Sound & Communications October 2019, Vol 65 No 10 by Sound & Communications

C O M M E R C I A L

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T E C H N O L O G Y

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A P P L I C A T I O N

October 14, 2019 â&#x20AC;&#x2030;Vol. 65 No. 10

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CONTENTS Volume 65 Number 10

DEPARTMENTS

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Denver’s new Mission Ballroom brings events and hospitality to a new level. By Dan Daley

11 NEWSLETTER 30 INDUSTRY POV

Want A Standout AV Brand?: The answer lies beyond the logo. By Steven Picanza

32 INDUSTRY POV

The Softer Side Of Pro Audio: Meeting hospitality expectations with easy-to-use technology. By Jim Schwenzer

34 ENTERTAINMENT: TECHNOLOGY

SOUL OF THE RESTAURANT

Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen creates an exceptional customer experience. By Jim Stokes

CAN VIDEO GAMES DRIVE THE RESOLUTION REVOLUTION? 4K gaming is already here, with 8K on the horizon. But, for esports applications, higher resolutions are only part of the picture. By Anthony Vargas

Raising The Roof: Iowa’s iconic Roof Garden music venue is gloriously reborn. By Andy McDonough

76 NEWS 78 CALENDAR 79 PEOPLE 80 PRODUCTS 84 MEDIA 85 SOFTWARE 86 CENTERSTAGE 90 MARKETPLACE COLUMNS 8 WAVELENGTH By Dan Ferrisi

14 SOUND ADVICE

By Peter Mapp, PhD, FASA, FAES

18 IOT

By Ken Scaturro

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

How a 112-year-old discovery is now poised to dominate the world of displays. By Pete Putman, CTS

20 HOUSE OF WORSHIP: BUSINESS By David Lee Jr., PhD

22 THE COMMISH

By James Maltese, CTS-D, CTS-I, CQD, CQT

26 WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

By Douglas Kleeger, CTS-D, DMCE/S, XTP-E, KCD

28 AVIXA POV

Sound & Communications October 2019

FINDING THE RF SWEET SPOT FOR WIRELESS INTERCOMS Can wireless equipment be migrated outside the UHF band? By Tom Turkington

By Rachel Bradshaw, MEd

92 AVENT HORIZON By Pete Putman, CTS

WAVELENGTH When you boil down all the vertical markets in commercial AV to their essentials, I would argue you’re left with one common substance—hospitality. Think about a visit to Walt Disney World Resort, for instance. Central to your family’s theme-park experience is feeling as though friendly, helpful cast members, who delight to ser ve you, are catering to your ever y whim. Alternately, consider a trip to your local shopping mall. As you traverse the shopping mecca’s square footage, you’re likely stimulated by glitzy eye candy from the retail tenants’ spaces and enveloped in the background music you hear as you tr y on clothes, shop for children’s toys or take a long whiff of that aromatic scented candle. You feel welcome—you feel wanted. Theme parks and retail spaces are not hospitality venues—for our purposes, we focus on hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, lounges and ballrooms—but their owners and staff must nevertheless make guests and patrons feel at home. Doing so is, after all, the essence of hospitality. This month, our talented team of

freelancers shares some prime examples of AV technology enhancing hospitality venues by delivering memorable, one-of-a-kind experiences. For instance, Dan Daley brings us to Denver CO and gets us inside Mission Ballroom, which opened August 7. The $10 million-plus, 60,000-square-foot venue, which holds more than 3,000 people, boasts an AVL complement that includes not only sound reinforcement that’s earning rave reviews, but also a fully loaded lighting rig and a 40'x20' videowall composed of 200 LED tiles. Underscoring Mission Ballroom’s commitment to the ethos of hospitality, it contains five bars, each of which has multiple POS kiosks to keep the drinks flowing. We also have a dispatch from venerable Sound & Communications veteran Jim Stokes, whose travels bring him to Oakland CA and one of the finest soul-food restaurants you’ll find on either coast: Tanya Holland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen (BSK). Having dined at this establishment’s previous West Oakland home, I can attest that Holland and her staff em-

phasize not just the chicken and waffles but also the fine art of hospitality. Jim’s article explores the eater y’s investment in a high-end acoustic system that processes all Dan Ferrisi the sound in the room (conversations, kitchen activity, background music) and delivers a blend that’s nestled perfectly in the Goldilocks zone—not too hot and not too cold… just right. With a clientele that includes professional musicians, BSK’s audio system had to befit its brand reputation. Jim tells the stor y of how Holland made that happen. So curl up, get comfortable and dig into this issue. And please let me know if I can do anything to make your stay more pleasant.

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CONTRIBUTORS A V F O R S Y S T E M S I N T E G R AT O R S , C O N T R A C T O R S A N D C O N S U LTA N T S

Editor Dan Ferrisi dferrisi@testa.com Associate Editor Anthony Vargas avargas@testa.com Assistant Editor Amanda Mullen amullen@testa.com Contributing Editors Pete Putman, CTS Jim Stokes

Contributors Rachel Bradshaw, MEd Dan Daley Douglas Kleeger, CTS-D, DMC-E/S, XTP-E, KCD David Lee Jr., PhD James Maltese, CTS-D, CTS-I, CQD, CQT Peter Mapp, PhD, FASA, FAES Andy McDonough Steven Picanza Pete Putman, CTS Ken Scaturro Jim Schwenzer Jim Stokes Tom Turkington Technical Council Joseph Bocchiaro III, PhD, CStd, CTS-D, CTS-I, ISF-C, The Sextant Group, Inc. David Danto, Interactive Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance Douglas Kleeger, CTS-D, DMC-E/S, XTP-E, KCD David Lee Jr., PhD, Lee Communication Inc. Peter Mapp, PhD, FASA, FAES, Peter Mapp Associates Pete Putman, CTS, ROAM Consulting LLC Art Director Janice Pupelis jpupelis@testa.com Digital Art Director Fred Gumm Production Manager Steve Thorakos Sales Assistant/Ad Traffic Jeannemarie Graziano jgraziano@testa.com Advertising Manager Robert L. Iraggi riraggi@testa.com Classifieds classifiedsales@testa.com Circulation circulation@testa.com Operations Manager Robin Hazan Associate Publisher John Carr jcarr@testa.com President/Publisher Vincent P. Testa Editorial and Sales Office Sound & Communications 25 Willowdale Avenue Port Washington, New York 11050-3779 (516) 767-2500 | FAX: (516) 767-9335 Sound & Communications Sound & Communications Blue Book IT/AV Report The Music & Sound Retailer DJ Times • DJ Expo ConventionTV@NAMM ConventionTV@InfoComm

Rachel Bradshaw, MEd, is the Director of Program Design for AVIXA. Her mission is to advance the audiovisual industry by providing strategic thought leadership, tactical discussions and technical instruction at the InfoComm show. She helped launch InfoComm’s networked AV curriculum and edited the book Networked AV Systems.

Andy McDonough has been a musician, freelance writer and technology consultant for more than 25 years. His company, LearningFirm Media, provides education, training and technology solutions for Fortune 500 companies, arts institutions and government agencies.

Steven Picanza, a global brand strategist and marketer, helps business leaders simplify their messaging while creating impactful marketing materials to connect them with their core audience. He runs Latin & Code, a B2B-focused brand and marketing consultancy with his wife, Melissa.

Jim Schwenzer is the Director of Service & Technical Support for Ashly Audio, spearheading the daily customer-service operations for more than 23 years. An accredited electrical technician, audio engineer and professional musician with more than 35 years’ experience, he serves Ashly’s customers via his passion for audio and knowledge of electronics.

Contributing Editor Jim Stokes has been involved in the AV industry as an AV technician and writer for 40 years. Read his thriller novel, Sunrise Across America, which includes an AV mystery chapter; for information, contact him at wordsandmusique@gmail.com.

Dan Daley has covered the confluence of technology, business and culture for almost 30 years. He has also been a successful composer and recording studio owner, and he authored the book Unwritten Rules: Inside the Business of Country Music.

Technical Council member Douglas Kleeger, CTS-D, DMC-E/S, XTP-E, KCD, shares insights gained from more than 35 years’ experience in the AV industry in his “What Would You Do?” column, as well as “Secrets To Success.” He offers a unique perspective on the AV industry and how it affects our lives.

Technical Council member David Lee Jr., PhD, is CEO of Lee Communication Inc., Orlando FL. He is a licensed minister who has more than 25 years’ experience as an AV integrator. He writes the monthly “House of Worship: Business” column. Contact him at dlee@testa.com.

James Maltese, CTS-D, CTS-I, CQD, CQT is the VP of Quality Standards at Level 3 Audio Visual, where he has commissioned thousands of AV systems. He is a board member of the Association for Quality in AV Technology (AQAV). He is a Senior Academy Instructor for AVIXA, and he was Educator of the Year in 2017.

Technical Council member Peter Mapp, PhD, FASA, FAES, Principal of Peter Mapp Associates, is a chartered engineer and physicist, and Fellow of the ASA and AES. Mapp was named the 2009 NSCA University Educator of the Year and received the IEC 1906 award for his work on intelligibility standards and research.

Sound & Communications (ISSN 0038-1845) (USPS 943-140) is published monthly for $25 (US), $35 (Canada & Mexico) and $65 (all other countries), by Sound & Communications Publications, Inc., 25 Willowdale Ave., Port Washington, NY 11050-3779. Periodicals postage paid at Port Washington, NY, and additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2019 SOUND & COMMUNICATIONS PUBLISHING, INC. Reprint of any part of contents without permission is forbidden. Titles Registered in the U.S. Patent Office. POSTMASTER: Send U.S. address changes to Sound & Communications, PO Box 1767, Lowell, MA 01853-1767. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

October 2019

Sound & Communications

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NEWSLETTER LISTEN TECHNOLOGIES ACQUIRES AUDIOCONEXUS Listen Technologies Corp. (Bluffdale UT) has acquired AudioConexus, Inc. (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). AudioConexus helps sightseeing-tour operators engage visitors with technology and services that complement Listen Technologies’ portfolio of assistive-listening and tour-guide products. Notably, estimates project that the global tours and activities market will be a $183 billion industry by 2020. AudioConexus will transition to Listen Technologies Canada over the next few months. According to both companies, they share a vision of improving life experiences through sound by providing excellent audio and compelling content anytime, anywhere, on any platform, in a format that is accessible to all. Russ Gentner, CEO of Listen Technologies, noted, “AudioConexus shares Listen Technologies’ passion for delivering audio experiences that engage people in personal and memorable ways.” Together, the companies plan to deliver tour solutions that create memorable experiences for travelers.

LORNE TROTTIER ACQUIRES FULL OWNERSHIP OF MATROX Matrox (Dorval, Quebec, Canada) has announced that Lorne Trottier, Co-Founder of Matrox, has acquired 100-percent ownership of the Matrox group of companies, including its three divisions— Matrox Imaging, Matrox Graphics and Matrox Video. According to Trottier, “This next phase represents a renewed commitment to our valued customers, suppliers and business partners, as well as to our 700 dedicated employees worldwide.” Trottier continued, “I look forward to championing a corporate culture defined by forward-thinking business practices, transparency and teamwork. I am excited to lead this great organization as we implement growth initiatives.” According to Matrox, it remains committed to customers, suppliers and partners, maintaining a focus on delivering excellent products and customer service, while fostering high-quality relationships. Stikeman Elliott LLP and Borden Ladner Gervais LLP acted as legal counsel to Trottier in connection with the transaction. Canaccord Genuity Group acted as merger-and-acquisition advisors to Trottier.

SONANCE ACQUIRES JAMES LOUDSPEAKER Sonance (San Clemente CA) has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire James Loudspeaker (Minden NV). James Loudspeaker was established in 1999. Ari Supran, CEO at Sonance, stated, “[James Loudspeaker’s] history of innovation, their mastery of customization and their passion for aesthetics are right in line with our core principles here at Sonance—that technology should disappear into architecture, that authentic partnerships are what set us apart and that our long, proud heritage of innovation drives everything we do.” “James Loudspeaker was not for sale,” Mark Schafle, James Loudspeaker’s CEO, explained. “After a chance encounter and subsequent conversations, we learned that our customization and manufacturing capabilities fit perfectly with the Sonance strategy and culture. We are thrilled to become part of the Sonance family, and we look forward to taking what we do to the next level.” Sonance and James Loudspeaker expect the deal to close before the end of the year. The companies will continue to operate as separate entities while the combined team learns what makes each brand unique. Over time, Sonance will identify areas where the strengths of both companies can be leveraged to provide value to their combined customer base.

UNIGUEST ACQUIRES TRIPLEPLAY, COMPLEMENTING ACQUISITION OF ONELAN Tripleplay (London, UK) has announced it has been acquired by Uniguest (Nashville TN), following Uniguest’s acquisition of ONELAN (Reading, Berkshire, UK) in June 2018. Merging Tripleplay into the Uniguest portfolio provides mutual access to technology, expertise and partners as the digital-signage industry continues to undergo a period of consolidation among providers. As part of Uniguest, this new division will be a key component of a global organization that enables Tripleplay and ONELAN to leverYou could have received this NEWSLETTER information about three weeks ago, with more detail and live links, via email. Go to www.soundandcommunications.com to sign up! October 2019

Sound & Communications 11

NEWSLETTER age the group’s financial and support infrastructure to drive global expansion and service plans. With ever-increasing demands to deliver live TV and video as part of a digital-signage solution across key verticals, combining the respective strengths of the two organizations ensures customers can confidently access IPTV and digital signage as a complete solution, from a single global organization, to meet customers’ specific requirements. The newly formed group of Tripleplay and ONELAN shares a common customer-centric approach, it enjoys complementary cultures, and it will be able to exploit the technical skills, sales, research, marketing and product sets of both organizations, thereby benefitting clients and partners globally. The combined Tripleplay and ONELAN organization will be led by Steve Rickless, Tripleplay’s CEO, with the support of the Tripleplay and ONELAN executive teams. Tripleplay and ONELAN will continue to operate from their respective offices with their current team members.

NETGEAR ANNOUNCES CREATION OF ENGINEERING SUPPORT CENTER FOR AV NETGEAR, Inc. (San Jose CA), has announced the introduction of an engineering support center for AV integrators that deploy AV solutions that utilize IP networking. This new service to AV installers, consultants, manufacturers and resellers is positioned to streamline audiovisual solutions over IP and eliminate the complexity of AV deployments. This dedicated AV-engineering-services team of experts has been conceived as part of the company’s effort to empower those who are conducting installations and designing projects by offering them free network-design assistance, training and installation support. From pre-sales and postsales support, to technical training, to whitepapers and best-practices primers, these services are positioned to help educate technology managers and integrators on how to become masters of AV deployments that require IP networking. NETGEAR has reshaped the organization to address the specific needs of the AV industry and AV integrators. According to NETGEAR, in order to streamline the adoption of AV-over-IP and ensure a successful transition from legacy matrix switching to AV-over-Ethernet, AV integrators depend on having a solid partner to guide the way. NETGEAR wants to be that partner. This new structure for NETGEAR is essentially a design center, encompassing a number of the company’s top networking professionals who are accomplished at documenting, drawing and producing AV architectures.

YORKTEL LAUNCHES SUBSIDIARY FOCUSED ON TELEHEALTH COMMUNICATIONS Yorktel (Eatontown NJ) has announced the spin-off of its healthcare practice to form a new company, Caregility. The new company will be composed of Yorktel’s entire healthcare-practice team and focus on enabling end-to-end virtual care and communication solutions to the healthcare industry. Both Caregility and Yorktel will be separate subsidiaries of YTC Holdings. Ron Gaboury, CEO of Yorktel, will remain CEO of the entire organization, working with each subsidiary’s leadership team to direct company strategy and business objectives while monitoring overall corporate performance. Michael Brandofino, formerly COO of Yorktel, has been named President and COO of Caregility. Ken Scaturro, currently CRO of Yorktel, has been named President and COO of Yorktel.

BIAMP OFFERS UPDATE FOLLOWING RECENT COMPANY ACQUISITIONS Following the recent acquisition of Community Professional Loudspeakers (Chester PA) and Apart Audio (Schoten, Belgium) by Biamp (Beaverton OR), the company’s President and CEO, Rashid Skaf, offered “an update regarding how [Biamp is] working to integrate these world-class brands within the Biamp family.” According to Skaf, “We’ve leveraged Community’s loudspeaker expertise to create our new largevenue sales team, which will focus on providing premium loudspeakers capable of handling the demanding indoor and outdoor needs of commercial, leisure and stadium spaces. The team at Apart, meanwhile, will lend their deep knowledge to our new retail sales group, specializing in audio solutions for small and mid-size venues. All products will be sold through our regular Biamp sales team and supported the same way you’ve come to expect over the last 43 years.” COMPILED BY DAN FERRISI AND ANTHONY VARGAS 12 Sound & Communications October 2019

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SOUND ADVICE Peter Mapp will be giving a tutorial at the upcoming AES New York, entitled “Psychoacoustics for Sound Engineers.” It is scheduled for Friday, October 18.

Where Did That Come From? How we localize sound and its importance in sound-system design. By Peter Mapp, PhD, FASA, FAES

eing able to accurately detect the direction from which a sound is coming is a fundamental facet of our hearing system. It is also an important aspect in sound-system design when tr ying to maintain the sound image when reinforcing music or speech. The fact that we localize sounds horizontally quite differently from how we localize them vertically does slightly complicate the issue. However, we can actually take advantage of our reduced discrimination in the vertical plane when locating loudspeakers and arrays. So, let’s take a look at the mechanisms involved. I will start with localization in the horizontal plane, as this is quite intuitive. Two quite separate processes are involved that

are based, first, on spectral head shadowing, giving rise to different frequency responses at the ears, and, second, on temporal discrimination that detects the difference in arrival times (and phase) of a sound reaching each of the two ears. Figure 1 shows that the sound from the loudspeaker to the left will reach the left ear first, as it has farther to travel to reach the right ear because it has to travel (diffract) around the head. The head also gets in the way of the sound reaching the right ear, and, so, it noticeably attenuates the high frequencies reaching that ear— head shadowing, as it is called. To put these two effects into perspective, I measured the frequency responses and arrival times of the sound from a loud-

Figure 1: Lateral sound localization due to different sound paths to the ears.

Figure 2: Sound arriving from 0 degrees and 90 degrees.

14 Sound & Communications October 2019

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SOUND ADVICE speaker arriving from in front and to the side of a listener, using a calibrated Head and Torso Simulator (HATS). Here, the difference in arrival times and the perceived frequency responses are clearly demonstrated. The two mechanisms are termed Interaural Time Difference (ITD) and head shadowing or Interaural Level Difference (ILD). ILD works at high frequencies, where the head is bigger than the wavelengths involved, and, so, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s able to block or partially block the sound; by contrast, ITD operates at lower frequencies, where the wavelength is greater and the sound diffracts around the head. The two processes gradually transition around approximately 700Hz and 1kHz. (At around 1.1kHz and above, phase ambiguities begin to occur.) The measured response at the ear is termed the Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) and, typically, a whole family of cur ves is produced to characterize the responses all around the head. A single set of cur ves is shown in Figure 3. The ITD and ILD mechanisms combine to produce a ver y sensitive system, enabling listeners typically to have a discrimination of around just two degrees up to 1kHz and between two and approximately six degrees over the range of 1kHz to 10kHz, depending on the angle from which the sound arrives. To localize sound vertically, we employ a ver y different mechanism that is purely frequency-based and that employs the small folds and bumps of our outer ear (the pinna). As you might imagine, given the size of the ear, this is a highfrequency effect where the wavelengths become comparable to the physical features; it only really begins to kick in at around 4kHz. Figure 4 illustrates the principle. For the amnesics among us, I have shown a picture of a typical ear in Figure 5 and indicated how the high-frequency, short-wavelength sounds reflect off the structure of the pinna. In the vertical plane, the angular resolution (elevation discrimination) is about 15 degrees plus. This has some interesting implications for sound-system design, as it enables us, for example, to place loudspeakers well above the intended (continued on page 88) 16 Sound & Communications October 2019

Figure 3: ITD and ILD concept and responses.

Figure 4: Localization in the vertical planeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;spectral response differences.

Figure 5: Pinna structure and high-frequency sound reflections.

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Reporting And Data Analytics Turn big data into big ROI. By Ken Scaturro Yorktel

or a long time, across many industries, Big Data was the king of IT. The more numbers you could extrapolate from whatever your lines of business, the more IT clout you had. It could be said that, at one time, “I have more data than you!” was the favorite quote (or perhaps gloat) of any enterprise that could generate spreadsheets. However impressive they might be, though, reams of numbers don’t necessarily translate to meaningful business benefits. The correct angle of analysis, trend recognition and intelligent deductions—grounded in managed-ser vices expertise—can reveal hidden time and money drains on your IT infrastructure. Without insights of this kind, these drains can sap your resources without you ever knowing. Unearthing the nuances behind the numbers can empower you to make actionable decisions that will align your data with your strategic business objectives and, ultimately, enhance your bottom line. Intelligent reporting and data analytics can have several beneficial impacts on your organization: Most importantly, they can provide insights on how you can optimize costs, achieving better return on investment (ROI). For example, today’s reporting and analytics dashboards can visually display the relationship between how many hours an employee spends on clients per department, and then determine the potential savings of manipulating these inputs based on the employee’s salar y. You can assess which employees are more productive and then act accordingly. For example, maybe you can 18 Sound & Communications October 2019

feature them as team leaders or mentors for other, less-productive employees. Reporting and data analytics can also provide insights on how best to leverage your organization’s real-time and historical data. Today’s online reporting tools use artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms to process your data to identify patterns and trends, automate alerts and anticipate future business anomalies. These sophisticated tools are a far cr y from the spreadsheets of yester year. In expert hands, they can provide information to streamline your decision-making processes with regard to numerous aspects of your business—technology acquisition or disposal, human-resource alignment with your style(s) of work and even future goals based on current trends. How high do your customers rank on your list of priorities? Pretty close to the top, I would guess, given that they generate your revenue and play a significant role in defining your market presence. Reporting and data analytics can provide you with insights on how to predict customer behavior based on their buying decisions, their business goals, their own user needs and more. Understanding what your customers seek can give you a tremendous advantage over the competition, insofar as, in many cases, you’re connecting with your customers on an emotional level. Shedding light on the factors that play into their decision-making process can give you a keener understanding of how to market your products to their needs. When evaluating a managed-ser vices provider, you want to be sure the provider understands the unique relationship between reporting and analytics, as well as the potential that each distinct practice can bring to your organization. This approach supports your environment by automatically seeking potential issues in devices and networks and generating alerts, ensuring they can be resolved quickly and efficiently. Ideally, your managed-ser vices provider will monitor your device availability, errors, utilization and licensing thresholds to identify potential issues before they become disruptive to your business objectives. Today’s sophisticated customer-facing tools take your analytics data and provide an aggregated dashboard reflecting real-time behavior across your IT environment. This dashboard view tells the stor y behind the numbers, showing trends and patterns that would be much more difficult to discern from a spreadsheet or other document. A standard accompanying suite of available reports can provide a 360-degree view of specific events, and then drill down to identify possible trouble areas that require attention. This blend empowers reporting-and-analytics customers with the information they need to make the best business decisions. As a result, businesses learn how to maximize their digital workspace and drive the change that generates measurable ROI while, simultaneously, relieving internal IT teams. You should definitely have a conversation with your preferred managed-ser vices provider about what its data-analytics tools can do to support your organization’s journey to digital transformation.

