipe subwoofers from James Loudspeaker were placed under the bench seating.

Biamp AudiaFLEX CMs were the main audio processors used in the museum.

Medialon Manager

provides centralised monitoring and control of most of the equipment.

An Electrosonic service contract provides for two on-site technicians.

www.advance-pro.com www.architecture49.com www.barco.com www.brightsign.biz www.browninnovations.com www.chiefmfg.com www.dataton.com www.electrosonic.com www.elotouch.co.uk www.innovoxaudio.com www.jamesloudspeaker.com www.medialon.com www.nec-display-solutions.com www.panasonic.com www.peerless-av.com www.qsc.com www.renkus-heinz.com www.samsung.com www.tannoy.com www.tvone.com www.viewsonic.com

21/05/2015 15:15

From the publisher of Installation, AV Technology and SCN, a new launch for the UK education sector.

1 Color - 100 White

From primary through to higher education, Tech&Learning UK will engage with those responsible for AV & IT technology throughout the UK education sector.

Tech&Learning UK will reach 16,000 decision makers and influencers in the UK and provide manufacturers and service providers with the perfect marketing platform for targeting this growing market.

• • • • • •

Quarterly print magazine Dedicated website Weekly newslettersw Custom email campaigns Roundtables Webinars

New online platforms: • Dedicated website • Weekly digest newsletter • Theme of the month newsletter

Tech&Learning UK audience includes: • Business managers • ICT managers / technicians • Head teachers / deans • Heads of department / faculty • AV resellers and integrators

Sign up at www.techandlearning.uk

www.techandlearning.uk For further information on subscribing, advertising or submitting content for Tech&LearningUK, please contact: Sales: Gurpreet Purewal +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 gpurewal@nbmedia.com

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Editorial: Peter McCarthy +44 (0) 20 7354 6000 pmccarthy@nbmedia.com

Michael Nicholson +44 (0) 7823 777 528 michael@weareoutput.co.uk

21/05/2015 16:03

R PLANYOUR MONTH AHEAD

Trade shows in London and Johannesburg, the origins and potential impact of the Internet of Things, and Germany’s first exhibition of interactive technologies

f Pick o th on the m

MediaTech Africa

Taking place at The Dome at Northgate in Johannesburg, MediaTech Africa is set to welcome around 7,000 visitors and 130 exhibitors to South Africa. Staged biennially, the 2015 edition will run from 15 to 17 July and will present the latest technologies and trends to the region’s broadcast, live events and AV system integration industries.

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adjacent to the main hall. Visitors will also benefit from all exhibitors being in the one hall, while seminars and presentations will take place close by. The Test Bench, which hosted demos, challenges and competitions last

The Internet of Things

Samuel Greengard Greengard traces the origins of the IoT from the early days of personal computers and the internet and examines how it creates the conceptual and practical framework for a connected world. He also considers the long-term impact of the IoT on society, narrating a ‘Day in the Life’ of IoT connections circa 2025.

year, will also return for 2015. www.abtttheatreshow.co.uk

EXPLORE

VISIT

A new venue isn’t the only change to the ABTT Theatre Show for 2015. Running from 24-25 June and taking place at Alexandra Palace for the first time, the event will be hosting product demonstrations in a custom-built facility

READ

ABTT

Picture: Duncan Harris

Game Science Centre

Charlottenstrasse, Berlin In Germany’s first exhibition dedicated to interactive technologies and projects, over 20 installations will showcase new technological developments at any one time.Visitors can get hands on with interactive technology while smaller developers have an opportunity to show the tech of the future.

21/05/2015 15:16

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1/9/2015 10:52:28 AM

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4/22/2015 9:32:36 AM