INTELLIMIX

HOUSE OF WORSHIP: BUSINESS

From The Parking Lot To The Pew, Part 1 A time to be vigilant. By David Lee Jr., PhD Lee Communication Inc.

e live in violent times. People are stressed, government is inadequate and people are experiencing bleak economic conditions. Social woes, challenging family conditions and religious conflicts are just a few of the factors that are fueling the stress people are feeling globally. I suggest that this stress is at least an underlying factor that is motivating people to snap and inflict violence on people in workplaces, in schools, in social settings, in family homes, in shopping centers, in movie theaters, in airports and, tragically, in houses of worship (HoWs). Historically, there was a time when a HoW was considered a holy place— a location in which no one dared to perpetrate any evil for fear that God would strike them down. Sadly, that is no longer the case. HoWs of all major faiths, all around the world, have experienced violence. In Africa, militant groups have killed innocent worshippers in churches and mosques. In Asia, terrorists have killed innocent worshippers in churches, mosques, and Buddhist and Hindu temples. In the US, innocent worshippers have been killed in churches, synagogues and mosques. This is a tragic period in the histor y of the world. I believe that action must be taken to help prevent these tragedies. The Good News is that many schools, shopping centers and airports have taken action to tr y to prevent violence inside their domains. The effectiveness of those actions is still unknown, but, at the ver y least, they are doing something. Numerous HoWs have taken action to tr y to prevent violence in their worship facilities; yet, we can easily 20 Sound & Communications October 2019

claim that the majority have not done anything to address potential violence and security vulnerabilities in their HoW. Why is that? Because most HoW leaders believe that God will protect His people. Plus, they’re concerned that, if the sanctuar y is no longer perceived as being safe, then people might quit attending worship ser vices. There is, of course, also the perception that’s all too commonly held: “That would never happen to us.” And, honestly, leaders do have a reasonable position to defend there; the reality is that, when we place HoW violence in context on a global scale, only a small percentage of HoWs actually experience acts of violence. Nevertheless, even one loss of a loved one due to violence while worshipping is one instance too many. I believe that HoW leaders must take security seriously so they can do ever ything they can to prevent violence from occurring on their campuses. I also believe that actions they can take will actually help them achieve a greater sense of community and purpose among congregants. In addition, I believe that HoW security will become an industr y within our industr y. Thus, now is a good time to consider ways that we can help HoW leaders secure their facilities in order to prevent a tragedy from occurring. Let me clarify that I am not a security expert. My goal is to bring awareness that HoW leaders must do something to protect the people who attend worship ser vices on their campuses—and we can help them do it. The information I present here was drawn from conversations with HoW leaders and with those who take security seriously and have taken actions that will help them keep their worship spaces secure. Here, I present seven steps that I believe can help to create a more vigilant sanctuar y for worship. They are as follows: 1) create an action plan; 2) create a security team; 3) train the security team; 4) create a video-sur veillance system; 5) keep most doors locked except for primar y in/out doors; 6) create a check-in/checkout system for children and teenagers; and 7) explain the need for security to the congregation. Obviously, many additional action steps could be taken to secure a HoW. Ultimately, however, my goal is primarily to provoke us to think more precisely about security and develop effective ways that our industr y can help HoW leaders secure their facilities, and do so seamlessly—without generating fear and anxiety that could cause people not to want to attend worship. I believe there are far more good people on earth than there are evildoers. Nevertheless, I also believe we must do all we can to protect the good people who want to attend their HoW without worr y or fear. Thus, in Part 2, I will explain the seven steps in greater depth, thereby offering a starting point for discovering ways to help people move safely from the parking lot to the pew.

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THE THECOMMISH COMMISH In the AV industry, the end users are typically represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: the designers, who specify the systems, and the integrators who install them. My company acts as a third party to commission these systems. These are our stories.

AV Skill Sets It really does take a village.

By James Maltese, CTS-D, CTS-I, CQD, CQT Level 3 Audio Visual AV9000 Checklist Items Under Test: 1.5: If this project requires additional controls, processes, equipment, fixtures, resources or skills, they are defined. Reasoning: It is becoming just about impossible for one person to have master y of all the skills required to implement an AV project successfully. So much knowledge is required to be effective at marketing and sales, engineering, rack fabrication, integration, testing, client training, ser vice and contract management. And now, with the industr y welcoming content creation, managed-ser vice support, network architecting, etc., things are just becoming worse. If, before, a documented quality management system (QMS) was highly recommended to spot “opportunities for improvement” in your team, then it’s absolutely required now. Noticing that an essential skill or resource is missing from the team after the project is already under way is one of the best ways to throw your profits out the window. The Stor y: My son just started karate this month, and he absolutely loves it. He comes home excited about what he learned, and he can hardly wait for all the stuff he thinks he’s going to learn next time. He learned how to wear his karategi the first week. He learned two blocks the second week. He is convinced that, by the third week, they are going to be able to squeeze in how to do a spinning wheel kick, a superman punch and maybe an O goshi hip throw for good measure. Basically, he wants to be a black belt before the new year. I tried to explain that things move a 22 Sound & Communications October 2019

little slower than that. All those complicated moves take time to practice, and he should just spend the time to become excellent at all the simple moves along his journey. I was reminded of a famous Bruce Lee quote: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” My son didn’t get it. He went on to tr y some roundhouse kicks before I got halfway through the quote. Naturally, this got me thinking about integrating AV systems. Have you ever thought of the mountain of skills required to complete an AV project? A lot of people take it for granted. Think about ever ything that a good salesperson has to excel at to be successful: listening, note-taking, typing, speaking, etc. Now, move onto engineering skills: math, geometr y, CAD, research, etc. Don’t forget about the rack-fabrication folks: soldering, cable dressing, reading drawings, etc. And, of course, there are the project managers: management skills, scheduling, correspondence, time-tracking, etc. Let’s not forget about the install people: construction codes, architectural drawings, installation skills, cable pulling, terminations, etc. But what about the testers…the trainers…the ser vice team…the network team? And we didn’t even touch the manufacturer’s trainings required. It is mind boggling how many skills are required to complete an AV installation. I don’t think it’s possible for one person to excel at all of them. Maybe some rock stars in the industr y can speak intelligently (albeit at a superficial level) about many of them, but they

‘I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.’ —Bruce Lee

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certainly can’t perform all of them at a high level themselves. So, what can be done? If you have a small team, maybe you spend half your time in trainings just tr ying to keep up—but that’s not feasible. If you have the luxur y of being part of a large team, one would hope there are experts on the team who can take a deep dive in one AV discipline and really gain master y of it. Maybe you can partner up with other firms that complement your skills. You might think the big question you have to ask is whether it’s better to be a jack-of-all-trades or a master of one. I think the bigger question is this one: Do I have access to all the skills I will need to complete this job? Whether your team is large or small, if you don’t review the contracts before opening them up as projects and have a documented QMS, you won’t know until it’s too late. Contract review is a crucial element of AV9000, as is knowing your limitations as a company. Ideally, you’ll find any holes during the preliminar y phases of the projects and you can structure your offering, including any partnerships, from the beginning to account for all costs. If you find a missing skill set after the project is already under way, it can be ver y costly to find a partner after the fact (assuming you don’t just hope the client won’t notice). Pro tip: Hoping the client won’t notice always ends up costing more. If you have a QMS, these issues are easy to identify. Now, you can assemble your team of AV ninjas from the proposal phase. Think about if you’d prefer to work with an elite team of AV experts or a thrown-together team of people who might know how to do it… maybe. I understand that part of the excitement is getting to play with all the new AV technology. That’s why many of us retain our childlike curiosity and love for all these new toys. But there’s just too much to be responsible for doing it all. Find a piece of the project that you enjoy…that you can excel at…and make it your specialty. Practice it 10,000 times. Practice it with patience and discipline. Only then can you become an AV ninja, Grasshopper.

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Consumer TV Or Commercial Display? What’s the difference, anyway?

By Douglas Kleeger, CTS-D, DMC-E/S, XTP-E, KCD

f you have looked, or if you’re looking, to update or upgrade video in your audiovisual-enabled spaces, you’ve likely heard these words: television, display, liquid cr ystal display (LCD), light-emitting diode (LED), organic light-emitting diode (OLED), SmartTV. Then, there are the jargon words like “consumer” (often referred to as “residential”) and “commercial.” It’s confusing! So, let’s sort this out! Due to the complexity of some of these issues, as well as the level of detail we’ll be getting into, I plan to break this into a two-part series. Here, we’ll focus on consumer (or residential) models; in a future installment, we’ll focus on commercial models. Televisions have been around for decades now, and they’ve come a long way from the first black-and-white models. They’ve become thinner, they weigh less, they’re available in different shapes and they have direct inputs in addition to receiving over-the-air broadcasts. In addition, they now display high-definition (or ultra-HD) images. Perhaps most important is that they’re now using LCD and/or LED technology. The difference between LCD and LED TVs is that older LCDs used a fluorescent-type lamp, whereas LED TVs use LED backlighting. In truth, LED TVs are just a subset of LCD TVs, and virtually all of the new LCD TVs use LED technology as their backlight. LED technology has become the new standard. It’s more energy efficient, and it enables the TV to be thinner. There are two main types of LED backlighting: edge-lit and full-array. 26 Sound & Communications October 2019

Edge-lit is as the name would imply: It has LEDs positioned in back of, and around the perimeter of, the LCD screen. This provides lighting across the entire back of the screen. By contrast, full-array backlighting has many more LEDs positioned across the entire back of the screen. As you might guess, there are some issues with edge-lit TVs, and those issues have to do with areas that should be darker than others are. By contrast, full-array TVs break up the LEDs into zones so that areas that should be dark are dimmed more than other zones of LEDs are; this gives the viewer “blacker blacks.” The more expensive the full-array TV is, the more LEDs and “LED zones” you get. Moving along to OLED technology, this is a unique and relatively new development that enables the TV to be incredibly thin—in some cases, only a few millimeters thick. Without going into too much detail, organic compounds the size of a pixel make up the panel, and they can be turned on and off individually. Nothing can compare to this type of TV when it comes to contrast and pixel accuracy. As you might imagine, these TVs are at the high end when it comes to price! Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s turn to consumer TVs. They’re typically less expensive than commercial displays are. Most TVs in this categor y have a tuner built in to receive over-the-air broadcasts (note that you’ll need an antenna), they’re controlled from an infrared (IR) remote control, and they’re not made to be turned on for 10 hours a day or more. Their warranties are typically one-year parts and 90-days labor. And, if you use them for a commercial purpose, such as digital signage, you will likely void the warranty entirely! A typical commercial application for a consumer TV might be in an office break room or other area where it’s only turned on occasionally and for short viewing periods—not left on all day! The starting point should always be to use commercial displays for commercial applications, but, with ever-shrinking budgets, a consumer TV might occasionally be all you need and save you some money. In a future installment, I will detail the benefits of commercial displays and the differences between them and consumer TVs. If you have any relevant experience you would like to share in regard to choosing a consumer TV or a commercial display, please email me at dkleeger@testa.com.

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AVIXA POV

Maximizing The Learning Experience A classroom’s design can make or break an education environment.

By Rachel Bradshaw, MEd AVIXA

ou—the person reading these words—are a lifelong learner. I know that because here you are, reading Sound & Communications, deepening your understanding of the industry of which you’re a part. You’re also in great company. The AV industry is full of people like you, as evidenced by the more than 12,000 Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) holders or the 94 percent of you who say that staying up to date on industry trends is one of the main reasons you come to the InfoComm show. Clearly, learning is important to you. That said: Do you hate going to class? If so, you’re not alone! Although learning about trends and products are the top two reasons people cite for attending the InfoComm show, only about 10 percent of attendees participate in formal training while there. That makes perfect sense, as there’s plenty to be learned on the show floor. There, you have opportunities to examine products and systems in person, and then talk directly with the experts staffing the booths. Here’s the thing, though: There’s a big potential missed opportunity. What about all the other experts, who are completely enveloping you at all times at the show? That is, what about the army of peers, competitors and potential partners at28 Sound & Communications October 2019

tending the trade show alongside you? If you’re not going to class, are you learning anything from them? Maybe you are. If you’re outgoing, persistent or lucky, you’ll find yourself at the right networking reception, standing next to the right people, at the right time, and you’ll connect over a shared challenge. You might even learn something from the different ways in which you approached it. But, if you go to class, intentionally seeking out a cohort of fellow learners determined to tackle the same questions as you are… well…in all honesty, you might fare no better. Sure, you’ll gain insights from the one to five people who wear microphones. But what about the 100 people sitting around you? So often, in lectures or panels, each attendee is an island. People are mere inches away from each other, but they’re isolated by the lighting, the orientation of the seats and the implied focus on the front of the room. Our average session attendee has more than 15 years’ experience in the AV industr y. If you’re sitting silently in a room with 100 of them, you’re missing out on a millennium and a half of expertise! And that’s the challenge. Ever y year, we bring tens of thousands of AV experts together under one roof, all of them committed to learning more about their industr y. How do we facilitate them getting the maximum possible value out of attending by making sure they can leverage not just our exhibitors and speakers as knowledge resources, but also each other? That, my friends, is an AV design challenge. I’m turning to you—the vast army of lifelong-learning AV experts—to help solve it. To be clear, this isn’t only an AV design challenge; it’s also an event-planning challenge, a pedagogy challenge and a human-nature challenge. We have to attack it from multiple vectors, changing the kinds of sessions we program and the expectations for our speakers and attendees. Changing only the content is not enough, though. To transform an experience, you also have to change the space and the technology. For InfoComm 2019, we introduced a handful of new room designs for our sessions, two of which were specifically intended to address this challenge. Internally, we referred to the designs as the “peer-to-peer space” and the “roundtable space.” These rooms were intended to ser ve different, but related, briefs. The peer-to-peer space was intended to support small groups of people talking, working or studying together. We wanted a facilitator to have the ability to address the entire

room to initiate and facilitate activities, but we wanted all other activities to take place on an interpersonal level. In the interest of supporting this, the seating areas were small and spread out. We used different lighting presets for three different types of tasks that took place in this space: 1) studying, 2) discussion, and 3) drinks and networking. The directview display was intended to support the studying task. The idea was that, on demand, one of the AVIXA staff instructors circulating through the study space could bring up a presentation and quickly guide a group of people wrestling with the same topic through a lesson. This room functioned nearly exactly as it was designed to. People engaged in rich, active networking, studying and discussion. I’m not saying that the room made them do this, but it presented no barriers. The small, widely spaced seating areas invited people to congregate in small groups. The comfortable furniture and appropriate task lighting made the space feel inviting. The sound reinforcement made it easy to facilitate activities within the space. The one element that went unused was the display. Once people had settled into their nooks, they weren’t so easy to dislodge; they preferred to review concepts using the portable whiteboards, written references and their handheld devices. This was a space that removed barriers between people, but

that offered just enough supporting technology to give them the environment and tools necessary to learn from each other. The roundtable space was intended for larger group discussions—a whole roomful of people having a lively debate. The speakers/facilitators would be on the same level as the other participants, rather than being behind a lectern or on a stage. A couple of throwable microphones would ensure ever yone had a voice. Originally, we designed it completely in the round, with ever yone facing each other in a circle. We had a variety of seating and floor lamps throughout the room to provide soft, even illumination. In essence, we were hoping to create the living room for the AV industr y’s family meeting. In later design iterations, we reverted to a semicircle so that the facilitators could use slides and images to help frame the discussion. We also dramatically reduced the amount of soft seating because it seemed wasteful. It did look beautiful in the design renderings, but we weren’t confident it was contributing substantively to our design intent. Adding the display reintroduced the impression of there being a front and back of the room. That was reinforced by the single row of soft seating that remained in place. Those in the front row seemed “onstage,” whereas ever yone behind them seemed like the audience. We had accidentally created a new barrier

between the front row and the ranks behind them. I’m not saying the room “didn’t work”—in fact, sessions that took place there were, on average, the highest rated at the show. You experts…you lifelong learners…really benefit from talking directly to one another. Anecdotally, though, the facilitators who used this space reported that it resisted its intent. Although it was easy to draw in the front row, those in the back seemed almost hesitant to interrupt. The beautiful thing about designs is that they’re made to be modified. I suspect that, if we integrated the roundtable display into the backdrop, thereby allowing it to “disappear” when not in use, we could recapture the sense of a circle of equals. Having seats clustered around their own designated microphone, rather than making people ask to have a mic passed to them, would reinforce the impression that ever yone is expected to speak. Having either more variety or more uniformity of seating might eliminate the “onstage/off-stage” perception. You probably have a better idea, though—and that’s the whole point. As an industr y, our collective knowledge dwarfs any one individual’s own. If only we could access it…. If you’d like to share any of that collective knowledge with me, I am ready to learn.

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INDUSTRY POV

Want A Standout AV Brand? The answer lies beyond the logo.

By Steven Picanza Latin & Code

ver yone seems to think they know what branding really is. Yes, it’s your logo and your business cards. Yes, it’s your website’s and your social media’s visual direction. Yes, it’s your marketing collateral and your booth design. But, the truth is, it’s that and so much more. AV companies concerned about branding have to look beyond the logo and the visual identity. It’s time to stop looking outward and start looking inward to find ways to differentiate yourself and stand out. At its core, branding centers on what your audience thinks about your product or ser vice. As Marty Neumeier says, “It’s not what you say it is; it’s what they say it is.” [In this construction, “they” refers to your audience, fans, competitors and employees.] So, how do you ensure that what they’re saying is positioning your brand correctly? It might be surprising, but the answer doesn’t come from your marketing strategy; instead, it comes from your internal brand strategy and vision. With the right investment, building your brand and, ultimately, building brand awareness can not only help position you as an expert in your field, but also be a lead-generation machine that essentially works on autopilot in the background. For audiovisual companies, brand awareness of this sort is equal to gold. This is branding at its finest and most effective. Working with AV companies for the better part of the last decade, I’ve seen all the trends in design, branding and marketing—both the successful ones and the 30 Sound & Communications October 2019

detrimental ones. I’ve seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve concluded that, if you really want your brand to work, you must start with three core essentials.

Focus On Culture Brand culture doesn’t just mean beer at 4pm, pool tables and being able to bring your dog to the office. Sure, those are great perks, but they don’t create a culture of brand proactiveness and experience. Those things don’t create a culture of brand evangelists. To create a brand culture, we have to start at the top while, at the same time, starting at the bottom. Want to know if your brand strategy and vision are aligned? Ask yourself these questions: Do the CEO and the janitor share the same vision for the company? Are both of them able to articulate what the company does? It goes without saying, but your company culture is like a magnet: It’s going to attract those who align with it, and it’s going to repel those who don’t. Having worked with AV companies over the years to create impactful and inspiring branding and marketing cultures, I’ve found that, often, the work starts with the C-suite and focuses on eliminating brand ego and resentment. With the brand being a living, breathing organism, ever ything you say and do impacts its health—a fact that’s especially true in the ever-changing AV industr y. This is where the idea of brand ethos comes in.

Brand Ethos The definition of “ethos” is the characteristic spirit of a culture, era or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations. Keeping that definition in mind, consider the following question about your brand ethos: How is your brand living it fully, ever y day, with ever y customer touchpoint? Your brand ethos is the connection point between your brand and your target audience. To rely solely on your logo or visual designs to articulate the true value your organization provides would be akin to judging a person solely on his or her looks. To do so would be superficial and egotistical, and it wouldn’t tell the full stor y. In fact, it wouldn’t tell a stor y at all. By contrast, when your company is able to live its brand ethos ever y day, not only do your customers win, but you also win. This approach creates an impactful brand experience. There’s another way to look at this, and I use this line in ever y workshop I conduct and ever y class I teach. It has been a mainstay of my content-marketing efforts for some time now. The question is this: “Do your core values (what you stand for) and day-to-day actions align?” If not, then it’s time for a change, because, sadly, it’s almost

guaranteed that your customers are seeing this 10 times over…and your employees 100 times over!

Empower Your Employees Your AV company probably has many different types of employees: those who are in the office and run things, such as business operations, accounting and marketing; those who are in the field and service the client, including installation, maintenance and business development; and those in other roles. Regardless of their job titles, roles or pay grades, those employees are your greatest brand and marketing asset. After all, who better to talk about the brand than those who live and breathe it every day? When your company’s ethos and culture are aligned with your day-to-day marketing actions, your employees will naturally add a layer of evangelism—they’ll become brand super-fans, if you will. If your employees are empowered

and have an actual voice, they are going to be more productive and more positive, and they’ll have a greater likelihood of living the brand experience with ever y opportunity they get. And I’m not talking about just wearing company swag, either (although that’s great, and think about the culture boost of an internal company store). I’m talking about when employees are motivated to engage with customers and up-sell them just because they genuinely believe in the brand. I’m talking about the employee who goes above and beyond his or her pay grade or job title because “it’s the right thing to do.” This only happens when employees are empowered, trusted and, perhaps most important, believe in the brand. This is magical. It’s a game changer. It’s a differentiator that permeates from employee to customer. And, when that happens, the customer then becomes the super-fan and evangelist, often giv-

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ing referrals and spreading the good word about your company. As noted earlier, it takes investment to get there. It takes a magical combination of personnel, capital investment and a willingness to be better…to break the mold of what you used to do. The AV world—a world so new and exciting—is also troubled, being a bit archaic in its thinking. The standout companies are the ones whose leadership understands this…the ones whose employees live their brand…the ones whose marketing departments evangelize that brand to the public. Branding shouldn’t be an afterthought, nor should it be focused only on your logo. Branding lies at the center of your AV company’s hub-and-spoke model, and it must be nur tured and strategized about for maximum impact. Now, go forth and look beyond your logo. That is where your brand truth lies.

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INDUSTRY POV

The Softer Side Of Pro Audio Meeting hospitality expectations with easy-to-use technology. By Jim Schwenzer Ashly Audio

ast year, in the October issue of Sound & Communications, we explored the need to “play zone” when looking at integrating professional audio (or, for that matter, full-AV solutions) in the hospitality space. To “play zone,” in short, is to recognize the multiple uses that exist within the hospitality market—both in terms of the vertical and within individual facilities. We’ll touch on the zone concept again, albeit briefly, because of how critical it is from a planning perspective. However, the 200-level course in hospitality integration looks more at what types of solutions are demanded by the end user, and it focuses on customer satisfaction and the guest experience. This article discusses the real-world demands and the ways in which integrators can help end users meet these requirements!

A Refresher On Zone Let’s swiftly recap my article, entitled “Playing Zone.” The hospitality vertical is quite broad: Hotels, restaurants, amusement parks, golf courses, movie theaters and stadiums each can fall into the categor y. Further, the lines have blurred greatly in each of those types of facilities. Hotels often have restaurants. Restaurants are often found inside amusement parks or stadiums. Golf courses and bars have merged into wildly popular recreation centers. There are pools, lobbies, hallways, dining rooms, main rooms, sports bars, live-music venues, retail spaces

32 Sound & Communications October 2019

and conference rooms, all of which have divergent primar y uses. In short, one size no longer fits all. Thus, the concept of “playing zone” was born. Integrators—along with facility managers and business owners—must consider ever y hospitality space in terms of its specific areas and zones, each of which requires its own soundscape. Then, the integrator must find a way to integrate or, perhaps, separate those zones to create a cohesive audio experience. The solution to this is to find ways to delineate each zone, design specifically to the area and then integrate it back into a singular system. Finally, make it easy to install, troubleshoot and control. Typically, this requires some type of networked audio component (for example, the Dante audio network platform). This is an excellent start. However, what specific considerations are the supporting pillars to this approach? What insights should one arm oneself with as one prepares to work in such a complex, yet exciting, vertical?

More Than Integrated Solutions—Integrated Products Integrated solutions are, of course, the end game. The goal is a single system that’s tied together through an easy-to-use interface that works seamlessly between the multiple uses of a facility. But what if the project isn’t the next mega-resort attached to a magnet amusement park? What if we’re looking at a local pub that fills up both for Friday night’s upstart rock band and then again for Saturday afternoon college football? What if we’re looking at a local restaurant in which there are premium, private dining rooms that require their own sound? Should the small-to-medium-sized hospitality spaces be left out? Of course not! The answer to such applications lies in offering the same integrated experience that a major stadium, hotel, amusement park or resort would offer by means of an integration that fits that particular business perfectly. Enter the era of the integrated product. Single products now exist that offer multiple zones of mixing, along with DSP, power amplification, routing, auto-mixing, ducking, amplifier monitoring, event scheduling and triggering, and mic preamplification. They now also come in single-rack units, which means that installation is done quickly and that the atypical install space—common in hospitality—is no longer a concern. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) have long believed the path to true pro audio was out of reach, primarily because of space considerations and price. But the world has changed and the democratization of pro audio is upon us. This is a huge development not just for the local bar or the beloved family restaurant, but also for the integration community because it opens up new business for AV professionals. These types of solutions are simple and cost-effective for the end user, but they’re built on the powerful technologies that ser ve as the backbone for the larger integrations we’ve previously mentioned.

New Levels Of Support Of course, with new customers comes an increased demand for support. As pro audio moves into more spaces, both the new customers and their integrator partners have to find cost-effective ways to ensure the systems are up and running at top performance levels. We now live in a world that technology has transformed. Just as single-product solutions exist, so, too, does the ability to provide remote access to a system. By integrating a product that provides a remote connection, integrators (or even manufacturer support reps) can remotely connect to a system and (at least potentially) fix any problems that might arise, without ever having to roll a truck to the venue. And even if support staff can’t fix the problem over a network connection, they might be able to talk the customer through a more robust troubleshooting process; often, that can quickly alleviate the issue. This is a critical change to the industry in that it solves problems more quickly, saves on the cost of rolling that truck to a site, allows for more robust service agreements (and, thus, generates more income), and, most importantly, brings together the end user, the integrator and the manufacturer as partners. As we have become more digitally

literate as a society, it has now become the manufacturer’s job to offer solutions that provide a graphical user interface (GUI) that is both capable and simple to use. For many, analog wall controllers might still work, but there is absolutely a need to evolve beyond such analog interfaces in the multizoned hospitality space. For some time now, this has meant an application involving a touchscreen device. Applications that are customizable for individual users have meant having an ability to wall off critical systems, offer specific levels of control and do so in a way that the touchscreen user finds intuitive. However, a new way to approach this has now arrived. In congruence with the development of remote systems, web-based platforms can now be put in place that work identically to how an application does, but that can be accessed through nearly any web browser. This allows for remote connections on computers, tablets and phones with the same interface. It also allows any designated employee or any support staff member, no matter their location, to make quick changes. Just as control can now be offered to anyone, there are systems—specifically, those utilizing networked AV—that allow for plug-and-play interoperability. Thus, when a new mixing console is

required or an additional mic is needed, preparing the venue really can be as easy as simply plugging it in! Having the ability to grow a system—be it for one night, when a band is coming through town, or permanently as part of a major renovation—is critical in the hospitality space. Having the ability to scale a system and move or add devices for single shows is equally as important.

Partners Still A Priority In last year’s article, we ended the discussion by stating that partnerships in this space are critical. To meet the demands we now see in the hospitality vertical, it is paramount to have a partner that offers all these components. Integrators must seek out manufacturers that are addressing the unique needs that end users present—whether it’s a mega cruise ship with a movie theater and putting green, or the local golf course that hosts watch parties for major golf events in its attached restaurant and banquet facility. On the other side, integrators should be prepared with these tools when customers ask. The hospitality space is aware that new technologies have given rise to more AV opportunities, and hospitality professionals are ready to bring those technologies to the customers they serve.

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October 2019

Sound & Communications 33

ENTERTAINMENT: TECHNOLOGY

Raising The Roof Iowa’s iconic Roof Garden music venue is gloriously reborn. By Andy McDonough

Audio design for concert events includes a permanently installed line-array system, a full complement of monitor wedges and easily reconfigurable subwoofer placement.

Photos courtesy David Thoreson Image.

Since time immemorial, live-music venues have played an important role in the cultural fabric of western society. Perhaps the reason is that few things in life are as moving, or as memorable, as a live musical performance. From the echoes of symphonic debuts in the ornate concert halls of Europe, to the homespun excitement of the rustic barnraising dances of the American frontier, to the camaraderie of big-band dances, to the spectacle of rollicking rock ‘n’ roll concerts, iconic performances and the venues that host them hold a special place in our memories. Venues that live on, even as musical styles evolve, often become important historical landmarks across generations. These special places take on even greater importance to communities in America’s heartland, where the distance between venues can make each event even more special. The Roof Garden, which was recently rebuilt at Historic Arnolds Park Amusement Park, is just such a place for the people of Iowa’s Great Lakes region.

Multi-Million-Dollar Effort The original Roof Garden was demolished in 1987. However, Jeff Vierkant, CEO of Arnolds Park Amusement Park 34 Sound & Communications October 2019

(The Park), as well as its Board of Directors, felt it was important to replace the historic venue as part of a recent multi-million-dollar effort to regenerate The Park. Clearly, this was important work, but it wasn’t until Vierkant spoke to the local residents that he fully appreciated the deep meaning that the venue had for them.

An Important Place “We ran hardhat tours during the construction process,” Vierkant recalled. “That gave me a chance to hear stories of the original Roof Garden concerts, big-band dances and early rock ‘n’ roll shows. It was touching to hear how important this place was to so many people. They would share that they had heard their first concert or their favorite band on this spot so many years ago. Or, that they had met their spouse at a Roof Garden dance. There are so many memories here.” Throughout the construction process, people watched and, according to Vierkant, one could gauge the community’s excitement by the talk on the street about the beloved venue’s planned reopening. The original Roof Garden was built on resort property,

Top: A flexible interior design allows FOH mixing positions for sound and lights to be located in a temporary position on the floor for concert events. Middle: (L-R): Audio designer and integrator Ben Stowe and House Audio Engineer Jay Hardy take a well-deserved break at the FOH mixing position before The Roof Gardenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gala reopening concert. Bottom: The line-array audio design at The Roof Garden employs elements with both 90- and 120-degree dispersion, thus providing excellent coverage over the entire seating area.

36 Sound & Communications October 2019

along West Okoboji Lake’s southern shore, that Wesley Arnold purchased in 1864. He built a small hotel and resort cottages on the scenic lakefront. In 1889, Arnold constructed a wooden, 60-foot, toboggan-style waterslide on the lake—the ver y first attraction on the plot that would eventually become Arnolds Park Amusement Park. Shortly before his death around the turn of the century, Arnold built The Park’s first performance venue: a pavilion with space for 1,000 chairs for community gatherings and dances with live orchestral music. An ice-cream parlor and other concession stands sprung up nearby. Over the next 20 years, The Park continued to grow in popularity, adding more attractions and concessions. The Fourth of July gathering in 1922 saw crowds of approximately 25,000 guests in attendance; then, in 1923, The Roof Garden opened. In part because of the growing popularity of the Iowa Great Lakes region as a Midwest vacation mecca, the second-stor y hall—it received its name because it was built over retail shops—would make histor y for the

next six decades as an important venue for live musical performances in the region. Indeed, during the ’30s and ’40s, The Roof Garden was the place to go to dance, given that the hottest big bands made “The Roof” (as it was known) their summer place to play. Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong and the Dorseys—all of them made regular stops at The Roof Garden. In the ’50s, Iowa discovered rock ‘n’ roll thanks to Iowan and show promoter Darlowe Oleson, who, at one time, owned five different ballrooms in the state. Most musicians and music historians recognize him as the man who first took the risk of booking and bringing “that wild rock ‘n’ roll music” to the restless teenagers of the region. Accordingly, the roster for The Roof Garden in the ’50s and the ’60s read like a who’s who of rock. Big names like Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, Jerr y Lee Lewis, The Yardbirds, Tommy James and the Shondells, Johnny Cash, Chubby Checker, Neil Diamond and The Guess Who regularly performed there, as did many up-and-coming acts that would

soon reach rock stardom on larger stages. After Oleson’s death in a tragic plane crash in 1973, the venue was used less frequently and, ultimately, the building fell into disrepair. The original Roof Garden space was demolished, along with the building, in 1987. With only an open-air space for special events, and without a prominent music venue, amusement-park operations continued in the years that followed. In 2006, a non-profit group, Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum (IGLMM), which had governed The Park since 1999, changed its name to Historic Arnolds Park, Inc. In 2017, the group announced a $12 million “Restore The Park” effort, the vision of which was to recreate The Park’s iconic structures. That, of course, included a plan for The Roof Garden to be reborn. “The original Roof Garden structure from 1923,” Vierkant recalled, “stood out above retail shops on the lakefront, and it was a well-recognized element of the community skyline. The Roof Garden was where people went to gather…to enjoy the

company of others. And, when rock music came in, it was able to shift genres.” He continued, “It’s certainly an important place for many reasons—for its role in music histor y, as well as for the community that enjoyed all the great music here over the years.”

Reclaiming The Past With several of the key buildings renovated, new rides added, and dramatic improvements made to The Park’s infrastructure and facilities, a new structure was completed that was designed to appear as much like the original Roof Garden as possible. Although it’s in a different location within The Park, the new building was designed by CMBA Architects (Spencer IA) to have the same exterior look as the original building. The inside, however, boasts increased power and seating capacity, greenroom facilities for guest artists and a spacious stage. Whereas the original Roof Garden was built above retail stores, the new facility was reimagined as a modern, two-stor y open design, which has an easily reconfigurable interior space and which is equipped with all the production technology that modern events require. The interior space was designed to support reconfigurable seating arrangements for concert, dance,

38 Sound & Communications October 2019

conference or community events. The plans also called for 13 vintage booths for VIPs to line one of the walls, as well as a mezzanine area to display rock ‘n’ roll artifacts and memorabilia from the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Museum, which is located at The Park. Artifacts on display include drum sets and clothes worn by the artists who graced the stage of the original Roof Garden. The plans stipulated that full-row seating for general-admission events in the new venue would accommodate 950; banquet setups with tables and a big-band-era dancefloor would seat 600; and standingroom capacity would be 1,200. “The room

was designed to consider the musical styles of different eras, different performance types and [different] demographics,” Vierkant noted, “and each needed a room design and technology that would be flexible.”

Smooth, Multi-Purpose Operation Professional-grade audiovisual technology, including a high-quality sound system, is key to the venue’s smooth, multipurpose operation, supporting the venue’s varied purposes. At the same time, the technology had to be easy to operate for community members and corporate events The new Roof Garden was originally The modern construction of The Roof Garden includes an exterior design and lettering that resembles the original structure that opened for concerts and dances in 1923.

Reminiscent of the original ballroom, design of the venue’s interior included decorative windows and nostalgic, upholstered booths for VIPs that line one wall.

imagined to provide only space for touring acts, but The Park’s Board of Directors pivoted during the final stages of construction; they decided to opt for the flexibility of actually installing professional-grade sound that could address the formidable challenges presented on various acts’ contract riders. With only weeks to design, install and commission the new system—not to mention to train the operations staff—The Park engaged one of the region’s top integrators, Ben Stowe, and NLFX Professional (Bemidji MN). Stowe, who grew up in neighboring Sioux City IA, was familiar with the area’s reputation as a resort getaway, and he was familiar with the rich musical histor y of its renowned music venue. “Arnolds Park was the place to go,” he recalled. “The Roof Garden was always a hot ticket in our area, and the dances that our parents attended there were legendar y. There was something ever y Saturday night: Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly—all the greats played there over the years.”

A view of the stage at The Roof Garden, where world-class musical acts enthrall visitors on a regular basis.

Stowe was excited at the prospect of working with The Park to create a modern venue that could do justice to the tradition of the original Roof Garden, but, justifiably, he was concerned about timing. “Tommy James was booked as the act to open the new room just a few weeks out,” he explained. “I knew that Tommy was not a nostalgia act, but, rather, a concer t-level rock show. So, we’d have to have ever ything right—a full concert system—ready for his crew at the opening.” With a view toward having a completed install in place for a concert-level show, and with little margin for error, Stowe modeled the room for several systems. He paid special attention to speaker dispersion angles in light of the room’s high ceiling and the need to cover the seating area for the different types of events, while tr ying to avoid the acoustical challenges presented by the room’s mezzanine design. Ultimately, Stowe landed on the Electro-Voice X2 system as the best fit for the room’s complex requirements. “I had used the X2 system with touring acts for years, and I knew it would easily satisfy their needs,” Stowe affirmed. “But, it’s also good in a fixed install as it’s an attractive box that provides excellent value. The X2 system both sounds 40 Sound & Communications October 2019

great and [checks off] a lot of the boxes for this design.” Stowe further described the rigging system for X2 boxes as being “a homerun for this install”—an important factor in light of the fact that install time would be limited. Stowe also considered the rapid availability of support from Electro-Voice given its nearby Burnsville MN headquarters, as well as the national ser vice headquarters in Lincoln NE.

The Installation Stowe’s design called for a total of 16 X2-212 compact 12-inch vertical line-array loudspeakers with eight boxes flown on each side. For optimal room coverage, the top five cabinets in each cluster of the high‑performance compact system were installed with 90-degree dispersion, with three 120-degree models configured as the near-field elements positioned below. Six ground-stacked subwoofers were configured to support the low frequencies. Stowe’s experience with concert audio allowed him to add a forward-looking feature in the physical design of the system with

movable subs. By providing an NL8 plate below the stage, touring engineers can easily reconfigure the subs to support various popular modes, including front-firing center clusters, a cardioid center-cluster format, LR front-firing subs or LR split cardioid configurations—even configurations with no subs to suit community meetings and corporate presentations. In order to simplify things for local operators, who have to reconfigure quickly after a touring company has departed, Stowe provided presets for common sub setups: front and cardioid center. Five Dynacord IPX20:4 DSP class‑D power amplifiers power the main system. The IPX20:4s provide four channels of 5,000W each with fully integrated high-resolution digital signal processing (DSP) at 96kHz and OMNEO network control software. Needing a console that both would satisfy touring acts and would be manageable by The Park’s operations staff, Stowe installed a Midas M32 LIVE digital console at the front-of-house (FOH) position. “It’s a good-sounding and well-known console,”

he noted, “and [it’s] very direct to operate with its fixed channel structure. While it has many of the benefits of more complex consoles, it can work well for both the staff and the rental or sound companies [that] might come through.” The M32 LIVE is a 40-channel console with 32 Midas preamps, 25 mix buses, 25 Midas Pro motorized faders and more than 50 built-in effects. A Midas DL32 stage box mounted in an Odyssey FZAR10 10-space rack case provides analog-to-digital conversion at the stage with 32 inputs and 16 outputs. The Park’s existing M32 was installed at the monitor position, and NLFX custom built a split snake with ISO and GL to provide a complete analog split between the two M32 consoles. This allows for any combination of house or tour desks to be used. Onstage, the monitor system includes an Electro-Voice ETX-18SP active 18-inch subwoofer and 10 Electro-Voice Xw15A ultra-compact 15-inch two-way floor wedges, each with an EVX-155 woofer (continued on page 88)

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Mission Accomplished Ever y new stop on the hospitality vertical’s relentless march toward terminal hyperbole seems to render the word “ultimate” even more obsolete. From hipster hotels and high-tech hostels to restaurants like chef Paul Pairet’s Shanghai destination Ultraviolet, where the AV competes with the food for attention, the sector seems determined to create an experience from the moment a patron crosses the threshold. The new Mission Ballroom opened August 7 in Denver CO’s North Wynkoop neighborhood, a nascent entertainment district still bounded by freight-train tracks and factories that continue to lend an air of gritty authenticity. The $10 million-plus, 60,000-square-foot venue, which comfortably holds more than 3,000 people, is an Instagram-ready space with plenty of glitz, boasting lots of neon and large-scale murals. That said, it does its core mission ver y, ver y well—it creates an environment in which whatever or whoever is on the stage is the focus of the experience. The AVL, meanwhile, 42 Sound & Communications October 2019

makes sure the performance sounds and looks as good as it can be, and it makes the patrons as comfortable as they might be at home. Notably, Mission Ballroom is the first shot in a larger hospitality venture that soon will cover much of the 14 acres around the venue. Owned and managed by the Anschutz Enter tainment Group (AEG), Mission Ballroom is first and foremost an entertainment destination. Specifically, it’s a concert hall—one that The Denver Post’s reviewer said gives the city “finally…the concert venue it deser ves.” So, it would be natural to expect the venue’s sound to come under scrutiny early. Indeed, it did—and Mission Ballroom passed with flying colors. We live at a time when newspaper ar ticles about new venues routinely include reviews of their sound quality (or the lack thereof). For instance, the National Football League (NFL)’s Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis MN was heavily criticized by arts and leisure sections nationally for its reportedly poor audio after its 2016 opening. By

Photo courtesy Alden Bonecutter.

Mission Ballroom is first and foremost an entertainment destination, one that The Denver Post’s reviewer wrote gives the city “finally…the concert venue it deserves.”

contrast, Mission Ballroom drew raves for its sound. The writer for Westword, Denver’s altweekly, who covered the venue’s opening show by Denver transplants the Lumineers, wrote, “[T]he Mission offered clear sound from ever y part of the room I explored. I know the Lumineers’ music well, and I could hear ever y word, ever y piano line, every subtle tap on the rim of the snare.” That goes for anyone who’s at any of the venue’s five bars, all of which were designed to have good sightlines to the stage and which have no architectural impediments to the sound reaching them. Finally, the bars all have multiple pointof-sale (POS) kiosks to keep the drinks and payments moving quickly, thereby allowing patrons to move back into the main room, if they prefer.

Focus On The Stage “Ever ything about the venue’s design and the designs of the systems was all about keeping the focus on whatever is

onstage, and [on] making everyone in the venue comfortable being there,” Ryan Knutson, President of Brown Note Productions, the AVL integrator for Mission Ballroom, said. “It’s first and foremost a music venue, and AEG is a major concert producer. But AEG also wanted it to have as much flexibility as possible in terms of what could be presented there, including corporate events, award shows and other live events.” In fact, Knutson added, Mission Ballroom is intended to be a new type of concept with regard to staging. That’s why he’s glad the promoter brought in Brown Note Productions early in the process for the ground-up venue. “When [AEG Presents] approached us, they wanted to make sure the venue would be as flexible as possible…able to handle live events, such as corporate events, as well as music shows. We had a blank slate to work with on that.” That once-blank slate was filled with a unique movable stage, which, along with

the flown AVL system, can be rolled on beam trollies more than 40 feet from its standard position at one end of the venue toward the middle. This would enable inthe-round configurations and others. The AVL systems can follow the stage to new locations and maintain the same spatial relationships to it. For instance, the leftright hangs of the line-array sound system would stay the same distance from each other and from the stage—all via a truss grid that was fabricated by manufacturer Tyler Truss. On the other hand, the PA, lighting and video, as well as all the “soft goods” used as part of their design—for example, drapes for acoustical dampening on manual truss trolleys— can be reconfigured independent of the stage’s physical position in the room, and independent of each other. For when the PA system is moved, either with the stage or unilaterally, Brown Note’s programmers created presets in the PA system’s processor that, in conjunction with any changes in loudspeaker aiming, bring its

delay and phase parameters into alignment for each different location. “In some ways, what we were doing here is taking our knowledge of both installed AV and touring, and [then] designing systems that can adapt to different venues like a touring sound and lighting package,” Knutson explained. “But, instead of going to different venues, in a different city, ever y night, they’re being used in the same venue for each event— but the venue itself might be different in terms of how the stage is configured. It’s really ver y innovative.”

Sound System Mission Ballroom’s d&b audiotechnik sound system is very much a touring rig. The system has toured with artists such Korean superstar Psy, and it’s been deployed at electronic dance music (EDM) festivals like Amsterdam’s Oranjebloesem and Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas NV; the system has been moving into other scenarios recently, as well, including

Denver’s new Mission Ballroom brings events and hospitality to a new level. By Dan Daley

A bowl-like rear-seating area, which has acoustical clouds overhead and sprayed-on thermal and acoustical insulation applied to open areas, flows onto an open dancefloor that can be used for standing or that chairs can be brought onto. October 2019

Sound & Communications 43

into the Red Rocks natural amphitheater in Colorado. In fact, according to Knutson, “Don Strasburg, Co-President and Senior Talent Buyer for AEG Presents Rocky Mountains, had really developed a liking for the system after hearing different artists and different genres of music

network bridge. The monitor system, meanwhile, includes 12 d&b M4 monitors, two V-GSUBs and two AL90s for the drums, and four V-GSUBs and four AL90s for side fills, everything powered by four D20 amplifiers. “The size of the cabinets and the 10

Mission Ballroom’s seating determines some of this. It starts with a bowl-like rear-seating area that has acoustical clouds overhead and International Cellulose K-13 sprayed-on thermal and acoustical insulation applied to open areas. That flows onto an open dancefloor that can

The opening of Mission Ballroom has been lauded as an inflection point for Denver’s music scene. But, as the North Wynkoop district evolves, Mission Ballroom will reflect the fact that these kinds of facilities are increasingly becoming critical cogs in the ever-evolving hospitality industry.

through it.” He added, “Sher wood Webber, Director of Production at AEG Presents Rocky Mountains, had a chance to catch a demo of the KSL system early this year and heard the same type of voice and pattern control.” The d&b audiotechnik front-of-house (FOH) system is composed of 24 KSL units (10 KSL8 enclosures and two KSL12s, per side), along with 11 SLGSUB subwoofers. Six Yi10Ps are used for front fills, two Yi7Ps for outfills and six 10S-Ds for under-balcony fills. These speakers are powered by 18 D80 amplifiers, two D20 amplifiers and one 30D amplifier, suppor ted by a DS10 audio 44 Sound & Communications October 2019

degrees of maximum splay really fit the venue and its needs, including great sightlines from every seat in the house,” Knutson enthused. “The off-axis system frequency response meant that we could deploy single [main] arrays and cover the far left and right seating areas, with only a small uncovered sliver on the extreme left and right sides of the venue, which we covered with a single d&b Vi7P. This system, in conjunction with d&b’s ArrayProcessing technology, meant we could deliver consistent and even sound throughout the venue in order to directly align with AEG’s model of no bad seat in the venue.”

be used for standing, or chairs can be brought in. Side seating is ostensibly for VIPs, but, Knutson explained, the designers and owners wanted as egalitarian a layout as possible. “No matter where anyone is in the room, they want them to feel connected to the show,” he stressed. The FOH mix position is located at the juncture of the bowl seating and the main floor. A cable trough below the floor takes a Dante network over Cat6 cabling from the stage to an Avid Venue S6L FOH console and a Lake LM-44 processor. Up to 16 channels of Dante take the audio to the amplifiers, which are located in the stage area. (The d&b 30D amp is except-

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Photo courtesy Michael Martin.

An example of how changing technology can be turned to the client’s advantage is Mission Ballroom’s use of a system that utilizes conventional moving-head lights as follow-spots, eliminating the need for dedicated spotlights.

ed; that one is installed by the console and used to drive the under-balcony fills.) Like the console, it is designed to be portable, suiting times when the venue is used for events other than music.

Acoustical Considerations A locally based acoustical consulting firm, D.L. Adams Associates (DLAA), was recruited to work on the venue’s acoustics; however, its mandate was for more than just what went on inside the facility. This underscores how venues such as Mission Ballroom are anchors for larger hospitality and entertainment districts that will blossom around them. In this case, Mission Ballroom is the opening salvo for

46 Sound & Communications October 2019

the earlier-mentioned North Wynkoop, a 14-acre mixed-use project located at the north end of the River North (RiNo) neighborhood. Eventually, this acreage will include a boutique hotel, restaurants, retail spaces and arts facilities. As Mission Ballroom is surrounded by other hospitality venues, it will become all the more critical to control the noise. Ian Patrick, DLAA’s Project Consultant for Mission Ballroom, said the firm recommended additional thicknesses—up to three inches—of International Cellulose K-13 spray-on absorptive material for the venue’s upper areas, thereby reducing reverberation inside. He added that the consultancy put a special emphasis on do-

ing this on a broadband basis to cover the more intense low-frequency energy that is increasingly part of contemporar y music performances, as well as for the DJs who provide the aural backdrop for more and more events. That goal was extended to the areas behind the hanging drapes, as mesh-faced mineral wool treatments were applied to tame reflections—particularly those in the lower frequencies—even further. But it went beyond that, extending to lining the plenum that is part of the venue’s smoke-evacuation system, which is a direct conduit for air (i.e., sound) to escape from the inside. “Even when the smoke-evacuation dampers are closed, that plenum can also allow

ing technology wrought by LED. (That being said, most of the infrastructure, such as the truss, rigging and motors, are owned by the venue, as is the MA Lighting GrandMA console.) An example of how changing technology redounded to Mission Ballroom’s advantage is the use of AC Lighting’s Follow Me system, which utilizes conventional moving-head lights as follow-spots, eliminating the need for dedicated spotlights and letting the entire rig be accessed for follow-spot applications. These

include any of the four Martin MAC III fixtures in the rigging (or all of them, as the system can be used to follow more than one performer simultaneously). They join two-dozen Martin MAC Viper profiles, 16 Martin MAC Auras, 10 Martin Atomic 3000 strobes, eight Elation COLOUR 5 Profiles and six Elation CUEPIX Blinder WW4s. “We’re using the MAC III now, but, with the Follow Me system, we can take over any of the other moving-head fixtures,” Knutson said. “It’s a substantial cost sav-

“One of the things that we really tried to do was make it intimate. At the end of the day, we wanted to have the best viewing possible. If you were that close, we want you to be able to enjoy that viewing. If you were sitting further back, we wanted to make sure you had the same experience. And for me, being an avid sports 1.5 PERMANENT INDOOR fan, this was an easy project to kick oﬀ • Same great display area and mounting, because I love BUT it’s thinner and lighter! sports, and this is like the • Better flatness and connection precision. • Convenient maintenance &dream—it’s installation.like a mancave on steroids.”

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Follow the neon to any of the venue’s five bars, all of which were designed to have good sightlines to the stage.

noise to escape,” Patrick acknowledged. “So, we worked with the architect, the mechanical engineer and the general contractor to make sure it was a baffled plenum to minimize that.” Befitting our hospitality theme, he added, “We did that knowing there could be a boutique hotel built next door.” DLAA also specified attenuators in the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) ductwork and spring isolators for the mechanical systems.

(Let There Be) Moving Lights The fixtures in the venue’s lighting system are installed, but they’re leased rather than being purchased; this reflects, Knutson said, the rapid changes in light-

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Sound & Communications 47

EQUIPMENT

The Follow Me system allows the entire rig be accessed for follow-spot applications.

AUDIO FOH System 20 d&b KSL8 medium- to large-format 3-way line-array speakers 4 d&b KSL12 medium- to large-format 3-way line-array speakers 11 d&b SL-GSUB large-format ground-stacked cardioid subs 6 d&b Yi10P compact, 2-way passive speakers 2 d&b Yi7P compact, 2-way passive speakers 6 d&b 10S-D installation-specific high-performance 2-way speakers w/wide dispersion 18 d&b D80 high-power 4-channel amps 2 d&b D20 4-channel amps 1 d&b 30D installation-specific 4-channel amp 1 d&b DS10 audio network bridge Monitor System 12 d&b M4 2-way stage monitors 6 d&b V-GSUB high-performance cardioid subs 6 d&b AL90 medium-format 2-way augmented array speakers 4 d&b D20 4-channel amps Control 2 Avid VENUE S6L-24C live mixing systems (FOH console, monitor console)

Photo courtesy Alden Bonecutter.

VIDEO Videowall 200 Absen C7 light mesh LED panels Control 1 Analog Way VIO 4K analog/digital multi-format converter 1 NovaStar processing 1 Resolume Version 7 software and media server 1 Sager Notebooks laptop

48 Sound & Communications October 2019

LIGHTING Lighting Rig 8 Elation COLOUR 5 Profile ellipsoidals 6 Elation CUEPIX Blinder WW4 COB LED blinders 10 Martin Atomic 3000 DMX 3,000W high-impact strobes 24 Martin MAC Viper Profile high-output discharge-based profile luminares w/CMY color mixing 16 Martin MAC Aura single-lens wash lights w/unique backlights 4 Martin MAC III lighting fixtures Spotlight System 1 A.C. Lighting Follow-Me remote follow spot control Control 2 Luminex Ethernet-DMX8 MKII rackmount DMX/RDM gateways w/8 DMX ports 5 Luminex LumiSplit 2.10 rackmount DMX splitters 1 MA Lighting grandMA2 full-size control console Rigging Tyler Truss 20.5" box truss (205') Tyler Truss 12" box truss (236') Motor Control 1 Motion Labs 4-way motor controller 1 Motion Labs 2-ton 4-way truss mount distro 5 Motion Labs 4-way truss mount distros 4 Motion Labs 2-way truss mount distros 4 Motion Labs 8-channel pendants 2 Motion Labs 4-channel pendants List is edited from information supplied by Brown Note Productions.

ings, and it’ll allow the lighting system to expand as needed over time. We’re looking for ways to make all the AVL systems less rigid, in terms of design and components. The technology can be ver y expensive, so approaches like this [one] let installed systems have the flexibility to grow and change.” He continued, adding, “A lot of venues will install systems in such a way that they’re kind of stuck with the initial design, or, at least, [with] the infrastructure. It’s one of the reasons we didn’t use cable conduit in the rigging above the stage—because the systems are going to evolve over time. We have to think about return on investment (ROI) from the beginning.”

they also purposely kept sightlines from the bars to the main performance area as clear as possible. “That was part of the thinking when we chose a more compact loudspeaker enclosure for the PA system,” Knutson remarked. The lobby will likely have speakers and possibly video displays installed in the near future, he predicted, as movement patterns make themselves clear. “There is a phase-two under discussion,” he added. The opening of Mission Ballroom, which saw 3,000 fans come for hometown

heroes the Lumineers, has been lauded as an inflection point for Denver’s music scene. But, as the North Wynkoop district evolves—notably, a 90,000-square-foot office and retail building is already under construction, and restaurants, bars and retail stores will fill 80,000 square feet of space inside converted warehouse buildings by next summer—Mission Ballroom will reflect the fact that, in addition to being music venues, these kinds of facilities are increasingly becoming critical cogs in the ever-evolving hospitality industr y.

The Videowall The venue’s 40'x20' videowall, which is composed of 200 Absen C7 LED tiles, displays at a 7.5mm pixel pitch. Even so, according to Knutson, its resolution level will meet the needs of any musicrelated or other event that management foresees. When not part of a live music production, the videowall acts as eyecatching digital signage. It’s fed from a Resolume v7 media ser ver that’s located at the FOH position, and it’s managed using an Analog Way VIO 4K multi-format converter and NovaStar processing on a Sager laptop. The videowall is mounted on a 40-foot truss with beam trolleys, but, like the rest of the AVL infrastructure, it can move both relative to the stage and unilaterally. It’s the final element in what Knutson described as “modular AVL.”

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Mission Ballroom—designed by Works Progress Architecture and built by Mortenson Construction with developer Westfield—has formidable AVL, but an equal point of pride is the fact that it has more bathrooms and bars than any facility of its size in the city. According to Knutson, those elements, as well as the dozen-plus advanced POS stations at the bars, are designed to keep patrons where the action is. “You don’t want to miss two songs or an important announcement because you’re waiting under the balcony for a beer or [to use] the bathroom,” he related. The designers purposely left video displays out of the bars’ design, not wanting to create a branded sports-bar effect;

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SOUL OF THE RESTAURANT Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen creates an exceptional customer experience.

A view of Brown Sugar Kitchen’s atmospheric dining space. 50 Sound & Communications October 2019

By Jim Stokes The following mythical conversation is based on the ad slogan “Don’t just set the table—set the mood.” It sets the scene for our article, which will explore the value of adding an advanced audio system to improve dining experiences by increasing intelligibility and sharply reducing noise. “How’d you and your wife like the new restaurant, Mike?” next-door good neighbor Sam asked jovially. “Food and service were good,” Mike replied, “but the place was so noisy that we couldn’t hear each other. Had to shout. Never again!” “I guess we should have invited you two over to our house for dinner instead,” Sam responded. The mood of Mike and his wife’s whole evening out could have been changed to be more pleasant with an enhanced audio system. And that’s the topic of this month’s stor y. A prime example of a world-class restaurant install that does audio the right way is Tanya Holland’s brand new Brown Sugar Kitchen (www. brownsugarkitchen), located in Oakland CA, part of the famed San Francisco Bay Area. Holland, who is Executive Chef and Owner, is world famous and celebrated for her expertise in the culinar y arts. She’s an author, an in-demand public speaker and a lecturer, and she’s appeared on countless national television shows as well as many Bay Area programs. As the name implies, Brown Sugar Kitchen is a soul-food destination that features entrées that include fried chicken, buttermilk waffles, gumbo and catfish. The venue was designed to draw an upscale

Brown Sugar Kitchen is located in urban downtown Oakland CA.

October 2019

Sound & Communications 51

A view of Brown Sugar Kitchen’s full bar.

crowd, boasting a décor of dark leather seating and wood finishes. The well-stocked bar forms a barrier of sorts to the open kitchen. In speaking to Sound & Communications, Holland emphasized that good acoustics, along with a good sound system, “is an extension of great hospitality, which is what I strive for.” She continued, “[Excellent audio] makes my guests comfortable at every level.” To get a detailed technical perspective, we spoke to Matt Lavine, President of BugID (www.bugid.com), the Sausalito CA-based AV integrator that executed the audio system design. Additional insight comes from Meyer Sound (Berkeley CA), whose team created the system design and acoustic consulting, and whose team worked hand-in-hand with BugID.

Acoustic System

Integrator Challenges And Benefits The installation challenges for Brown Sugar Kitchen centered on hard-surface walls and windows. In addition to meeting those challenges, BugID’s Matt Lavine also addressed other concerns, which included existing construction and audio-component placement issues. “There are construction challenges with every project,” Lavine declared. “Installing a high-caliber system like the Meyer Sound Constellation requires a lot of precision in placing microphones and speakers. It’s kind of tricky in a restaurant environment. [You’re] working with a contractor who’s building a restaurant—not a sound studio. So, there’s an education process about how critical placement of the technology [is]. We’re not just putting in a background music system in a restaurant. [Instead], we’re putting in a highly calibrated acoustical-processing system that also has background music.” “I think the benefit of acoustic treatment and the Constellation system in a restaurant is solving the problem of a high-decibel reverberant space. It’s hard on your hearing,” Lavine opined. “The mix of the acoustic treatment and the Constellation system allows you to have a more pleasant conversation experience, [while also listening] to the music. Speech privacy is much higher with the Constellation system.” 52 Sound & Communications October 2019

Sound & Communications spoke to Pierre Germain, Meyer Sound’s Constellation Design Manager, about the process of applying the company’s Constellation system in a restaurant setting. “We start out with the passive approach,” Germain began, “which is treating spaces with acoustic materials that absorb all the noise to control all those reflections of ever ybody talking and the sound of dishes clanging in the kitchen.” He continued, “In a typical restaurant, those areas are all left untreated, and, [therefore], that sound is bouncing around the walls, the floor and the ceiling. And the sound keeps building up within the room.” With the addition of acoustic-treatment materials, all that sound is absorbed. “Brown Sugar Kitchen already had acoustic materials applied to the underside of the roof deck, and [it was] adding an acoustic tile ceiling below that,” Germain pointed out. “So, we added some treatment to the walls. Part of that included our Libra panels, which are acoustic panels that look like artwork, but that have an integrated absorbant material. We also added a five-foot-tall strip of Eurospan to the upper walls that wraps around the room. It’s a white monolithic treatment that looks like dr ywall, so you can’t tell that it’s an acoustic material.” Although such efforts reduce the sound level in a room enormously, they can also leave it too dry—intentionally, in this case. Think about cinemas, for example; they’re

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usually very dry. Germain elaborated, saying, “When you’re sitting there before the movie starts, you can pretty much pick up any conversation around you because ever ything is being absorbed. You can even hear someone unwrapping a candy bar. All you’re hearing is direct sound. The same thing will happen in a restaurant that’s heavily damped like that.” Contrasting with the passive approach, the active component comes next. With the Constellation system, the room sounds can then be carefully reintroduced. “We’re bringing the ambient room back,” Germain declared, “but, now, we can control all the different parameters. We can make it bright. We can make it dark. We can control something particularly noisy, like an air handler or a noisy kitchen. Certain frequencies can be reduced, [whereas] we can amplify other frequencies.” He continued, “We tend to keep it so we’re bringing the ambience of the restaurant back. So, now, you can hear conversations around you and activity in the kitchen. It’s all blended together because everything is going through a processor. We can recreate a room, while also controlling it.” Elaborating further, Germain explained, “In addition to selective settings on the Constellation, there’s a provision for an automatic setting where the system maintains a consistent background-noise level, regardless of what’s happening. You might have a table that’s a little more boisterous because they’ve had a couple of cocktails and somebody cracks a joke. Then, the system reads that loud level and [it] will dampen the system so the entire restaurant doesn’t get louder as a result of that one table.” “With any installation where you’re coordinating speakers and microphones, you have to be concerned [with] where the diffusers and the lights are,” Germain acknowledged. “So, there was coordination involved, [and] BugID was a big part of that as we started going up on lifts and looking at where the speakers were in the drawing versus onsite. A few adjustments were needed here and there.” He added, “Then, there was the ceiling tile. The grid was already established, so we had to avoid the supports. That’s always part of the project…part of the coordination. BugID was very much involved in that.”

The Specifics Brown Sugar Kitchen seats 85 in a 4,000-square-foot space on Broadway in beautiful Oakland. Meyer Sound furnished the customized design from CAD, which the company then sent to BugID. The installation includes 54 Sound & Communications October 2019

Acoustic panels (see left wall) contribute to overall noise reduction in the restaurant.

self-powered loudspeakers using Meyer Sound’s IntelligentDC technology and ambient sensing mics. The design specified 16 ceiling-mounted mid/high Ashby-8Cs and 10 MM-10XP miniature subwoofers to handle the low frequencies, which are mounted high up at ceiling height on the walls surrounding the overall space. Fifteen SC4098-BM15 ceiling mics are spread across the ceiling for ambient sensing. There are four MPS-488HP IntelligentDC power supplies. DSP is via a DCP D-Mitri Core Processor and a DVRAS D-Mitri Vari-

able Room Acoustic System module. The system also includes a DAI-24 D-Mitri Analog Input module and two DAO-24 D-Mitri Analog Output modules. Switching is via a pair of NETGEAR GS724Tv4 24-port gigabit Ethernet smart managed pro switches. A Middle Atlantic WRK-SA Series rack is housed in a small room in the back of the restaurant. According to BugID’s Lavine, the restaurant has a floating ceiling structure made from tectum acoustic panels. “So, our speakers are mounted to that substrate

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Technical Specifications For Constellation The following technical specifications are derived from a press backgrounder from Meyer Sound: Constellation is a flexible and highly refined system of active room acoustics. By applying digital signal processing (DSP) to multiple ambient sensing microphones, along with an array of evenly distributed lateral and overhead loudspeakers, Constellation extends the room’s reverberant characteristics to create the optimum acoustics for the event at hand. With Constellation, the same physical space can emulate the acoustics of an ideal classroom, chamber music hall, symphony hall or vast cathedral. And, as explained in the main story, the technology is equally applicable to restaurants such as Brown Sugar Kitchen. To be clear, Constellation is not a PA system, nor is it a surroundsound system. It does not amplify direct microphone signals from individual voices or instruments, nor is it designed to place discrete sound sources off to the sides or the rear of the room. However, there is an input for a DJ system or other audio auxiliary source separate from the functions of Constellation. The acoustical emulation at the core of the Constellation is accomplished using the patented VRAS (Variable Room Acoustic System) algorithm developed by New Zealand acoustician Mark Poletti. Available exclusively in Constellation, VRAS places a multichannel reverberator between the microphones and the loudspeakers to create a separate, electroacoustically coupled room that simulates the response of architecturally coupled rooms. The effect is so strikingly natural that, often, listeners are only aware of the result when Constellation is turned off and sound is being propagated in the room. Constellation is a hybrid active acoustic system, with both (a) in-line components and (b) regenerative components. An in-line system uses sound from microphones near the sound sources, and then it adds the reverberant component before distributing to loudspeakers. A regenerative approach has ambient sensing microphones placed throughout the space to capture the whole room acoustic, to which reverberation is added. The “new” room ambience then re-enters the processor, after which the process repeats itself. With Constellation’s hybrid approach, the in-line component is largely restricted to augmenting early reflections (arrivals within a tenth of a second after the direct sound), whereas the regenerative component creates a longer reverberant envelope or tail. Constellation offers a “voice-lift” feature for use with spoken-word applications in small theaters and boardrooms. For voice lift, Constellation augments the early reflections coming from near the person speaking. It emulates the effect of the reflective surfaces at the front of classrooms and lecture halls built in an era before amplification, reinforcing the voice without electrical amplification. However, departing from the physical spaces of old, Constellation can also apply this feature flexibly throughout the auditorium. As such, audience members’ questions and comments can be heard without the awkward passing around of wireless microphones.

56 Sound & Communications October 2019

A view of Brown Sugar Kitchen’s back dining room.

suspended over the dining and bar areas,” he explained. “There’s some duct-liner material that was laid above the ceiling tiles, as well, that adds more adsorption. There are also a couple of Libra panels as an artwork component, which adds acoustic treatment to the walls.” As designed and integrated, the electronics work together with the sound-absorbing materials. Lavine noted that, before any acoustic refinement was added, Brown Sugar Kitchen’s location had a lot of hard surfaces and windows. Taking a broad view of the hospitality vertical, he observed, “I don’t think restaurants, in general, spend a lot of time and money on acoustics. We looked at different ceilings and ceiling materials, [and] that was our saving grace.”

Savvy Owner Holland was well aware of the need for audio improvements in her restaurant to ensure music clarity and to deliver a pleasant dining experience. “We put in the Constellation system before we opened for business,” she pointed out. “Usually, Meyer Sound likes to be involved a little bit earlier in the process. [In this case], it was a new restaurant, and there were a lot of construction drawings available. We knew that the surfaces were hard and it might become a problem.” That underscored the need to invest in sound and acoustics. Indeed, that investment is part of Brown Sugar Kitchen’s DNA. “It’s a soul-food restaurant!” Holland enthused. “Music is very important to the experience. We’ve been playing a lot of R&B, [as well as] classical music. It’s part of the experience to have a nice soundtrack.” The restaurant uses Spotify for prerecorded music, but it also has a DJ. So, how did Holland decide to invest in the Constellation system? Well, that’s a story unto itself. “I experienced the system at another restaurant, called Comal,” she began. Holland was amazed by the sound at the bustling, successful Berkeley restaurant, and she discovered from Comal’s General Manager that Meyer Sound had provided it. Gary Meyer, of EatDrinkFilms, happened to be on Holland’s email list; in turn, he referred her to Helen Meyer at Meyer Sound. And make no mistake—Brown Sugar Kitchen’s patrons are discerning when it comes to music. Holland remarked, “People notice the music we play quite a bit. In fact,

just the other day, I was sitting with a colleague who had worked in restaurants for years, and she didn’t know about our system. The first thing she noticed was how good the sound was!” She continued, “A lot of other people—especially people who are a bit older—[have been] pleased they could hear people they were dining with, [while also hearing] the music.” Knowing that the Bay Area is replete with artists and creators of all types, this next fact should come as no surprise. “[Brown Sugar Kitchen has] a lot of cli-

entele who are professional musicians,” Holland revealed. She added, “We’ve got a DJ, but other DJs want to play the room.” Kenny Lauer, Experience Lead, Meyer Sound, who has had experience marketing with the Golden State Warriors, brought in that basketball team’s popular DJ—Derrick Robinson (also known as DSharp)—to check out Brown Sugar Kitchen’s new system. “I asked DSharp if he’d be willing to hook up to make sure the sound would be experienced in the way we hoped it would be,” Lauer recalled. Of course, the system delivered, even

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Acoustic treatment on the restaurant’s ceiling absorbs significant ambient noise.

Ceiling loudspeakers and miniature subwoofers are strategically placed throughout the restaurant’s main dining area.

EQUIPMENT 1 Apple Mac mini 1 Apple iPad (32GB, Wi-Fi only) 1 Araknis Networks AN-KIT-700-AP-INJ 700 Series indoor wireless access point w/Gigabit PoE+ injector kit 1 Belkin B2B145-BLK network adapter Ethernet (black) 1 Extron AAP 102 2-gang AV connectivity mounting frame (black) 1 Extron AAP blank plate (double) 1 Extron XLR 3-pin female to solder cups (pair) 1 iPort LaunchPort base station (black) 1 iPort LaunchPort AP.5 sleeve for iPad 16 Meyer Sound Ashby-8C full-range ceiling speakers w/8" cone drivers 6 Meyer Sound Ashby-8C Pendant pendant enclosures for Ashby-8Cs 10 Meyer Sound Ashby-8C Tile C-Rings w/tile bridges for Ashby-8Cs 15 Meyer Sound CONSTEL SC4098-BM15 ceiling mics 1 Meyer Sound DAI-24 D-Mitri Analog Input module 2 Meyer Sound DAO-24 D-Mitri Analog Output modules 1 Meyer Sound DCP D-Mitri Core Processor 1 Meyer Sound DVRAS D-Mitri Variable Room Acoustic System module 10 Meyer Sound MM-10XP miniature subs w/IntelligentDC technology 4 Meyer Sound MPS-488HP IntelligentDC power supplies w/phoenix connectors 10 Meyer Sound MUB-MM10 U-brackets for MM-10 miniature subs 58 Sound & Communications October 2019

1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 2

Meyer Sound RMServer remote monitoring system Meyer Sound RMServer rackmount tray Middle Atlantic CBS-WRK-27 WRK Series 27"D caster base Middle Atlantic LVFD-44 vented front door for 44RU racks Middle Atlantic MW-VT vented rack top Middle Atlantic WRK-44SA-27 WRK-SA Series rack (44RU, 27"D) NETGEAR GS724Tv4 24-port gigabit Ethernet smart managed pro switches w/2 SFP ports Rolls MB15b Promatch 2-way stereo converter Sonnet RackMac mini 1RU rackmount enclosure for Mac mini Sound Devices USBPre 2 2-channel, portable, high-resolution USB audio interface StarTech RACKCOND17HD dual-rail LCD rack console WattBox KIT-UPS-IP12-2000 WattBox IP UPS kits (12 controllable outlets, 2,000 VA) WattBox WB-OVRC-UPS-2000-1 WattBox UPS battery packs for IP power conditioners (2,000 VA) WattBox WB-700-IPV-12 WattBox IP power conditioners w/OvrC home (12 controlled outlets) List is edited from information supplied by BugID.

surpassing DSharp’s expectations. Achieving the desired results wasn’t guaranteed, and it was no simple task. “Understanding the space and the materials determines the number of microphones, the number of speakers, and the acoustical treatment of the walls and of the ceiling. It all had to be taken into account to ensure that the Constellation system was going to [meet] expectations,” Lauer commented. “I was telling Helen that I love music and I love to dance,” Holland stated. “When I’m in the room and I hear the music, I feel like I’m at a concert. It’s really exciting for me as a business owner to experience that.” She continued, “For me, [this is] an extension of great hospitality, which is what I strive for—to make my guests feel comfortable at ever y level.”

Other Key Components Having addressed the loudspeakers and microphones, Lavine discussed the other equipment essential to the system. Audio from the Spotify digital music ser vice goes through an Apple Mac mini, which is mounted in a Sonnet RackMac mini rackmount enclosure. “We’re talking about the

highest quality coming out of the computer for streaming,” he explained, “so we’re going through a Sound Devices USBPre 2 audio interface with mic pres. We try to keep things as digital as we can, especially with streaming audio.” The Mac mini is monitored in a StarTech RACKCOND17HD dual-rail LCD rack console equipped with a keyboard and a17inch HD 1080p screen. “It allows access to the Mac mini for engineering purposes,” Lavine noted. “Although the system is really controlled by the iPad, you can go to the rackmount controller. I like to have a hard connection to get to the devices.” An Araknis Networks AN-KIT-700-APINJ 700 Series indoor wireless access point (WAP) provides dedicated Wi-Fi. “We car ved out our own network protocol,” Lavine explained, “so we don’t have any traffic issues with any other network devices. We wanted to make sure we were on our own little island.” An Apple iPad is the primary control device, allowing the end user to adjust settings, access different presets and control volume for the Constellation system. There’s also a convenient iPort LaunchPort base station

where the user can place the iPad. “You don’t have to plug in a lightning cable, which is cumbersome, or they can break,” Lavine noted. “The iPort makes it a lot easier, because people tend to remember to put it back in the charging device.” WattBox handles the power distribution. Furthermore, Meyer Sound’s RMServer remote monitoring system allows devices to be monitored to see if they’re turned on or off, and it can shut devices on or off individually. Accordingly, it manages and monitors which speakers are working, what levels they’re getting and what the power load is. Additional items include the DJ panel, which is tied into by Extron. The Rolls MB15b Promatch is a line-level converter matching an unbalanced signal from a device like an iPod and converting it to balanced audio. Holland summed up the benefits of the restaurant’s audio system, saying, “Our clientele is multi-generational [and] of different backgrounds, and ever yone is comfortable. It’s a really great way to create mood. Like my colleague who came in yesterday said, ‘The music fits the soul of the restaurant.’”

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After years of being touted as the next big thing in display technology, 4K is finally having its moment. Thanks to plummeting prices, 4K displays at long last have found a foothold in the consumer market. A recent study by Futuresource Consulting found that as many as 227 million 4K TV units were sold worldwide as of 2018, with an estimated 42 million in North America alone. As the consumer market trends toward wider 4K adoption, more and more 4K displays, along with 4K-capable infrastructure, are being installed in commercial applications. And, as if 4K wasn’t pushing the resolution race far enough, 8K consumer displays are hitting stores just as the commercial market begins to dip its toes into the 8K waters. However, one of the largest hurdles to widespread adoption of 4K and 8K displays has yet to be overcome—the lack of native 4K and 8K content out there. Although some of the major streaming ser vices like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have begun offer60 Sound & Communications October 2019

ing 4K content, the vast majority of video content—especially live content—is not being produced in 4K. And native 8K content is practically nonexistent (tech demos and NHK’s 8K broadcasts in Japan notwithstanding).

The State Of 4K/8K Gaming But another area of consumer technology is making headway in the push for 4K and 8K content: video games. Sony and Microsoft’s first 4K-compatible gaming consoles, the PlayStation 4 Pro (released November 2016) and X Box One X (released November 2017), have already been on the market for a couple of years. (In addition to ser ving as home gaming platforms, both consoles can be used to stream 4K content from streaming ser vices.) And both Sony and Microsoft made big news earlier this year with announcements that their next-generation consoles, the PlayStation 5 and X-Box “Project Scarlett,” set for release in 2020, will be “8K-

esp

he Resolution Revolution? applications,

higher

resolutions

are

only

part

the

picture.

Audience-facing displays for esports events typically include large-scale LED videowalls in custom resolutions. A large portion of these displays may be used for onscreen graphics and effects.

compatible.” Likewise, video card manufacturers like NVIDIA have been releasing 4K-compatible products for a few years now, and there are even some bleeding-edge PCs on the market today that can deliver an 8K gaming experience (assuming you can afford the technology). Although video game consoles and gaming PCs are consumer products, they have an impact on commercial AV installations thanks to the rising popularity of esports. Because of the ascendance of esports into the cultural mainstream, purpose-built esports venues are being constructed around the globe. What’s more, hospitality venues are beginning to cater to the esports fandom. And some education facilities are even investing in esports as part of their athletic programs in an effort to attract students. It would therefore seem safe to assume that the majority of esports-oriented installations going forward should include 4K— or even 8K—displays in order to remain sufficiently futureproof.

But is the market developed enough to justify the associated cost of 4K and 8K displays (as well as the infrastructure required to support video transmission at those resolutions)? Not necessarily. To be fair, the vast majority of video games available today do not feature native 4K content. Although it is touted as 4Kcompatible, the PlayStation 4 Pro actually uses “checkerboard rendering” to push games to 4K resolution. The X Box One X likewise relies on checkerboard rendering for the majority of its 4K content delivery, although it does support native 4K, and some games can be played on the platform in native 4K resolution (such as the esports favorites “Rocket League” and “Over watch,” both of which can run on the X Box One X in native 4K at 60fps). And there is rampant skepticism among gamers regarding the next-generation consoles’ ability to deliver true 8K content, as well as the viability of 8K gaming on PC, despite the promises of manufacturers. October 2019

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Photo courtesy Robert Paul, Blizzard Entertainment.

ports

Photo courtesy AP Images.

Large-scale commercial displays in esports applications are used to show more than just ingame footage. In this image depicting the crowd’s view of an Overwatch League match at the Blizzard Arena, the display shows live feeds of the players’ faces for real-time reaction shots, plus information about the status of their in-game avatars, as well as gameplay.

All told, it seems like there is still plenty of uncertainty about the current and future state of 4K and 8K gaming, and therefore plenty of uncertainty regarding the display needs for esports applications going forward. Is there enough 4K video game content already out there to justify the widespread adoption of 4K displays? Has 4K become ubiquitous enough in the consumer market that anything less than 4K in commercial esports applications is unacceptable? Do 4K and 8K resolutions even matter to esports competitors and their audiences? For insight into these issues and more, Sound & Communications reached out to AV design consultant Idibri, AV integrator Alpha Video, AV distributor Starin, and display manufacturers Samsung and LG for their perspectives.

Impact Of Consumer Trends All parties seemed to agree that the increased adoption of 4K displays in the consumer market is impacting expectations for video applications in the commercial market, although they cautioned against integrators and system designers getting caught up in a video arms race instead of catering specifically to a client’s needs. “As it relates specifically to display technology, in my personal opinion, that’s a technology that’s more consumer-driven,” Jeff Volk, VP of Alpha Video, said. “As things come to mass on the consumer market, it drives down price points. So, if manufacturers start producing a bunch of 4K panels, they can add a handful of feature sets that are required for the commercial market and provide those panels at a lower price point. So, mass production, or larger production runs, create lower price points, which drive adoption.” He added, “I think it’s also just natural. Whether you’re a CEO or a media manager or just a rank-and-file employee at a company, if I’m watching Netflix in 4K HDR on my home TV, and then I go to my office and I see something that’s lower resolution and doesn’t look as good in my lobby, I’m probably disappointed 62 Sound & Communications October 2019

with that experience. And so I think, absolutely, on the display technology side, that the consumer end of the market is really what wags the tail of the commercial market—not the other way around. I think there are plenty of other technologies where that’s inversed, but, as it relates specifically to displays, I think consumer adoption tends to drive commercial adoption.” Garr y Wicka, VP of Marketing for LG Business Solutions, LG Electronics USA’s business-to-business division, added, “Consumers expect the technology in public spaces to be just as good as, or better than, what they have at home. 4K ultra-HD TVs now account for the majority of TVs sold on the consumer market and represent the fastest-growing segment of the hotel TV market. Sports bars have been quickly upgrading to 4K, too.” “As more and more 4K and 8K content is continuing to be developed, you will see a transition to permanent installations, driving more people out of the home to these esports arenas, casinos and theaters that are hosting these tournaments,” John Shim, Senior Engineering Manager, Samsung Electronics of America, said. Joe Dunbar, Starin’s Technical Experience Champion—Visualization, emphasized that the best approach is not to allow consumer trends and expectations to dictate system design, but rather, as always, to focus on tailoring the solution to the client’s needs. “The [consumer and commercial] segments certainly have some similarities, but for the most part, I don’t think one leads or follows the other. It’s all about needs, which means, for us in the industr y, it’s all about qualification of needs. We exist to make complex technology work for the end user,” he said. “Our job isn’t to sell end users the highest specs and latest and greatest, it’s to facilitate technical solutions that solve problems—and provide and/or enhance experiences. Our duty doesn’t change based on the variables, but the technology definitely can.” Dunbar’s point about designing each system for the needs of the client is well taken, and some important questions need to be asked: In the grand scheme of video-based concerns, are

Understanding Needs First of all, it is important to understand that the various parties involved in an esports competition will be interfacing with different aspects of the system. During competition, players will be playing the games at their own personal gaming stations, and as such, they will be focusing on their own individual monitors. The live audience will most likely be watching the action on largeformat videowalls (typically made up of indoor LED panels) and supplemental screens located throughout the venue. There will also be judges or referees involved, who might be watching the action on their own monitors. And there might also be play-byplay and color commentators (known as “shoutcasters”) calling the action from their own dedicated screens. Obviously, it is of paramount importance to give the players and referees the most optimal video technology available because video quality can have a tangible impact on gameplay, especially at the professional level. But it is also important to ensure that the other parties have an optimal viewing experience, as well. However, all of our respondents cautioned against a one-size-fitsall approach of ensuring all displays installed in an esports venue meet a certain threshold in terms of specs. When it comes to drawing distinctions between the displays viewed by the players and officials as opposed to the displays viewed by the audience, Volk suggested that a lot of the gamingspecific applications can be ser ved by consumer-grade displays, because these displays can deliver the specifications gamers expect (which might or might not include 4K or 8K resolution) at a manageable price point, whereas more expensive large-scale com-

mercial displays should be used to ser ve the viewing audience. “[The applications we use consumer displays for include] all of the gaming-specific things,” Volk explained. “So, it’s the actual gaming pods, or gaming stations, that would be a part of a competition stage. In a team training facility, for example, you’re going to have sim rooms where they’re going to be practicing and playing, and so all of those gaming stations get [consumergrade displays]. In a competition environment, you’re going to have an obser ver room, which is essentially just an extension of the gameplay, so we’re going to have [displays with] high refresh rates there. Shoutcasting displays, those will typically be those consumer-oriented displays, because we’re tr ying to replicate exactly what the gamers are seeing on their workstations for those individuals. The other displays that are typically commercial displays are [used for] what you would consider the traditional AV functions that wrap around the actual gameplay. So, it might be indoor LED behind the competition stage. It may be flatpanels in a conference room. In team facilities, a lot of them have film rooms like you would expect to see in an NFL facility where they actually go back and look at footage. That is where we tend to typically put more commercial displays, because they’re more traditional AV applications.” Ben Cating, Senior Consultant—VP for Idibri, echoed the idea that consumer-grade displays can be used for a lot of gamingcentric applications in esports venues to lower costs so that budget can be spent elsewhere. “Cost is still a driver, as is the actual experience,” he explained. “At a certain distance, most people will not be able to tell the difference in a 1080p versus 4K display. With in-venue clubs, we can scatter many more displays throughout the venue at a lower cost, and the experience is largely the same. We would rather spend the money on a more solid transmission path that allows the venue owner to manage the content and monetize the revenue from what is being displayed.” Regarding the audience-facing displays, Cating explained, “Visual Photo courtesy Full Sail University.

higher resolutions a priority for gamers? As it relates specifically to esports applications, do the benefits of higher-resolution video outweigh the costs of transmitting that content? And in the world of esports competitions, are the needs of the players the same as the needs of the live audience?

Some highereducation institutions are investing in esports in a major way. Take, for example, Full Sail University’s $6 million facility, “The Fortress.” Note the sheer variety of displays that are visible throughout the space.

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acuity, seating angles, resolution and possible raster to support not just the primar y video, but statistics, advertising and other ancillar y data [are] important to enhance the fan experience.” According to Dunbar, “The most important thing to consider is the needs and the variables. The technology is simply a tool to help provide an experience. Resolution is important, but only in the context of the viewer. High resolution can easily be negated by viewing distance. I think a lot of people would be surprised how coarse the pixel pitches are on the direct-view LED scoreboards for their pro sports teams, because viewing distance matters. For the venues specifically, I think it’s all about choosing what provides the experience they’re looking for, for their users and patrons alike.” Dunbar continued, “When selecting displays for the players, it’s really the whole package that needs to be considered, in terms of the display’s specifications—refresh rate, color space, resolution, size, all of it. One other thing to consider is that venues are looking to maximize their investment and provide the best experience for their competitors and spectators. Warranty terms and support chains shouldn’t be ignored, either. It seems there is a new ‘manufacturer’ ever y day for these types of solutions who is hyping up the highest numbers and specifications. But it’s not about who looks best on paper—it’s about leveraging the right technology. This is why the design stage is so critical. It’s specifically why my role at Starin exists; it’s literally my job, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until we see more consultants and integrators add this skill set to their portfolio as a specialty focus.”

Does 4K/8K Matter To Gamers? So how does 4K and 8K resolution factor into the experience that gamers and audiences demand from an esports venue? All of our respondents agreed that higher resolutions aren’t a high priority for gaming applications, but there is one thing that tops

the list of display concerns for gamers: high refresh rates. (If you’ve ever browsed any gaming discussion forums, with their endless back and forth about frame rates and refresh rates, this should come as no surprise. For many gamers, there is nothing worse than gaming at less than 60fps, so a display’s refresh rate has to keep pace. And frame rates of 144 and higher are increasingly in vogue.) The respondents also pointed to some other factors that are important to consider when choosing displays for esports venues, but refresh rates were top of mind. According to Wicka, “Resolution isn’t the number-one factor for players. In fact, it’s refresh technology that players look for. Smooth gameplay, and reducing input lag and screen tearing are the most important factors for them. You may hear the term ‘ghosting,’ as well. Essentially, ghosting is where the colors become distorted and images are blurred, giving them a smearing effect. As objects move on the screen, they leave behind a bit of the image of their last position, like a shadow. If the players can’t make out their surroundings, then game over. So, gamers tend to choose monitors that are G-Sync-compatible with high refresh rate and low response time in order to prevent these issues.” Cating added, “Higher refresh rates on 1080p monitors are much more advantageous versus 4K. High frame rate plays a huge role in the equation, as does the application for the gamer or spectator.” “Refresh rates are an important specification in the esports world,” Dunbar offered. “I think color space and luminance specifications are both important, and sometimes overlooked, specifications. A washed-out image, crushed black levels or bad color reproduction can be the difference between seeing or being seen first, and in shooter-type games specifically, that can have significant impact.” Volk also pointed to refresh rate as the deciding factor. “I can give somebody a giant monitor that’s 4K,” he said, “but if it has poor refresh rates and poor response time, hardcore, pro-level

According to our respondents, the gaming stations used by the players themselves are usually outfitted with consumer-oriented display technology— typically high-end gaming monitors with high refresh rates. Photo courtesy Jamie McInall/CC0 1.0/Pexels.

64 Sound & Communications October 2019

Photo courtesy Robert Paul, Blizzard Entertainment.

gamers are going to throw that out in minutes as unacceptable.”

What To Install? So, if 4K displays aren’t yet essential for gaming applications despite the existence of 4K gaming platforms and 4K content, what should we make of the impending release of 8K-compatible consoles in the near future? Will those consoles really feature true 8K resolution? If they do, will an esports installation not be sufficiently futureproof if it doesn’t feature 8K displays and 8K-capable infrastructure? Are some esports venues already installing 8K displays to get ahead of the cur ve? Will 4K or 1080p displays be “good enough” until 8K increases its foothold in the consumer market? For the most part, our respondents agreed that it is still too soon to go all-in on 4K, let alone 8K, but the tide does seem to be turning. For now, the choice of display still comes down to the application. For gaming-oriented applications, like the player stations themselves, it might be prudent to invest in (primarily consumer-grade) 4K or 8K displays, budget permitting. For audience-facing applications, the favorite solutions seem to be direct-view indoor LED. Many of these LED videowalls are built to custom resolutions, which might or might not be 4K-compatible, whereas large-format 8K videowalls are still in the early-adopter phase, making them an impractical and expensive option. In addition to practicality and cost, Volk also pointed to venue size as a barrier to adoption of large-scale 4K videowalls in esports applications. “I think if you think of most esports venues, they’re far more intimate,” he said. “Most of what is fan-facing has transitioned to indoor-LED-type displays, and so that just becomes a math equation of size versus pixel density to match a resolution that you want. And to get a 4K display with like 0.9mm indoor LED—that’s a pretty massive display. So, I am limited by size. I can’t put in a gigantic 4K-native indoor LED screen as a backdrop. Never mind that people [who] are sitting 50 feet away from it or 75 feet away from it will just be blown out. And, oftentimes, the displays that are being designed as backdrops of esports venues from a competition stage perspective aren’t a native resolution anyway. So, 4K has not been a topic of discussion for any of the facilities we’ve been involved in to date—largely because of size, and also because of budget.” According to Dunbar, “I think we have reached a point where

most installations should at least support 4K within the distribution and infrastructure. Whether or not all the endpoints utilize 4K content and displays depends on a lot of variables. For example, in an esports application, it’s recommended to provide the gamers with the 4K experience, but other screens throughout the venue can still ser ve their purpose with 1080p due to viewing distance. Either way, the infrastructure and distribution need to support 4K content.” Regarding the impending release of 8K-compatible consoles, Dunbar said, “I think we’ll need to see what ‘8K-compatible’ means before we can judge whether or not they will have a significant impact right away. It’s too new, it’s too expensive and it’s too unique. We saw this with ‘HD-ready’ and ‘4K-ready’ equipment, and it’s a trademark of ver y young technology that has the capability of achieving a certain specification but usually comes with some kind of caveat.” He added, “We’re past the ‘chasm’ of 4K technology, but I don’t think that means we can look past 4K displays. There are a ton of advances happening in the transmission technology and capability, but just stop and think about the technology required in these places just to move the 4K video around with no latency, with 8-bit and sometimes 10-bit color. Now imagine that for 8K. The bandwidth required for an ultra-HD 4K video at 60fps with 10-bit color and 4:4:4 sub-sampling is almost 18Gb/s. An 8K video with the same specifications requires nearly 72Gb/s! Personally, I feel like users would have a better experience at 4K with 10-bit 4:2:0 color than 8K with 8-bit 4:4:4 color.” Volk was also skeptical that we’re on the verge of a watershed moment for 8K adoption. “We do a lot of broadcast television work, we do tons of traditional stick-and-ball sports stadium and venue work, and now we’re doing a fair amount of esports work, and I would say that 8K isn’t a part of the conversation in any of those marketplaces today,” he shared. “4K adoption, from a native-production perspective, has been very, very slow to evolve. And so, a majority of in-venue stadium production facilities and television production facilities are not even 4K. So, the idea that there is going to be this mass migration to 8K when the market has been lagging substantially behind in even 4K production is hard for me to predict. On the gaming-centric pieces of this, as 8K-capable consoles come out and 8K-capable titles are published, that will push consumer display technology, I think, before it (continued on page 88) October 2019

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the mouse that roared how a 112-year-old discovery is now poised to dominate the world of displays.

By Pete Putman, CTS

66 Sound & Communications October 2019

Ubiquitous [yoo-bik-wi-tuhs] – adjective: existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time; omnipresent If anything can be said to be ubiquitous in the AV industry, it’s the humble light-emitting diode (LED). From indicator lamps, to towering videowalls, to 4K televisions, to smartphones, the LED has become an essential part of our daily lives—a part we largely take for granted. We use them to illuminate our homes, as headlamps and brake lights on cars, as backlights for our laptop screens, and to keep garage doors from closing on children and pets. Until recently, LEDs worked mostly in the background. That’s all changing, though—and changing rapidly—as LEDs become the preferred way to communicate information and show video on large screens. Along the way, they’re coming to surpass walls of liquid cr ystal display (LCD) panels and stepping over high-brightness laser-phosphor projectors. Today, you could make a convincing argument that the LED is the most disruptive technology to hit the AV world ever. But it’s been a long time coming.

A Long Time Ago Five years before the sinking of the RMS Titanic, an obscure engineer named Henr y Round, who worked for Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Co. (which supplied the spark gap radio transmitters and receivers for the ship), applied a small voltage to a cr ystal of silicon carbide (aka carborundum) and obser ved it to emit a weak colored light. Round was tr ying to find a better “cat’s whisker” diode detector for receiving long-wave radio signals used for telegraphy, and, although his discovery was intriguing, it was hardly useful to his research. Round went on to author an article about his findings in a 1907 issue of Electrical World, a special-interest magazine of the day. Round stated that, when he applied a DC voltage in the range of 10V to 11V, he could observe yellow, green-orange and even blue light from the point of contact. He concluded his article by stating, “The writer would be glad of references to any published account of an investigation of this or any al-

lied phenomena.” Round couldn’t know it at the time, but, in fact, he had created the world’s first LED. By passing an electrical current through a makeshift semiconductor junction, photons were being emitted, and, apparently, some of the crystals he tested emitted enough light to rival a candle. Alas, Round dismissed the effect as a mere curiosity, and he moved on to other things. The next mention of LEDs occurred in the late 1920s, when a Russian engineer, Oleg Losev, continued Round’s experiments with cr ystal detectors and published several technical papers that described the behavior of different cr ystals and voltages. Losev described the spectral emission of each cr ystal in detail, and he even experimented with cooling the cr ystals to ver y low temperatures to confirm the effect was based on current flow, rather than heat. Losev was killed during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in World War II, but he had accumulated four patents based on the research he’d done before he died. After the war, a number of scientists continued their explorations of these rudimentar y semiconductors, now available as point contact diodes. Additional LED patents were filed in the 1950s by Kurt Lehovec, Carl Accardo and Edward Jamgochian. In 1957, Rubin Braunstein of RCA Labs tested compounds of gallium arsenide, gallium antimonide, indium phosphide (in use today in quantum dots) and silicon germanium as light emitters. Braunstein even developed an infrared (IR)-based pulsemodulation system to transmit music from a record player across a room, detecting the IR light pulses with a photodiode and playing back the decoded music through an amplifier.

The Next Steps Until 1961, LEDs were still regarded as laboratory novelties. However, in September of that year, two engineers at Texas Instruments (TI)—James Biard and Gar y Pittman—developed a practical near-IR diode emitter, again using a junction of gallium arsenide. This device was quickly patented by TI, and it

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went into mass production as the SNX-100 light-emitting diode. The second development that helped pushed LEDs into the mainstream came a year later, at General Electric, where Nick Holonyak, Jr., created the first visible-spectrum LED. It emitted a bright red color, and it had potential as a simple power indicator or as part of a numeric indicator. A decade later, one of Holonyak’s graduate students, M. George Craford, invented the first yellow LED and found a way to improve the brightness of Holonyak’s first LED by a factor of 10. Until about 1970, LEDs were quite expensive. Then, Monsanto found a way to mass-produce red LEDs as indicator lamps at reasonable prices. A few years later, the development of a planar-LED-chip manufacturing process at Fairchild Semiconductor finally realized the cost reductions and packaging breakthroughs for Various shots, circa 1999, of the then-newly built NASDAQ MarketWall in Times Square, in New York NY. which everyone had been searching. (It only took seven decades following Henr y Round’s initial discover y.) Yet, there were two more obstacles to overcome before LEDs could realize their full potential….

Here, There And (Almost) Everywhere

Front and pixelstructure views of a direct-view organic LED display, circa 2011, shown on a trade-show floor.

68 Sound & Communications October 2019

For most of the 1970s and 1980s, LEDs were primarily used as indicator lamps and as part of alphanumeric displays. There was a lot of interest in using LEDs for digital signage, but the big hold up was the lack of dark-blue and bright-green LEDs. The forerunners of today’s LED walls— the original JumboTron and Diamond Vision screens— burned through expensive and short-lived red, green and blue cathode-ray tubes and then fluorescent lamps to create coarse color images with half the resolution of a VHS tape. There had to be a better way! It wasn’t until 1994 that a scientist at the Nichia Corp. by the name of Shuji Nakamura finally figured out how to make a high-brightness blue LED. The “recipe” involved mixing gallium nitride and indium nitride, growing the crystals on sapphire and using a scanning beam microscope to remove hydrogen impurities to maximize brightness. The right color of green soon followed, using a similar compound. The significance of Nakamura’s discover y earned him a Nobel Prize two decades later. If you were active in the display industr y a quarter-centur y ago, you’ll remember those days as a constant chal-

lenge to build a high-brightness electronic display with both a sufficiently small pitch and decent color reproduction to work as electronic scoreboards—albeit very expensive ones. In the late 1990s, your choices for outdoor LED arrays ranged from 10mm to 20mm, with the finest available pitch being 4mm. Those displays certainly cranked out the photons, with the typical stadium screen capable of 3,000cd/m2 to 5,000cd/m2. That was no mean achievement, given that bright sunlight on a clear day could measure three times that level on bright objects! In 1999, I had the opportunity to tour the newly built NASDAQ MarketWall in Times Square, in New York NY. That installation featured large tiles with a pitch of about 10mm to 12mm, and it could deliver 5,000cd/m2 at full brightness! Back then, the big challenge for LED walls was power consumption. The few staging companies that were working with LEDs for live events had to scale up their power requirements to handle these bright displays. Even a 400cd/m2 LED wall required a 15A, 120 VAC connection back then, consuming close to 1800W per LED panel. And those early LED panels (to be known later as “tiles”) often used twice as many green LEDs as red and blue ones to achieve their target brightness. Not surprisingly, heat dissipation was a big problem with LED walls. In one notable (or perhaps notorious) example, a prominent LED wall installed across the street from the NASDAQ MarketWall just before the turn of the millennium caught on fire during operation and became reduced to a large block of melted plastic and metal. (The advertiser solved the problem by hastily covering the wall with a plastic tarp printed with its logo.)

Getting To Know You A few years after touring the NASDAQ wall, I had the occasion to visit a prominent manufacturer of displays in Europe; there, I was shown a prototype 3mm LED wall. It was running at full brightness, developing somewhere in the range of 3,000cd/m2, and I actually had to put on sunglasses. It was that bright. The manufacturer’s goal was to come up with a finer-pitch LED tile that could break through the indoor-display marketplace—one with a dot pitch that could be viewed at close range and not break into an unrecognizable cluster of big, colored dots. At the time, it was considered too expensive to push LED pixel pitches much below 4mm. For really big indoor screens, high-brightness LCD and DLP projectors, along with large tiles of plasma displays and rear-projection videowalls, were doing the heavy lifting. LEDs just weren’t on enough people’s radar—especially after LCD panels started to hit the market in the mid-2000s, and, in so doing, pushed plasma toward the exit door. Some rental-and-staging companies had been rigging and flying LED walls for a few years, but, for close-up viewing, projection was still “the comfort zone.” Part of the problem was reliability. You could spend hours building a large LED wall and hoist it into place, only then to have a tile or two

suddenly go dark because of a power-supply failure. And then there was the problem of color uniformity over the wall. LEDs are manufactured in batches, and tile manufacturers are pretty careful to match colors for a given production order of tiles. (This practice continues to this day.) By contrast, the appeal of a single projected image was obvious: Brightness and color uniformity were excellent, and projectors were simply stacked to make sure the show would go on in the event of a lamp failure.

The New Kid On The Block No one is really sure when LEDs really matured and started their assault on once-safe strongholds for LCD walls and projectors, but it can be said that, earlier this decade, the tide turned. I recall walking the show floor at ISE in 2013 and being amazed by the sheer number of LED-wall manufacturers (most of them from China). In short order, a succession of finer-pitch LED tiles popped up at major trade shows. First, it was 2.5mm; then, 2mm; then, 1.8mm; that was followed pretty quickly by 1.6mm; then, 1.2mm. At that point, LED-tile manufacturers had achieved the same pitch as a 1998-vintage 50-inch plasma monitor with WXGA resolution. In recent years, we’ve also seen 0.9mm, 0.85mm and 0.8mm LED walls for sale (many incorrectly labeled as microLEDs), along with 0.7mm LED wall prototypes.

MAKING TRAVEL ENTERTAINMENT FEEL LIKE HOME

800-368-9700 October 2019

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The Industry’s Take On LED Displays What’s with the race to fine pitch? Are LEDs the favorite of the rental-and-staging business? How about LED power consumption? Is LED cinema the next big thing? I queried several LED (and projector) brands, kept anonymous here, to get their perspective on these questions. Sound & Communications: Just how fine a pitch do we really need for LED tiles? A: We saw adoption of 1.2mm- and 0.9mm-pixel-pitch LED videowalls increase significantly over the past year, primarily because the offerings better met customer requirements and expectations. We are currently shipping LED product down to 0.7mm. As you approach a 0.6mm pitch, I think you begin to reach diminishing returns on pixel density. A: A 2mm to 2.5mm [pixel pitch] is the mainstream for the industry, and these displays are going into casinos, lobbies, museums, retail spaces, hotels, transportation hubs and more with the general viewing distance of 20 feet or more. A: There has been a rat race for the tightest pitch [in] the past years, but we notice that the race has stopped around the “sweet spot” of 1.2mm. We offer a 0.9mm [option]—and some manufacturers offer [down] to 0.7mm even—but the adoption curves for these is slow, since the price of the product grows exponentially with the lower pixel pitch. With the current “packaged” LEDs, it is practically impossible to lower the pixel pitch further. With new technologies on the horizon, this could, of course, all change. Sound & Communications: What impact have LED videowalls had on the rental-and-staging industry—specifically, at the expense of high-brightness projection? It seems like, these days, every touring musical act uses LEDs exclusively. A: While projection is still less expensive, it does not have the impact that LED has, which is why [it is] becoming the preferred solution where impact is desired. A: A lot of LED is used in the event space, indeed. The pixel pitch, however, is still 4mm on average, with exceptions that use 2.5mm due to the fragility of the product. Projection still has a major role to play, but it requires more in-depth knowledge than LED to perfect. A: [For] concerts, events and touring, LED has taken over as the preferred display technology. The reasons are pretty fundamental: brightness, color, structural flexibility and optimized touring designs that offer fast, no-tools setup, tear down and repair. A: A lot of work has gone [into developing] tiled LEDs for rental that are easier to handle, lighter and simple to assemble for events. Special carriers and logistic systems also help avoid damage. The industry has developed “wholesale” rental LED suppliers for events and “tile pools” to deal with peaks of demand. Sound & Communications: How about brightness and power consumption? As many customers have discovered, you don’t need a couple thousand nits to overcome normal ambient room lighting. In fact, you can get by with a lot less, which reduces power consumption. A: The LED maximum-brightness requirement is a direct correlation to the room environment. For example, a typical meeting

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room with low to no ambient light can be serviced with 600cd/ m2 brightness or less. However, high-ambient-light environments, such as atriums, lobbies and boardrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, require higher [brightness of] 1000cd/m2. A: LED power consumption varies significantly based on the content. Rather than the constant backlight power draw associated with LCD, the direct-view pixels vary in color and brightness, [as well as] power consumption, in real time, based on content. The LEDs are very efficient, and [they’re] becoming more efficient every day. This translates to more brightness [nits] for the same power, or vice versa. In our experience, it is very common for customers to be operating the LED displays at 50 percent of the maximum brightness. A: One of the challenges today for LED walls is cabinet consistency, because, if you lose one, it can affect the entire screen. We leverage dual redundant power supplies to address this need. There is no real cookie-cutter standard for indoor use, due to several variables that need to be taken into account, including optimal viewing distance and ambient light. Even though the human eye is capable of seeing a huge range of brightness, there’s a comfort limit, and it varies per person. Sound & Communications: What about LED cinema? It’s a very new concept, but it’s gathering plenty of interest. A: Cinema products based on LED technology hold the promise of requiring less space in theaters, providing higher dynamic range for the film’s image and, with higher maximum brightness, allowing for different lights-on usage of theater spaces. Of course, there are certainly technical challenges associated with trying to match and exceed the visual performance of [a] traditional theater, but the race is on. We will surely start to see more and more LED in cinema. A: LED in cinema still has a long way to go. It is not affordable enough; proof of that is the limited installed base. [Moreover], the quality of the existing products is not yet up to [the] expectations of the studios. Color performance, seams, low lights, DCI compliance [and] sound are all topics to be worked on. A: Absolutely. It’s an application that can bring real benefits to the moviegoer and exhibitor alike. Each year, we’re continuing to see interest, and [we’re] starting to see more real-world installations. We are actively working toward seeing LED in a cinema environment, which, we believe, will expand the capabilities of creatives to bring their vision to the screen, as well as improve the ability to maintain a high level of quality in the theaters. Sound & Communications: What’s happening in the world of microLEDs? A: There is so much activity here, [and] it’s very exciting. We could see the first products next year. LED-chip manufacturer PlayNitride just confirmed they can transfer 10,000 microLEDs per second with a 99.9-percent [manufacturing] yield. That yield is not good enough by itself, but they say their repair process can then effectively realize the required yield cost. A: MicroLEDs could portend a huge change in mobile and fixeddisplay applications. They offer long life, high efficiency, great color, wide viewing angles and fast switching speeds. What’s not to like? (If you can make them…and afford them.)

Suffice it to say that, at those resolutions, you could stand right next to an LED wall and not detect any pixels—that is, as long as the wall’s sheer brightness wasn’t too much for you! It didn’t take long for industr y analysts to predict that we’d soon have LED displays inside meeting rooms and classrooms to replace large LCD displays (which had already banished “hang-and-bang” projectors to the scrap heap). With a combination of fine pixel pitches in large screen sizes, LED walls could now show 4K content, and, with their high brightness and super-saturated colors, high-dynamic-range (HDR) video was a piece of cake. What’s more, the pulse-width modulation (PWM) technique used to switch LED walls on and off rapidly to achieve a full range of gray and color shades means that LED walls are ready for high-frame-rate (HFR) video, too.

No Turning Back Now Anyone who walked the InfoComm show floor this past June can clearly see the writing on the wall. (It was certainly bright enough in Orlando FL’s Orange County Convention Center!) Just about ever y manufacturer of displays now has a play in LED walls, either as its primar y offering or as a plan B to supplement its lines of high-brightness DLP projectors and LCDs. Somewhat surprisingly, even some smaller projector brands have gotten on board with LEDs. If you follow the numbers, the reasoning is obvious. According to research firm IHS Markit, “[W]orldwide LED video display area shipments are expected to expand by 36.7 percent in 2019 as several factors, including plunging prices, make them a more attractive alternative to projectors and flatpanel displays.” The firm’s latest report, from this past July, predicts that total worldwide shipments (in LED area) will reach 1.1 million square meters—up from 800,000 square meters last year—for a total of $5.1 billion in revenue. By 2023, IHS Markit predicts area shipments will have reached two million square meters, generating $7.5 billion in revenue. “LED video-display technology is rapidly replacing front projectors in large venues,” Tarika Bheda, Research and Analysis Director, Digital Signage, at IHS Markit, said. “The technology is also aggressively competing with LCD videowalls in indoor

Might microLEDs be the future of the display industry?

applications, such as command-and-control rooms and premium conference rooms. [Apart from the] declining cost, lifespan, size scalability and seamless image display are the main factors driving the increasing adoption of LED video technology.” The indoor-digital-signage segment is where the real disruption is taking place. Bheda said that almost half of the LED displays shipped this year are targeted at indoor installations; the 2mm to 4.99mm pixel-pitch categor y is dominating the market. This category is forecast to capture 52-percent share of the global LED display market by 2023, and the “up to 1.99mm” categor y will expand from nine percent to 13 percent during that time period. Other analysts are predicting strong growth for fine-pitch LED, as well. Futuresource Consulting’s Global Videowall Display Solutions Report, published this past July, pegs the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the global narrowpixel-pitch (NPP, ≤2.5mm) LED market growing at 32 percent for 2015 to 2022, with $3 billion in total revenue expected by the end of this year. Even with the possibility of tariffs looming on Chinese goods, “LED technology will remain resilient over the long term, continuing to outpace growth in LCD and projection, and [it is] on track to achieve global revenues of $11.7 billion by 2023,” Futuresource Consulting forecasts indicate. Just as we’ve seen with LCD displays, aggressive competition and excess fab capacity is pushing down prices for finished

IHS Markit is projecting a steady increase in LED shipments and revenue.

LED panels. According to IHS Markit, “[C]ompetition among brands has intensified, pulling average selling prices (ASPs) lower. However, revenue growth is projected to remain positive as ASP erosion will be balanced by an increase in demand for expensive, fine-pixel-pitch displays.” The firm expects the public-space application to be the largest through 2023, with transportation, control-room and corporate installations growing at a fast pace during that period. Indeed, several companies are now showing “build-it-yourself” LED screens in the 130-inch to 150-inch range. These displays can be assembled by two people in about three hours, and they can be mounted to a wall or attached to a roll-around stand. Just plug in the power cord, connect your video sources (most likely a presentation switcher) to the HDMI port and away you go with up to 800cd/m 2 of bright, colorful, highresolution imaging. The impact on projector sales and related accessories, such as mounts, is substantial. Although it’s expected that projectors will retain their position in the budget-conscious K-12 education segment (in particular, short-throw models), as well as in cinemas, LED displays, combined with ever-cheaper and ever-larger LCD panels with 4K resolution, will cause some pain. Indeed, according to AVIXA’s Industry Outlook and Trends Analysis (IOTA) 2019 report, the installed video-projection and accessories market will face a CAGR of -19.7 percent, going from $5.8 billion this year to $1.9 billion in 2024.

Where To From Here? Trying to predict technology trends in the AV marketplace is sometime a fool’s errand. LED displays are different, though. Their powerful combination of large screen sizes, fine pixel pitches, high brightness and saturated colors has the potential to push aside just about ever y other display platform. And the vigorous pricing competition we’re seeing among all the LEDtile manufacturers in China is making this transition happen at hyper speed. Just think of all the arenas, stadiums, shopping malls, plazas, airports and train stations you’ve walked through—even the highways on which you’ve driven. Chances are, you’ve passed one or more LED displays and gave them a quick glance. And,

72 Sound & Communications October 2019

This high-power red LED chip is used in projectors.

if you did, you surely noticed how bright and colorful they were. (On a personal note, ever y rock and pop concert I’ve attended during the past six years has used LED walls for image magnification—not a single large or medium-sized venue relied on front or rear projection.) LED-driven applications don’t stop there, either. If you happen to live in or near Chatsworth CA or Richmond TX (Houston area), you can now watch first-run films on large LED screens, calibrated for cinema playback. The week following InfoComm, I traveled to Texas to catch a screening of “Men In Black: International” on a 46-foot-wide LED screen that had a 3mm pitch, 4224x2160 resolution and a peak brightness level of about 16fL to 20fL with “enhanced” dynamic range content. With HDR test content, the peak brightness level soared to 50fL, which is equivalent to nearly 180cd/m2. But wait…there’s more! Although individual LEDs measuring roughly 100μm to 2mm in size qualify as “mini” LEDs (currently used as backlights in full-array LCD TVs), a new generation of microLEDs is in the works. These super-tiny devices (50µm to 100µm) are small enough to replace the LCD and OLED screens in mobile phones, tablets, laptops and televisions. (The LEDs discussed in this article use an inorganic semiconductor junction, as opposed to the organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) found in 4K TVs and smartphones.) Some pretty big names in consumer electronics (two of which dominate the smartphone business) are currently building research-and-development facilities and pilot fabrication lines in the US and Asia to figure out how to make microLEDs in sufficient quantities with acceptable yields. They are exceedingly difficult and expensive to manufacture at present—but then, so, too, were color plasma displays in the 1990s and large LCD TVs in the 2000s. And we all know how those stories turned out…. If Henr y Round were alive today, he would be astounded at how his once-insignificant discover y has become an indispensable part of ever yday life. Indeed, modern cruise ships employ hundreds of thousands of LEDs to illuminate decks and rooms, light up digital signs, provide image magnification for onboard entertainment, and, of course, ser ve as status lamps and numeric indicators on the bridge and throughout the ship. LEDs are, indeed, the mouse that roared….

Finding The RF Sweet Spot For Wireless Intercoms Can wireless equipment be migrated outside the UHF band? By Tom Turkington Pliant Technologies Usable UHF spectrum for wireless production equipment is at a premium due to reallocation via Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auctions, as well as due to rules changes and growing production requirements. That part of the UHF spectrum that does remain for use by wireless microphones, wireless intercoms and the like has become far more crowded. Wireless-production professionals are being forced to make changes to how they utilize and allocate the available spectrum for growing production needs. Of the available spectrum for wireless production, microphones, interruptible foldback (IFB) and in-ear monitors typically take priority over intercoms. The reasons for this are numerous. For large-scale productions, the challenge is to make sure that wireless intercoms have the necessar y bandwidth, as they are vital components in producing successful events. Although it has never been easy to coordinate and execute wireless at large production events, UHF spectrum for use by production professionals was reasonably plentiful as recently as 10 years ago. Most productions could fit all their wireless needs (e.g., wireless microphones, IFBs, in-ear monitors, communications) in the UHF spectrum with a little preplanning and best-practices application. Even in the most crowded RF cities, available UHF spectrum was at least adequate to do complex production wireless. That isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the case anymore, however. Due to multiple FCC auctions in which almost 200MHz of spectrum has been reallocated, we now have only about a third of the UHF spectrum available for production-wireless use. Once spectrum has been repurposed for mobile-broadband use, it becomes illegal and impractical for production-wireless applications.

How It Started It all started back in 2008, when the FCC forced all full-power television stations to transition to digital broadcasting. Digital-broadcasting techniques have greater spectral efficiency and allow TV channels to be broadcast on adjacent channels, without having to leave unoccupied channels between transmissions as guard bands. This increased spectral efficiency enabled the FCC to free up 108MHz of spectrum from the 700MHz broadcast band for new wireless ser vices (e.g., mobile phones). This encompassed all the UHF spectrum between channels 52 and 69. Then, the commission auctioned off that spec-

October 2019

Sound & Communications 73

New UHF spectrum allocation post transition phase.

trum, generating $19.6 billion. The FCC was not finished, however. The desire for more wireless internet access resulted in an incentive auction to free up even more spectrum. This time, TV broadcasters were given the option to participate in a reverse auction, in which they were compensated for costs related to moving. This auction was completed in 2017, and it resulted in the reallocation of an additional 84MHz of spectrum from TV channels 38 to 51. This auction raised $19.8 billion. In the wake of the completion of the incentive auction, the FCC devised a 39-month, 10-phase transition plan. That plan facilitates moving all existing television channels above channel 37 to lower UHF or VHF channels. Each station that is to move as a result of the incentive auction has been assigned to a specific phase; however, many stations have accepted incentives from T-Mobile (the largest bidder in the auction, at $8 billion) to move early. Once stations are cleared from a specific area, those frequencies can be used for mobile-broadband transmission. Once the transition is complete, there will be even less spectrum to utilize for production wireless. The FCC has committed to keeping two TV channels available in any given location for use by production-wireless equipment. That equates to 12MHz of available spectrum, and that isn’t much. Another consideration is that the two channels the FCC has promised to make available are “subject to availability.” That means that, in some of the most crowded RF markets, there might not be any available spectrum for production-wireless use. In most locations, there will be some UHF spectrum available, but, suf fice it to say, it will be a complex and cumbersome task to ensure wireless microphones and the like have clear spectrum to use. Even in the best situations, there will be ver y limited UHF spectrum for production-wireless equipment to use. For large events, which require more than just a few wireless microphones, it will be necessar y to migrate some production-wireless equipment to other bands. In order to achieve the best results in all categories of production wireless, it is imperative to prioritize based on operational requirements. Prioritizing wireless really comes down to placing gear in one of three categories: • Audio that will actually go on air (typically wireless microphones) 74 Sound & Communications October 2019

• Audio that is heard by talent (typically IFBs and in-ear monitors) • Audio that is used for support and communications (typically wireless intercom)

Audio For Air This audio requires maximum reliability, high fidelity (at a minimum, 40Hz to 12kHz) and extremely low latency. Zero dropouts or extraneous audio noise must be achieved. Although some technologies that utilize non-UHF spectrum do exist to achieve this under some circumstances, it’s almost always best to utilize the available UHF spectrum for wireless-microphone operation. Extremely high fade margins must be maintained. Wireless-microphone transmission technology—even modern digital-transmission schemes— rely heavily on exceptionally clean spectrum and fixed RF frequency operation. This type of RF operation is almost always ser ved best by utilizing UHF spectrum.

Audio For Talent Wireless IFBs, in-ear monitors and other audio devices for the talent are next on the list. Again, high reliability and low latency are key. A slightly lower fidelity (80Hz to 8kHz, typically) can be tolerated in IFB applications, whereas higher fidelity is still necessary for in-ear monitors. For this categor y, reliability is slightly less crucial than for wireless microphones, but it’s still ver y important. The occasional audio dropout can be tolerated, but, generally speaking, noise and dropouts are not acceptable. This requires high fade margins and relatively clean spectrum. Again, this type of RF device is typically best served by the rules and conditions that govern the UHF spectrum.

Wireless Communications Although wireless-communications capabilities are critical for successful productions, these devices, in most cases, can tolerate a higher level of RF hits than wireless microphones or wireless IFBs can. In addition, a lower level of audio quality is usually acceptable. (That being said, to avoid ear fatigue, audio frequency response of at least 100Hz to 7kHz is desirable.) Also, dynamic range of at least 80dB is necessary for successful communication in high-noise environments. Occasional RF hits are acceptable, provided they do not compromise communica-

Ten-phase spectrum-transition schedule.

tions or become distracting to the user. Many wireless intercoms in use today operate in the UHF band, utilizing analog FM technology; however, there are other readily available technology options that provide highquality communications. Some of these systems also provide a higher level of features and functionality. These features and this functionality provide users with a more efficient and â&#x20AC;&#x153;wired-likeâ&#x20AC;? experience. Because of this, wireless-communications systems make the most sense to migrate out of the UHF spectrum when trying to free up more UHF operational frequencies for wireless microphones and wireless IFBs.

Non-UHF Options Four primary non-UHF-band options are most appropriate for professional-wireless-communication use. In frequency order, they are as follows: 902MHz to 928MHz (900MHz); 1880MHz to 1930MHz (1.9GHz); 2400MHz to 2500MHz (2.4GHz); and 5725MHz to 5875MHz (5.8GHz). Each band has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, considering all the factors involved with selecting a suitable area of the spectrum to operate wireless-intercom equipment, the most advantageous bands are likely 900MHz and 2.4GHz. Those areas of the spectrum offer a favorable blend of available spectrum, propagation characteristics and regulatory factors. Although 1.9GHz does have some advantages, the fact that there is so little spectrum available for use greatly limits user count and sets the stage for system-to-system interference during large events. Regulations that govern the use of the two aforementioned bands require that all devices that operate within those bands use technologies that minimize interference and promote co-

operative use of the available spectrum. This allows multiple devices to operate within the bands, with minimal interference or reduction of range and performance. This digital technology stands in stark contrast to older analog UHF radio technologies that were traditionally used for wireless intercom systems in the past. As a result, spectral efficiency is significantly better, and you can pack a whole lot more users into a much smaller RF band, while, at the same time, maintaining a high-quality RF link. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also the added benefit that this comes without the complicated, time-consuming frequency coordination typically necessary for multi-system UHF operation.

Conclusion The UHF spectrum is becoming much more crowded, and this will continue in the coming years. Production requirements continually call for more wireless devices to complete the task. At this time, migrating wireless microphones and/or wireless IFBs out of the traditional UHF band is not practical due to audio requirements and technical limitations. By contrast, wireless-communication equipment can be effectively migrated outside the UHF band using existing technology. Eliminating wireless intercoms from the UHF spectrum can vastly increase the number of wireless microphones and/or wireless IFBs that may be operated at a given location. The 900MHz and 2.4GHz bands are excellent candidates for wireless communications due to propagation characteristics, regulatory factors and the amount of actual spectrum that is available. Spread-spectrum technology allows multiple users to share a given portion of the spectrum effectively, without a significant effect on other users. October 2019

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NEWS Compiled by Amanda Mullen and Dan Ferrisi

Herman ProAV And AVer Enter Distribution Partnership Herman ProAV has entered into a partnership with AVer to distribute the company’s video collaboration and education technology solutions. “We are thrilled to partner with AVer,” Jeffrey Wolf, Co-CEO at Herman, said. “This new partnership is a strategic and important addition to our product offering to support one of the fastest-growing areas in our industry. AVer is a leader in this space and will enable us to better serve the needs of our customers and the AV Industry.” “At AVer, we are focused on building strategic partnerships in order to give our customers complete video conferencing solutions without any hassle,” Charles Montoya Senior Director of Unified Communications at Aver, added. “With Herman ProAV’s unmatched offering of products and services we are able to leverage their differentiating value in the commercial AV industry. We look forward to providing superior resources to our customers that this partnership offers.”

LG Display Opens 8.5th-Generation OLED Panel Production Plant LG Display announced the opening of its 8.5th-generation OLED panel production plant in Guangzhou, China, ushering in an era of producing 10 million large-size OLED panels a year. The plant began mass-production last month, and it will mainly manufacture large-size, high-resolution OLED products including 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch panels. The initial monthly capacity will be 60,000 sheets, which will be further expanded to 90,000 sheets by 2021. The company expects to produce over 10 million OLED panels a year by 2022 when this monthly capacity of 90,000 sheets is combined with the 70,000 sheets currently manufactured at its OLED panel plant in Paju, Korea, as well as an additional 45,000 sheets to be produced at its 10.5th-generation plant in Paju from 2022. The new 8.5th-generation OLED panel plant is operated by LG Display High-Tech China, a joint venture established between LG Display and Guangzhou Development District (GDD). LG Display holds a 70-percent stake with KRW 2.6 trillion in capital. “Based on our vast experience and capability in OLED production, LG Display will make every effort to ensure the success of LG Display High-Tech China,” Dr. Sang Beom Han, CEO and Vice Chairman of LG Display, said at the opening ceremony attended by Korean and Chinese officials, top executives from LG group, and representatives from customer and partner companies. “With our dual OLED panel production sites in Korea and China, the company will further accelerate the OLED trend in the global premium TV market by providing large-size OLED panels to the world.” 76

Sound & Communications October 2019

Williams AV Announced As Global Preferred Vendor Partner For PSNI PSNI Global Alliance announced that Williams AV has become one of its Global Preferred Vendor Partners. Williams AV is a manufacturer of digital, FM, infrared and induction loop wireless audio, as well as video annotation, audio conferencing and presentation systems. The “Global Preferred” designation is the highest level of PSNI Global Alliance partner engagement and limited to a select group of distributors and manufacturers that actively demonstrate a global strategy to support a standardized approach to system design. The Preferred Vendor Partner Program connects vendors and integrators in order to pursue market opportunities, cultivating relationships and increased sales within member organizations. PSNI’s Preferred Vendor Partners and its members collaborate closely to address solutions on the market. “We are excited about this partnership with PSNI Global Alliance and their network of superior integrators,” Tom Mingo, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing at Williams AV, said. “Our complete lineup of solutions, combined with the goals of Williams AV and PSNI’s global strategy, will allow us to build our business and better serve our customers across the globe.”

Premier Mounts Takes AV Certification Classes To Next Level Premier Mounts is offering new classes for Renewal Unit (RU) credits in CTS (Certified Technology Specialist) certifications. In line with AVIXA standards that require ongoing education and periodic renewal, the upcoming CTS certification classes will showcase LCD and direct-view LED solutions, and they will take place at Premier Mounts’ Corona CA headquarters. Options for earning RU credits include an in-house, two-day session in which participants will work with mounting solutions on a demonstration wall (8 RU credits), as well as a webinar on Premier Mounts products and services (1 RU credit). Premier Mounts’ goal in adding these educational opportunities is to raise the bar and continue to create new offerings for AV professionals. “Since technology changes so rapidly in our industry, we want to show our enthusiasm for ongoing education and learning by teaching the skills needed for continuous improvement of installation and customer service in the field,” Curtis Rose, Marketing Director, said.

NEWS Dynaudio Opens New Experience Center Danish loudspeaker company Dynaudio celebrated the grand opening of its new headquarters for North and South American operations with its Annual Rep Summit, held on August 21 to 22 in the Chicago IL suburb of Northbrook IL. The 25,000-square-foot facility is dedicated largely to the new Dynaudio Experience Center, which will be utilized for product demonstrations and dealer and sales rep training sessions, as well as for housing a larger warehouse to support product demand in the region. “As we continue to expand, we’re always looking for new opportunities that we can invest in to support our customers,” Michael Manousselis, VP, Operations – Americas, said. “Our new North American headquarters is part of that mission. We not only will be able to facilitate continued sales growth, but also conduct highly requested training sessions and demonstrate our expanding and increasingly diversified high-end product portfolio properly because of our more flexible facility. We’re excited to open the doors to Dynaudio’s dealers, reps, members of the press and to our industry partners participating in the center to allow visitors an opportunity to experience first-hand all of the unique elements and advanced performance capabilities of our collective products.” With this new facility, Dynaudio is positioned to support future growth in North and South America.

Tellyo Joins SRT Alliance

ZeeVee Receives GSA Vendor Approval

Signagelive And Quividi Announce Partnership

Tellyo has joined the SRT Alliance, the collaborative community of industry leaders and developers striving to achieve lower-latency internet video transport through the continuous improvement of the open-source SRT (Secure Reliable Transport). Tellyo has added full SRT support to its platform. Tellyo joins more than 250 companies, including Microsoft, Avid, Comcast, EBU/Eurovision, MediaKind, Brightcove, Wowza and Kaltura, all of which have shown their support for the SRT Open Source video streaming standard. For a current list of SRT Alliance members, visit www.srtalliance.org/members. “Tellyo supports all major industry protocols, including RTMP, HLS, RTMPS and RTSP, and we have now fully added SRT support to further complement our platform’s range of broadcast-quality inputs,” Richard Collins, CEO of Tellyo, said. “We are pleased to be part of such a strong industry effort to improve broadcast video quality over the internet.” SRT is an open-source protocol, developed by Haivision, which enables broadcasters and streamers to deliver high-quality, low-latency streams across the public internet.

The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded ZeeVee, Inc., with a Multiple Award Schedule IT 70 contract, enabling the independent Boston MA-area company to supply and proactively market to the government sector, including defense and civilian agencies, through 2024. To be recognized as an approved vendor, companies must undergo an extensive screening process and demonstrate past performance, client satisfaction and financial stability. Founded in 2007, ZeeVee is a global developer of digital technology and products for distributing audio-video content from any source or multiple sources to any number of displays. Its solutions range from RF distribution technology to AV-over-IP products. The company’s SDVoE products deliver uncompressed 4K, near-zero latency, over standards-based IP infrastructure. “ZeeVee, a founding member of the SDVoE Alliance, is the first SDVoE manufacturer to earn a GSA contract,” Joseph Chordas, VP, Marketing & North America Sales, ZeeVee, said. “This buying vehicle paves the way for a greater range of government and quasi-government organizations to acquire a technology that is transforming AV distribution and delivering on the promise of increased scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.”

Signagelive, a cloud-based digital signage platform, and Quividi, an audience and campaign intelligence platform for DOOH and digital signage, have announced the integration of their platforms. This integration will enable any DOOH and digital signage networks running Signagelive and Quividi to test, measure, optimize and deliver data-driven content to best engage and convert audiences. The combined solution provides marketers with a detailed level of audience and campaign intelligence. Users can get fine analytics on the exact audience dynamics for each content play, and they can also run HTML5 campaigns that instantly react to the audience currently watching the screen. For all content, Quividi determines, in real-time, the number of viewers (broken down by age and gender), as well as their mood, attention time and facial attributes. This data is accessible in VidiCenter, Quividi’s data platform with built-in analytics dashboards and charts. Advertisers get private access to their campaign audience report with insights into their real impact. October 2019

Sound & Communications

NEWS Stampede Rolls Into Fall With Schedule Of Big Book Of AV Tour Stops

Stampede’s Fall 2019 Big Book of AV Tour & Conference Series will make stops in Montreal, Canada on October 17; Chicago IL on October 24; Toronto, Canada on November 13; Houston TX on November 21; Miami FL on December 5; and Vancouver, Canada on December 11. Complete details on the fall tour can be found at www.bigbookofavtour.com. “The future has never looked more promising or more profitable than it does today, as the market need grows for complex and integrated solutions that deliver compelling customer experiences that are unique to every vertical market,” Stampede’s President and CEO, Kevin Kelly, said. “The growing demand for solutions that generate better customer experiences and business outcomes is creating a new era of opportunity for us to move upstream and away from the mainstream of lower-end, commoditized single-product solutions. When it comes to profiting in today’s 21st-century commercial AV market, complexity adds value, preserves margins and creates the opportunity to sell more of both traditional and new product categories,” Kelly emphasized. Showcasing examples of integrated systems that deliver better customer experiences and business outcomes in specific vertical markets is the main goal of the Fall Big Book of AV Tour & Conference Series. Stops will showcase specific bundled solutions for individual vertical markets, and a focused effort will be made on educating resellers on how best to profit from creating better customer experiences.

Sound & Communications October 2019

Stardraw.com Implements Fair-Use Policy For Symbols Library

AVIXA: Despite M&As, Commercial AV Industry Not Overly Concentrated

Extensive merger-and-acquisition activity The Stardraw.com symbols library contains is taking place economy-wide, headlined more than 110,000 product symbols from 976 by deals like the merger of T-Mobile and manufacturers, each hand-crafted by Stardraw. Sprint. Commercial AV shares in this. com’s in-house Symbols Department, and it Twenty-seven percent of AV providers is growing every day. In an effort to ensure reported that the company they currently that processes for requesting products remain work for had acquired, merged with or transparent and democratic, Stadraw.com has been acquired by another company in introduced a Product Request Allowance that the previous five years, according to the is specifically tailored to users’ license and Macro-Economic Trends Analysis (META) subscription status. focused on market-concentration trends, “Until now, any Stardraw Design 7 user with a produced by AVIXA. current subscription has been able to request When a market becomes overly consolidatproducts with no limits or restrictions, other ed, one or several companies hold power than each request must be for a single product and can stamp out competition while identified by a model number,” Stardraw.com’s overcharging and harming consumers. CEO, Rob Robinson, explained. “This is a perFor now, the commercial-AV-integration fectly good system for the vast majority of our market in the US is far from that level of users but, as we’ve come to realize, does leave consolidation, as AVIXA’s research found rather a gaping hole if, for example, a distributhat the market has low concentration. tor decides to request his entire product cataHundreds of businesses of all different logue, regardless of whether their customers sizes are successfully operating in this actually require those products. While it doesn’t market. Much of the industry remains happen often, when it does, it can clog up the somewhat mom-and-pop in nature, and whole system, and [it] slows down the generaAVIXA’s data strongly indicates there will tion of genuinely requested products from the still be space for those who want to remain rest of our users. Therefore, we have decided independent. But the global business world to implement a fair-use policy by means of a is constantly changing, so there isn’t a Product Request Allowance (PRA), which is guarantee that the current state of combased on the level of your subscription.” mercial AV will continue. Each license gives users access to a certain The quarterly META reports look at how number of manufacturers, and the new process macroeconomic trends—economic, gives users one outstanding request for every sociological, political, demographic two manufacturers in their license. Thus, a and technological changes—affect the Bronze bundle user can have up to 10 requests commercial-AV space. To learn more, visit outstanding at any time, and a Platinum user www.avixa.org/meta. can have up to 35 requests outstanding. When a requested product is published into the library, it no longer counts against the PRA. With the PRA in place, Excluded Requests will also impact a user’s allowance—taking CALENDAR up usable request ‘slots’—so the user can delete Excluded November December AV Executive Conference 178th Meeting of the ASA Requests to free up their Nov. 5–7 Dec. 2–6 allowance and make more New Orleans LA San Diego CA requests, helping to reduce AVIXA Acoustical Society of America www.avexecutive www.acousticalsociety.org/ the backlog. conference.com

IAAPA Attractions Expo Nov. 18–22 Orlando FL IAAPA www.iaapa.org

asa-meetings

PEOPLE

Compiled by Amanda Mullen

G. Bannett

T. Caneris

B. Clune

V. Bova

R. Rose

J. Bell

J. Barnhurst

M. Moreno

A. Coleman

N. Cocks

A. Hacker

B. Chow

Z. Ajeeb

V. Hasan

J. Hewitt

D. Joubert

J. Duvall

R. Cruz Jr.

A. Espinoza

B. Haynes

Almo Corporation named Gary Bannett as CFO…LSI Industries appointed Thomas A. Caneris as Senior VP – Human Resources and General Counsel…Safe Zone appointed Beth Clune as VP of Marketing and Business Development…RTI promoted Vincent Bova to Director of Dealer Experience…Utah Scientific promoted Randy Rose to Director of Sales Engineering, John Bell to Customer Service Manager, and Jim Barnhurst to Field and Technical Service Manager, and welcomed Mario Moreno as Field Service Engineer…Almo Professional A/V hired Adam Coleman as Business Development Manager specializing in direct-view LED displays…Stampede appointed Nick Cocks as General Manager

of Exertis Australia ProAV…Atlona welcomed Amy Hacker as Regional Sales Manager…Clear-Com hired Brian Chow as Regional Sales Manager for Japan and Korea…Exterity appointed Zaher Ajeeb to KSA Sales Manager and Victor Hasan to Regional Sales Manager…Riedel hired Julian Hewitt as Regional Training Manager and Deidre Joubert as Regional Marketing Manager…VUE Audiotechnik appointed James Duvall as Central Regional Sales Manager and Richard Cruz Jr. as Marketing Coordinator…Speco Technologies expanded its Sales Engineering team with Anthony Espinoza…CHAUVET Professional welcomed Brad Haynes as its National Resource Manager – Concert and Touring…. October 2019

Sound & Communications

PRODUCTS Compiled by Amanda Mullen Extron’s AV Control Solutions

Extron Electronics has released its TouchLink Pro Control Systems. These complete AV control solutions combine a TouchLink Pro touchpanel with an integrated IP Link Pro control processor. This all-in-1 approach streamlines system designs by consolidating essential control-system components, freeing up space and easing integration. Multiple devices can be controlled directly from the Ethernet port, and the included port-expansion adapter makes it easy to add traditional control ports when needed, directly at the touchpanel. All TLC Pro Control Systems maintain the same appearance and performance of Extron’s TouchLink Pro touchpanels, and they suit any environment requiring a customizable, all-in-1 touchpanel control system. The port-expansion adapter provides control directly from the touchpanel, with 2 bidirectional RS232 ports, 1 contactclosure port, 1 IR port and 2 relays. These TouchLink Pro Control Systems can be customized using Extron GUI Designer software. GUI Designer offers ready-to-use templates for a wide variety of rooms and presentation environments. Extron www.extron.com

All product information supplied by manufacturers and/or distributors.

Atlona’s Matrix Presentation Switcher

Christie’s Laser Projector

Atlona’s AT-OME-PS62 6x2 matrix presentation switcher is one of the new offerings in its Omega Series. The AT-OME-PS62 is a fully featured 4K switcher with USB 3.0 and USB-C interfaces, HDBaseT extension, scaling and audiomanagement capabilities. Suiting modern AV communications and collaboration, the AT-OME-PS62 offers 4K/ultra-HD presentation and conferencing specifications in medium-to-large AV environments. It features HDBaseT and HDMI outputs, along with 4K/60 4:4:4 capability for all inputs and the HDMI output, as well as USB extension over HDBaseT. The AT-OMEPS62 includes 3 HDMI inputs and 2 HDBaseT inputs alongside a USB-C AV input for direct, BYOD-friendly interfacing with the latest mobile devices and laptops. The USB-C interface also can be used for data connectivity to the AT-OME-PS62’s integrated USB 2.0 hub, as well as for charging the connected device. Atlona www.atlona.com

Christie’s Christie Eclipse is a 4K RGB pure laser projector that features Christie RealLaser illumination, true HDR and a wide color gamut. With true HDR, Christie Eclipse can process and reproduce HDR content onscreen, in 4K resolution, at both high and low brightness levels. The result is a contrast ratio of up to 20 million:1, which ensures that fine details are visible even in extreme black and white ranges. With an expansive color gamut approaching the full Rec.2020 and Rec.2100 color space, Christie Eclipse produces saturated colors for immersive experiences and exceeds the Rec. 2100 contrast-ratio specification of 200,000:1 by 100 times. With RealLaser illumination, 4K resolution and high-frame-rate capability of up to 120fps, Christie Eclipse can deliver smooth content without distracting blur—a capability that’s critical for planetariums, giant screens and themed attractions. Christie www.christiedigital.com

Extron’s TouchLink Pro Control Systems

Williams AV’s Annotation PRO

Christie’s Christie Eclipse 80

Sound & Communications October 2019

Atlona’s AT-OME-PS62

Williams AV’s Annotation System

Williams AV’s Annotation PRO brings 4K video to system designers who wish to add annotation to their professional 4K video designs. With the broadcast graphics capabilities of the NVIDIA processor, the Annotation PRO provides graphical annotation overlays that deliver detail, crisp colors and sharp images. The Annotation PRO is built on a NVIDIA Pascal GPU system architecture with 256 NVIDIA CUDA cores. This processor can deliver realtime video processing with less than 2 frames of latency. The embedded software application runs on a Linux OS and offers upgrade possibilities that are unavailable in hardware-based FPGA or ASIC solutions. With 2 digital video inputs, a HDMI and USB 3.0 video and PIP capabilities, the system can be configured to support many different dual-video-output viewing configurations. The USB 3.0 can also be configured for video-capture applications. Williams AV www.williamsav.com

PRODUCTS TASCAM’s Compact Mixing Console

TASCAM’s Model 16 all-in-1 mixing studio takes live multitrack recording and combines the warmth, ease and feel of analog recording and mixing with the workflow and quality of digital. The Model 16 is a full-featured compact mixing console that is suitable for a rehearsal studio, house of worship, home studio or any production environment in which space is limited. The Model 16 integrates a 14-channel input analog mixer, 16-track internal digital recorder, multi-track USB 2.0 audio interface, 16 editable effects, versatile mixing and routing channel path, and Bluetooth wireless streaming into an all-in-1 unit. Its 14 inputs provide easy top-panel access for mics, line inputs and instruments. Channels 1 through 8 feature premium XLR mic inputs utilizing TASCAM’s Ultra-HDDA (High Definition Discrete Architecture) mic preamps with 48V phantom power. TASCAM www.tascam.com

NEC Display Solutions’ Laser Projectors

NEC Display Solutions’ PE Series of entry-installation laser projectors offers 4,500 lumens and features that include filterfree, maintenance-free design and ultra-quiet operation. The PE455WL and PE455UL both feature NEC’s patented sealed optical system that allows for a filter-free design. The PE455WL and PE455UL will generate 24dB of noise in normal mode. This makes them suitable for higher-education classrooms, conference rooms and other applications for which large, clear images are needed with as few noise distractions as possible. The PE455WL features WXGA 1280x800 resolution, whereas the PE455UL projects a native WUXGA 1920x1200 image. The 4,500-lumen brightness enables both PE Series projectors to deliver large, clear images in medium- to high-ambient-light situations. In addition, the laser light source offers a minimum of 20,000 hours of life. NEC Display Solutions www.necdisplay.com

Sonance’s Bandpass Sub

Sonance is adding a bandpass sub to its Professional Series range. The PS-S210SUBT utilizes 2 10" low-profile, high-excursion drivers that were engineered inhouse by Sonance for this product. The polyurethane-coated, laminated-plywood enclosure features a shallow design with dimensions of 8.98"x33"x13.78" (HxWxD). It also has the ability to port either from the front or the side of the enclosure. The installer simply unscrews the port from the front of the cabinet, unscrews a blanking plate from the side and swaps them. A removable grille over the port will keep the enclosure free of foreign objects. Sonance’s Laminated Core Technology transformer (SLCT) delivers full-fidelity performance in either 70V or 100V, with tap settings of 300W, 150W and 75W (70V only). An 8Ω bypass is also available. Termination is via a lockable 4-pin Euroblock connector with loop-through and cable management. Sonance www.sonance.com

LYNX Technik’s Converter

LYNX Technik has debuted its 8K-SDI-to-fiber and fiber-to-8KSDI converter for the company’s Series 5000 product line. The DVD 5480 HO module supports video formats all the way up to 8K SDI, and the products have both a fiber and an electrical interface. These rugged and versatile cards are suitable for a variety of applications, and they can operate in 4 different modes. The module transports and converts up to 8K-SDI (12G, 6G, 3G, HD, SD) over optical fiber cable, and vice versa. Operating as a 12G-SDI re-clocking distribution amp, the module carries 4K video on a single cable, and it’s suitable for any SDI video signal up to 12G for 4K applications. LYNX Technik www.lynx-technik.com

NEC Display Solutions’ PE455WL

LYNX Technik’s Series 5000 DVD 5480 HO

TASCAM’s Model 16 Sonance’s PS-S210SUBT October 2019

Sound & Communications 81

PRODUCTS Tripp Lite’s Infrastructure Solutions

Tripp Lite’s line of preconfigured IT infrastructure solutions makes edge computing deployment quick and simple. EdgeReady micro data centers (MDCs) ship assembled and tested 3 business days after the receipt of an order. There are 40 different EdgeReady MDC stock configurations available, and customized models can ship in as few as 5 business days. Stock configurations integrate a floor-standing or wall-mount rack enclosure, UPS system, networkmanagement card, downloadable power-management software, environmental sensor and PDU. Floor-standing models can ship as fully assembled and tested units, and all models are available as validated kits ready for onsite assembly. Tripp Lite www.tripplite.com

Tripp Lite’s EdgeReady MDC

Stewart Filmscreen’s Projection Screen

Stewart Filmscreen’s Balón Edge projection screen is an addition to the Balón Series. The Balón Edge combines a projection-screen surface with an ultra-thin frame, providing a minimalistic blackborder finish. Like the Balón Borderless, this screen can be custom-fabricated in any size up to 16' in image width—all seamless—and in any aspect ratio. The Balón Edge features a 0.4" border that either can be wrapped in luxurious, Velux light-deadening material that is perfect for overscan light absorption or can be kept minimalist as a bare-metal painted frame. Both the Balón Borderless and the Balón Edge have a 1" frame depth, keeping the screen snug to the wall. The Balón Series projection screens feature excellent fit and finish and offer voluminous fabric options. All of Stewart Filmscreen’s 16,000+ flexible front-projectionscreen fabrics are available for Balón Edge, along with MicroPerf X2 THX Ultra and CinemaPerf screen perforation for sound transparency. LED lighting is available as an option. Stewart Filmscreen www.stewartfilmscreen.com

Magewell’s Decoder Device

Magewell’s Pro Convert for NDI to HDMI model is the second NDI decoder device in the company’s Pro Convert family. Whereas Magewell’s Pro Convert encoders enable users to bring traditional video signals into IP workflows, the low-latency Pro Convert for NDI to HDMI decoder transforms a live NDI stream into a highquality HDMI output for connection to a monitor, projector or other baseband device. The Pro Convert for NDI to HDMI decodes NDI streams up to 2160x1200 at 60fps for output over its HDMI 2.0 interface. Leveraging built-in, FPGA-based video processing, the device can also up-convert HD or 2K source streams to 4K for viewing on ultra-HD displays. The plug-and-play decoder features DHCP-based network configuration, and it can detect the video and audio characteristics of the target display device via EDID metadata. Magewell www.magewell.com

Camplex’s CMX-FMCH001s Stewart Filmscreen’s Balón Edge 82 Sound & Communications October 2019

Camplex’s Fiber Extender

Camplex has introduced a fiber 4K/2K HDMI extender for use with SFP modules that features automatic EDID and RS232 bi-directional passthrough. It is HDCP 2.2 compatible. The CMX-FMCH001 18Gb fiber extender sends a standard copperbased HDMI signal up to 4K@60Hz via SFP modules (not included), with a maximum distance of 37 miles over single-mode fiber. The system includes automatic EDID for rapid integration of source and display, and it supports RS232 bidirectional pass-through. Housed in a rugged, black, powder-coated steel cabinet for use at live events and for digital-signage operations. Camplex www.camplex.com

Magewell’s Pro Convert for NDI to HDMI

PRODUCTS MultiDyne’s Universal Camera Transceiver

MultiDyne’s new generation of its SMPTE-HUT system is a universal camera transceiver that frees camera operators from the limitations of hybrid cabling. The latest iteration streamlines connectivity, reducing the dualstrand architecture to a single fiber strand. It also integrates optical budgeting and remote power cycling, removing the need for external docks to regenerate signals for long-distance camerato-studio transmission. The next-generation SMPTE-HUT also integrates a higher level of intelligence than previous versions did. For example, the devices will now operate with every SMPTE camera model and vendor, and they’ll translate important settings and details to the built-in display. The SMPTE-HUT product line eliminates the need to mix copper connectivity with fiber, enabling faster setup and strike times while also reducing weight on trucks. The elimination of copper also removes RF, EMI and grounding issues from the infrastructure. MultiDyne www.multidyne.com

Attero Tech’s AudioExtension I/O Modules

Attero Tech’s Axiom ML1 is the latest addition to its Axiom Series of audio-extension I/O modules. The Axiom ML1 provides extension of analog mic- and line-level audio sources in a single-gang, Decora-style wallplate. Its combo XLR and ¼" input connector accepts dynamic mics, with 40dB of adjustable gain, and offers a fixed attenuator pad for the ¼" connector, with +4dBu nominal input level. A 3.5mm jack with -10dBV (consumer) nominal input level features 20dB of adjustable gain and is summed to mono. Frontpanel gain knobs are provided for the combo mic input and the 3.5mm input. Audio-signal-level indicator LEDs for each input provide quick feedback for proper input-gain adjustments. Selectable sum-to-mono options for both inputs allow 2 ML1s, or an ML1 and another Axiom device, to be daisy-chain connected on a single bus. Attero Tech www.atterotech.com

EPV Screens’ Projection Screens

SurgeX’s UPS Line

EPV Screens’ Dark Star Max UST-FR Series of motorized floorrising projection screens feature Ceiling/Ambient Light Rejecting (CLR/ALR) ultra-short-throw projection material. The design features motorized “scissorbacked” cross risers that raise and lower the material. Matte white screen materials don’t work well with the lights on, limiting them to darkened-room presentations. The Dark Star UST material mitigates the washout effects of ambient light while boosting color saturation, contrast and black/white dynamic range. To minimize the projection footprint, the material is specially formatted tab-tension reinforced to work specifically with UST projectors. This product eliminates the problem of foot traffic passing between the projector and screen, and it gives the appearance of a fully integrated big-screen display that requires no tools or structural modifications. EPV Screens www.epvscreens.com

AMETEK Electronic Systems Protection (SurgeX)’s Security Plus II large-format UPS line is equipped with an isolation transformer and uses double-conversion technology to provide clean, continuous and reliable power to AV systems, even in conditions with backupgenerator power or in areas that have common, short-lived power outages. In the event of an outage, the Security Plus II UPS can power systems until alternate power is engaged to allow for safe shutdown and prevent lockup that would require a hard reboot. The Security Plus II UPS was designed for ultra-quiet operation, plus increased efficiency with the 1.0 power factor and an energysaving eco mode. For smoother installation, the UPS also includes an LED display panel for easy configuration, front-access serviceability and hot-swappable batteries, allowing the unit to stay online during maintenance to keep the connected system running without interruption. SurgeX www.surgex.com

EPV Screens’ Dark Star Max UST-FR Series

MultiDyne’s SMPTE-HUT

SurgeX’s Security Plus II UPS

Attero Tech’s Axiom ML1 October 2019

Sound & Communications 83

MEDIA

The latest literature, whitepapers, new or updated websites, course materials, webinars, training videos, podcasts, online resources and more. If you can read it, watch it or listen to it, you’ll find it here! Send details, with photos, if available, to dferrisi@testa.com.

Compiled by Amanda Mullen

Stardraw.com’s New Website

Stardraw.com has launched its new website, which has been completely rebuilt on Angular, an open-source web framework that was originally developed by Google for building large-scale web applications. The company has chosen to keep the overall look similar to the previous version, but there are differences when it comes to navigating the website. It is designed to operate more quickly, due to newly written code. It also offers a host of new features. With attributes such as lazy-loading, the first page is loaded very quickly; other pages are downloaded in the background so that they are immediately available when requested. The result is the ability to deliver content in a fraction of the time that traditional websites do, behaving more like a desktop application. Stardraw.com www.stardraw.com

Point Source Audio’s Mic Finder

Point Source Audio (PSA)’s Mic Finder is an interactive, web-based tool that is designed to help sound teams—from TV to theater—pinpoint specific mic elements and mic styles to suit a range of applications. The Mic Finder web tool is accessible online via desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The tool presents a series of questions to narrow microphone choice, and it shares successful experiences from real-world examples that best match users’ needs. Users looking for the right microphone simply select the relevant application with various considerations from Mic Finder’s menu settings. Point Source Audio www.point-sourceaudio.com

Abre.io’s Education Media Site

Education-management platform provider Abre.io has announced the availability of Abre Discover—its education media site. Abre Discover’s mission is to engage with a multitude of voices and perspectives in education. Abre Discover will host content for educators and customers that covers a wide range of topics through blog content, published articles and its webcast series. It will also serve as the future home of Abre’s soon-to-be-released podcast, entitled “Open to Learn.” Additionally, there will be dedicated content for Abre customers and anyone in the learning community on how best to leverage Abre to get work done. Abre.io discover.abre.io

Sensaphonics’ New Website

Sensaphonics’ fully redesigned website, the URL of which remains www.sensaphonics.com, features a modern design that offers increased shopping functionality. Visitors will notice a more streamlined approach, boasting intuitive navigation, straightforward product information and new graphics throughout the site. With its seamless scaling from smartphones to desktop computers, the new Sensaphonics website brings the company’s message and products to a wider audience with greater clarity. Sensaphonics www.sensaphonics.com 84 Sound & Communications October 2019

Information about the latest software releases, apps, online tools, and software and firmware updates. Send details, with supporting graphic, if available, to dferrisi@testa.com.

SOFTWARE Compiled by Amanda Mullen

Focusrite’s Software Update

Focusrite’s RedNet Control 2.4 is a free software update that offers Dante Domain Manager (DDM) and AES67/AES70 compatibility, as well as an AES3 Kill Switch function, background mode and other features. RedNet Control 2.4 makes all Focusrite Red audio interfaces—plus RedNet devices with Audinate Brooklyn 2, Ultimo and Ultimo X architecture— compatible with DDM. This new functionality enables administrators of large networked audio systems to assign the structure of DDM to RedNet Control users. Specifically, the software recognizes the 4 distinct systemaccess levels granted within DDM: site administrator, domain administrator, operator and guest. As a result, users can be granted access only to the RedNet Control features necessary for their particular workflow. Those who just have to record audio from an existing subscription, for example, can be prevented from making admin-level adjustments. Focusrite Pro pro.focusrite.com

Audinate’s Dante Domain Manager Update

Audinate’s Dante Domain Manager (DDM) version 1.1 brings new features to users and integrators, including flexible installation options, updated email alerts and notifications, support for SMPTE 2110 devices, and secure access to LDAP and SMTP servers. Version 1.1 is now delivered as a complete ISO package, making it quick and straightforward to install. The ISO package can be used in virtual environments, such as VMWare ESXi, Oracle VirtualBox and Microsoft Hyper-V, or it can be installed directly onto a “bare metal” server with no additional software required. DDM version 1.1 is available for immediate download for new and existing customers with active support agreements. Audinate www.audinate.com

ScreenBeam’s Updated Firmware Lectrosonics’ Firmware Update

Lectrosonics’ new “X” firmware for the Duet IEM/IFB system adds AES 256-bit CTR encryption. The addition of encryption is in response to customer demand for a data-secure version of the Duet for applications for corporate, sports and government clients. Because analog IFB and IEM systems cannot be encrypted, this additional feature distinguishes the Duet system. The True Random Number Generator (TRNG) used for key generation passes all NIST SP 800-22 statistical tests for randomness. 4 different encryption-key policies are available with the update—the universal key policy, the shared key policy, the standard key policy and the volatile key policy—depending on the level of the specific application and the level of security desired. Lectrosonics www.lectrosonics.com

ScreenBeam’s latest firmware update (version 11.0.5.0) features a digital-signage capability. This function will enable ScreenBeam 1100 end users better to leverage meeting-room displays when communicating messaging for employees and guests, as well as displaying company branding. The digital-signage support allows ScreenBeam to stream signage content when the display is not being utilized. The feature is disabled by default, but it can be enabled from the management interface. Signage can display in either full-screen or framed mode, and it will start streaming according to the idle time set by the administrator. Supported content formats include HTML5, WebGL, Video WebM, Video H264 and Video MP4. The firmware update also includes a change to its videoplayback support for iOS/macOS native mirroring: When mirroring video content from a YouTube app or Safari browser, the ScreenBeam receiver will stream and play back the video directly instead of mirroring. ScreenBeam www.screenbeam.com October 2019

Sound & Communications 85

THE CENTERSTAGE AN ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO SOUND & COMMUNICATIONS

Clear-Com

Toner Cable Equipment

FreeSpeak Edge™ Digital Wireless Intercom Solutions

RF Design’s QLink Fiber Optic L-Band Satellite Link

Clear-Com® is proud to announce FreeSpeak Edge™, a brand new addition to the industry-leading FreeSpeak™ family of digital wireless intercom solutions. FreeSpeak Edge represents a new platform for the future of wireless communication, meeting the needs of users today and tomorrow. Delivering the clearest 12KHz audio quality and extremely low latency, FreeSpeak Edge is simply the best-sounding wireless intercom available. Built from the ground up, FreeSpeak Edge leverages all the power of 5Ghz technology to perform flawlessly in even the most challenging venues and high multipath environments. FreeSpeak Edge transceivers and beltpacks offer more customization and control than ever before to accommodate increasingly granular communication needs. They also deliver the robustness and reliability that customers have come to expect from the award-winning FreeSpeak range. Based on extensive feedback from existing FreeSpeak II power users, FreeSpeak Edge is the future of advanced wireless communication. WEB ADDRESS: www.clearcom.com

Toner Cable Equipment is pleased to announce the QLink Fiber Optic LBand Satellite Link manufactured by RF Design of Lorsch Germany. Toner Cable collaborated with RF Design to develop a unique solution for Fiber optic links between Satellite antennas and the receive electronics (IRD’s). The QLink is a self-contained outdoor enclosure (IP65 rated) that has four optical transmitters (850-2450 MHz) along with dual redundant power supplies and fiber management. The QLink is designed to be directly mounted to the satellite antenna. The housing comes with stainless steel mounting hardware and weather tight cable entry glands for fiber, coax and power. When coupled with four L-band receivers such as the Olson OLRR and Toner TLRC-4 rack mount chassis you have a complete 4 polarization L-band fiber link that is cost effective and ready for a simple installation. WEB ADDRESS: www.tonercable.com E-MAIL: info@tonercable.com

Sound Control Technologies RemoteTableKit™ Series - RTK-PLUS™ & RTK-PRO™ Table Extension Kits

NACE Data-Tronix DT-IPTV-QAM-ASI-4HC Encoder Modulator Stream HD video to your network in sports bars, restaurants, stadiums, college campuses, K-12, offices, hotels, airports, malls, sports books, institutions, hospitals, broadcast facilities and more. Easily add to existing digital coaxial and/or Ethernet environment. Simultaneous stream all inputs over RF QAM, ASI, and IP Networks in unicast or multicast with a simple web-based configuration. Can be networked alongside other video distribution equipment and is compatible with most major EAS equipment. Use high definition input from video production switches, satellite receivers, NVRs/DVRs, HD video disk players, digital signage and more. Remote connection for troubleshooting and full system configuration. Audio -to- video synchronization and works with existing IP/Coax modulators. Includes US-based 24/7/365 tech support. LIMITED TIME OFFER: Get a free test meter with 7” touchscreen, IP video, and network installation included with your purchase (valued at $580). WEB ADDRESS: www.nace.tv E-MAIL: sales@nace.tv

86 Sound & Communications October 2019

The RTK-PLUS™ & RTKPRO™ table extension kits provide a reliable “transparent” link between the table devices and Cisco codec. Codec specific microphone cables and power supply are included in the kit. The RTKPLUS™ offers a cost and time saving alternative to traditional infrastructure cabling for the Cisco Codec Plus, Room 55, Room 55 Dual, Room Kit Plus and Room Kit, with the RTK-PRO™ supports the Cisco Codec Pro, Room 70, and Room Kit Pro. The RTK-PLUS™ and RTKPRO™ provide HDMI for content, Touch 10 Ethernet and power, Audio I/O, USB, distance up to 100 meters on CAT5e/CAT6 and supports up to 3 Cisco Microphones (Table Mic 20 & Table-J Mic for RTK-PLUS™ and Table Mic 60 & Table-E Mic for RTK-PRO™). WEB ADDRESS: www.soundcontrol.net E-MAIL: caudette@soundcontrol.net

THE CENTERSTAGE AN ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO SOUND & COMMUNICATIONS

ENCO Systems enCaption4 Reduces Costs By Automating Captioning Workflows Greatly reduce overall costs by automating your open and closed captioning workflows with the latest enCaption4 by ENCO. enCaption4 offers broadcasters, media producers, government institutions, educators and live presenters an easy and affordable solution to provide around-the-clock generation of captioning on live or recorded programming. enCaption4 is a turn-key, patented solution available on-premise or in the cloud. Recent breakthroughs in machine learning technology once again significantly raise the bar for speed and accuracy for captioning environments. When used alongside enTranslate, enCaption can provide real-time translated captions in 46 different languages. See why more broadcasters are relying on enCaption4 to cost-effectively meet regulatory requirements and growing consumer demand. WEB ADDRESS: www.enco.com/products/encaption E-MAIL: sales@enco.com

Hall Research Technologies SnugFit™ High Speed Latching HDMI Cables The CHD-SFxx latching HDMI cables from Hall Research provide 18G bandwidth for perfect 4K60 video and are designed for critical applications where a tight and reliable HDMI connection is required. Regular HDMI cables do not secure the connector and can become unplugged with as little as 2 lbs. of force. The SnugFit™ cables use spring-loaded protrusions on the top and sides of the HDMI connector to increase the force required to unplug the cable. The top tabs are positioned in such a way to snap into slots in compatible mating connectors providing tactile and audible feedback of a proper connection. In this way, SnugFit™ cables offer additional grip force preventing accidental disconnection. The SnugFit™ cables are economically priced and available in lengths from 1 to 25 ft. in length. WEB ADDRESS: www.hallresearch.com/page/Products/CHD-SF*

Pliant Technologies MicroCom Simple and Affordable Wireless Intercom Solution

RCF-USA HDM 45-A Active Two-Way Speaker One of the most powerful speakers in its category, the HDM 45-A provides a clear, accurate sound. Made of lightweight composite material, it boasts a supercharged two-channel amplifier (2,200W peak power, 133 dB Max SPL) and RCF Precision Transducers. Easy to deploy, the HDM 45-A provides responsive low end and a brilliant dynamic range that reproduce a natural sound at any volume. HDM 45-A’s internal components include a 1.5” titanium compression driver, 4” voice coil, and 15” neo woofers with a 3.5” voice coil and is equipped with internal DSP, FiRPHASE technology and RDNET network capability. D-Line Series active cabinets offer audio professionals a powerful tool designed for maximum performance and reliability. WEB ADDRESS: www.rcf.it/en_US/products/product-detail/ hdm_45a/1013924

Pliant Technologies newest digital wireless intercom system, MicroCom, offers a simple and affordable wireless intercom solution for any budget. Available in 900MHz (where legal), MicroCom provides single channel, full-duplex intercom for up to 5 users. MicroCom also provides for unlimited listeners, providing great flexibility for applications where high-quality audio, excellent range, and low-cost are essential. Along with a wide selection of headsets, MicroCom is ideal for houses of worship, videographers, corporate events, schools, and a wide array of other applications. The system features small, water-resistant beltpacks and provides clear sound, ease-of-use, and long-life battery operation. Built well enough for professional use, the system is very simple to set-up and use, an important benefit when working with less-technical staff and volunteers. Pliant’s MicroCom offers exceptional performance and range while also providing key features to users with modest budgets. WEB ADDRESS: www.plianttechnologies.com E-MAIL: sales@plianttechnologies.com

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SOUND ADVICE: WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?: HOW WE LOCALIZE SOUND AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN SOUND-SYSTEM DESIGN (continued from page 16) localization target but not notice it. This is particularly true if there is a visual image on which to focus. This enables center clusters over stage openings, etc., to work as can suspended line arrays—just as long as the angle does not become too great. At that point, the effect breaks down and the image clearly collapses upward. Equally, as we have seen, depending on the direction from which a sound appears, its per-

ceived frequency response can change. However, in enclosed spaces, rooms and auditoriums, the direct sound will be followed by a myriad of reflections from a wide range of directions; that fact, although not necessarily changing the perceived direction of the sound (the law of the first wavefront, or the Haas Effect), will enable the sound to integrate and produce an apparently more even frequency response.

Furthermore, when a strong single-frequency sound (or a sound with a narrow bandwidth) is heard, this can cause the brain to prescribe it a direction. For example, sound at around 8kHz is often associated with coming from overhead, and, to a lesser extent, 500Hz is, as well. Sounds at 1kHz and 10kHz are often thought to originate from behind the listener, whereas 2kHz is often associated with

sound coming from in front. This information is useful to be aware of when setting up systems and having to have strong localization. For example, attenuating the 8kHz region can assist with localization when using overhead or acutely angled delay-fill speakers by suppressing the brain’s natural inclination. As I often say, you have to believe your ears—but you can’t really!

RAISING THE ROOF: IOWA’S ICONIC ROOF GARDEN MUSIC VENUE IS GLORIOUSLY REBORN (continued from page 41) with a four-inch voice coil and a three-inch ND6-16 titanium/ neodymium HF compression driver guided by a 80°x55° constant-directivity horn. The monitors are designed as part of the X-Array touring line, and they’re powered at the stage by three Dynacord IPX10:8 DSP class-D power amplifiers, each with eight 1,250W channels and OMNEO network control software. An R TS communications system was added to keep production teams in touch. Components include an R TS BP5000A4F dual-channel portable beltpack headset station for mobile users, HR-2A4F dualsided noise-reduction headsets and HR-1A4F single-sided cush-

ioned headsets. One feature that Stowe particularly likes as regards the RTS intercom system is the ability of the packs to sense and configure themselves automatically to work with Telex, RTS or Clear-Com systems. Stowe and his team of three experienced audio technicians rigged the entire system in three concentrated days. “We were literally rigging over the stage as the stage was being built, but ever yone knew their job and worked well together to make it happen,” he remarked. “A thorough design for the room put rigging points where we needed them, so everything we needed was there for us when we needed it.” With expeditious commis-

sioning and a day of training for the operations staf f, the new Roof Garden was ready for Tommy James; naturally, the concer t was a huge success. “This was no soft opening,” Stowe stressed. “But the concer t was great, well received and went off without a hitch. The artist’s engineers were ver y appreciative of the great sound and the work we put into the audio design for the new venue.” Vierkant and The Park’s Board of Directors are also pleased with the results. “We are ver y grateful to Ben Stowe and his team for their part in bringing The Roof Garden back from being just a place that people remember fondly to

[now being] a place where this and future generations can visit and enjoy their favorite musical performers.” As if to show off the flexibility of the new Roof Garden, the room was soon to be reconfigured from hosting a rock concert to hosting a performance of the renowned 16-piece Glenn Miller Orchestra. Planned or not, it’s a fitting tribute to the versatility of the technology and design that the new Roof Garden boasts. It’s likely that some Iowans in attendance will become teary eyed as strains of “In the Mood” recall some of their most treasured memories of the famous orchestra playing at the original Roof Garden so many years ago.

CAN VIDEO GAMES DRIVE THE RESOLUTION REVOLUTION?: 4K GAMING IS ALREADY HERE, WITH 8K ON THE HORIZON (continued from page 65) will push commercial display technology.” Volk also added that 4K infrastructure is much more important now than the displays themselves because the displays are actually one of the cheapest parts of a system to replace, especially if the consumer market continues to drive down prices. “As we build AV systems today, if you build them with an infrastructure that’s not capable of handling 4K or higher resolu-

tions, you’re largely doing your client a disser vice,” he said. “The user experience piece of it—the display—[is] one of the more reasonably inexpensive pieces to change out as technology advances, provided that you’ve designed and built an adequate core.” Although the respondents agreed that 4K isn’t yet essential for most gaming purposes, there was a surprising bit of consensus on an up-and-coming market

88 Sound & Communications October 2019

for 4K and 8K adoption that has the potential for esports applications: higher education. As previously mentioned, many schools are looking to add esports to their athletic programs and are investing in purpose-built facilities, and some education institutions are already installing 4Kand 8K-compatible commercial displays. Dunbar recounted one such recent installation. “We recently partnered with Barco and New

Era Technology to help provide a 3x3 Barco videowall at the University of Harrisburg for their school-sanctioned esports team, the Storm,” he described. “This system utilizes 10Gb SDVoE video transmission for the best possible image quality and zero-frame latency. This is also a great example of how mixed resolutions are still ver y relevant in this space. The Barco LCD videowall panels (like most manufacturers) are 1080p

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NTI Audio Room Acoustics Reporter PC Software Rooms with bad acoustics make it difficult for listeners to understand and concentrate on what is being said. Modern meeting rooms and classrooms feature white boards, large monitors and furniture that reflect sound without adding acoustic absorption. NTI Audio’s Room Acoustics Reporter is a PC software for automatically generating reverberation time measurement reports of RT60. It provides acoustic targets based on a space’s intended use and volume as defined in the DIN 18041 standard. In addition, Room Acoustics Reporter updates empty room reverberation time measurements (the typical test configuration) with the absorption that would be added by people being in the room. Finally, the PC software predicts the improvement in reverberation time of various alternative acoustical treatments on the ceiling, walls and floor. Predictions are based on RT60 measurements, and the absorption characteristics of panels provided by manufacturers. WEB ADDRESS: www.sndcom.us/ntirareporter

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The ICLive X Series represents an evolution of medium format digitally steerable line array systems, providing an integrated system that can truly meet the needs of almost any live sound environment. At the heart of the ICLive X are eight channels of proprietary True Digital class D amplification, two high-sensitivity 8-inch low-frequency transducers, and six discrete 1-inch compression drivers. The compression drivers are loaded onto Renkus-Heinz’s new Acoustic Source Multiplier (ASM) waveguide, which increases the granularity of the high-frequency section, resulting in significantly improved steering control and greatly reduced lobing. ICLive X has been designed from the ground up to be the most scalable sound system ever created. Whether used in multi-cabinet arrays or as single loudspeakers, ICLive X maintains full steering control over the vertical dispersion, delivering precise coverage for any venue. The narrow profile and straight-hang design minimize sightline intrusions and reduce architectural aesthetic impact. WEB ADDRESS: https://sndcom.us/renkus-heinz-iclivex-family

The Quantum systems are designed for fixed venue installations and offer outstanding speech intelligibility and configurable frequency response, suitable for spaces with complex acoustic conditions and immersive experiences. The enclosures of the Quantum series are made from extruded aluminum which offers exceptional robustness. Ideal as the main PA in reverberant spaces such as houses of worship, museums, restaurants, and conference centers. Available in all RAL colors with a host of hardware options for discretely blending in with the aesthetic of the space or boldly making an artistic statement. WEB ADDRESS: www.dasaudio.com/ en/cp/quantum-se ries-en E-MAIL: infousa@ dasaudio.com

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Sound & Communications October 2019

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resolution. Send 4K source to four of the displays at their native 1080p resolution, and what are you looking at? A 110-inch 4K display.” The higher-education market is firmly on LG’s radar, as well. “Another area where we are seeing some traction is in colleges and universities,” Wicka said. “Several institutions have dedicated esports teams, and they are thinking about arenas for their students to compete in. LG can help with a multitude of product categories: gaming monitors, large-format displays, videowalls and even Direct-View LED displays.” Cating likewise pointed to a recent installation of an 8K display at a higher-education facility, and he jokingly suggested that it would be perfect for gaming purposes. “Our latest installation of an 8K display was for higher education,” he said, “and, admittedly, if I were a student [there], I would find a way to play host to some late-night gaming sessions.”

AVENT HORIZON: ON CODECS, COMPRESSION (continued from page 92) ies class.) Each frame stands on its own. Using a process known as wavelet compression, a JPEG encoder applies light compression to each image and passes it on for storage or transmission. It works better with still images than for moving images—after all, that’s what JPEG was developed for—but that hasn’t stopped others from modifying the system to work with digital cinema (JPEG2000) and, now, with 4K and 8K video (JPEG XS). JPEG is not an efficient codec. Depending on whom you talk to, the maximum compression for JPEG formats ranges from a low of 4:1 to a high of 10:1. (Some folks claim even 15:1 works, but they, of course, are marketing folks.) Because JPEG is a simple “squash it!” codec, ver y little latency is introduced in the process—so little, in fact, that it’s unlikely the average person would even notice.

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AND THAT LATENCY STUFF That makes JPEG-based codecs a better choice for live signal distribution, although you’ll need a fast network to do it. To help distinguish between the two codec formats, MPEG is an “interframe” codec, meaning it looks at what’s changing in previous and subsequent I-frames to make encoding decisions. Meanwhile, JPEG is an “intraframe” codec, meaning it only looks at one frame at a time and applies compression to that frame. The degree of compression can vary dynamically in MPEG (variable bit-rate encoding, widely used for broadcast, streaming and optical discs), whereas, in JPEG, it must remain the same from frame to frame. How fast a switch will you need for each codec? Given that MPEG compression typically results in bit rates of tens to a few hundred megabits per second (Mb/s), a 1Gb switch is more than adequate. JPEG,

not being so efficient, will often result in bit rates that exceed 1Gb/s—especially when 4K and 8K video is involved. What’s more, you’ll have to use non-standard jumbo internet frame sizes (>1,536 bytes) with JPEG to avoid latency, a feature that all 1Gb and 10Gb network switch manufacturers are now supporting. The Blue River NT codec now becoming popular in the AV industr y is closer to JPEG in performance. It’s an “intra” codec that adds ver y little latency, and it’s based on a VESA codec known as Display Stream Compression (DSC), developed in 2014 for 4K and 8K display connections. A typical compression ratio for DSC is 2:1—not ver y efficient—but it can get a baseline 4K signal through a 10Gb network switch. DSC has also been demonstrated with 3:1 compression at CES by Hardent Semiconductor.

Note that advanced add-ons like forward error correction (FEC) can be applied to both MPEG and JPEG to ensure high quality-of-ser vice levels. In general, you wouldn’t use JPEG codecs over WANs with unpredictable sustainable bit rates; they’re better suited to local area networks (LANs) with predictable bit rates, such as in a television studio or a private campus video network. Of course, you can stream video through both codecs—think of a live lecture, where viewers watch on image-magnification (IMAG) screens fed by JPEG-compressed video, whereas remote viewers get an H.264 video feed. And there you have it: enough information to clear up any misconceptions you might have about AV codecs. Remember that informed buyers always make the best purchasing decisions. October 2019

Sound & Communications

AVENT HORIZON

On Codecs, Compression And That Latency Stuff Clearing up confusion, while comparing and contrasting benefits. By Pete Putman, CTS ROAM Consulting LLC develop the first standards for video compression. It wasn’t the first group to deal with As our industr y careens toward an AVimage compression, however; the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) was first, over-IP network structure for signal disgoing all the way back to 1986. As the worlds of still- and moving-image recording tribution, it’s funny (but not surprising) began their journeys into digital, JPEG provided the map to show them the way. to hear misinformation spreading around Today, both systems are at the heart of transporting still images, video and even about video compression, bit rates and audio over wired and wireless links. Both systems are considered “lossless,” although latency. Usually, the source is marketing there is always some image degradation with MPEG and JPEG, even if it’s slight. And folks for a given hardware product, softthere is apparently a good deal of confusion about their differences and about why ware codec or other proprietar y system you’d choose to use one over the other. that is, in their minds, Let’s start with the basics: In all of MPEG’s iterations—MPEG“the only way to go.” 1, MPEG-2, H.264 AVC and H.265 HEVC—it takes advantage of Fortunately, in an We have ways to verify redundancy. If I want to encode a series of video frames—or, more era in which people accurately, a group of pictures (GOP)—then I have to start with one are fond of exclaiming claims about the complete frame, known as an intracoded frame, that contains all the “Fake News!” whenever picture information. they hear something That I-frame (aka key frame) determines the start of my group of that goes against their performance of any pictures. Another I-frame then determines the end of the group. The beliefs, we have science video encoder ingests full-bandwidth video in real time and first eson our side—and plenty technology, especially tablishes the I-frames; then, it analyzes what changed between them, of it. Not only that, but looking for temporal (time) and spatial (motion) changes. As for the we also have standards pixels in the I-frames that don’t change much, or at all, the encoder organizations—groups when compared to others. simply says “copy and repeat” to the decoder, producing a set of Pthat work in consensus frames (predictive) and B-frames (bidirectional interpolative). Rather to develop things like than encoding ever y pixel in ever y frame between the I-frames, only video-compression the stuff that changes is re-encoded. (Although that’s a somewhat oversimplified standards. And we also have ways to explanation of how MPEG works, it will suffice for now.) verify claims about the performance of Two things become apparent from that explanation: First, none of this can happen any technology, especially when compared in real time. The encoder can’t predict temporal and spatial changes that have not to others. yet happened, so, by necessity, there is a delay from the time a series of video frames Video compression has been with us enters the encoder until we see them in the encoded form. The encoder is working for a long, long time, going back to the from real-time video, but, because of this sample/analyze/encode process, we will original MPEG-1 standard from 1992. experience latency. (Remember Video CD? Compact Disc InFor that reason, MPEG-based codecs are preferred for non-real-time deliver y of vidteractive?) As the world transitioned from eo, which usually takes place through broadcasts, over cable and satellite connections, bandwidth-limited analog video formats and with video streaming over wide area networks (WANs). In ever y one of those use like NTSC and PAL, it became apparent cases, bandwidth is limited (and often expensive); as such, compression efficiency is a that a digital encoding, transmission and big deal. MPEG can compress signals by ratios that range from approximately 50:1 to decoding system would be required to handle high-definition video. In an analog 80:1, depending on how many image artifacts can be tolerated by viewers. JPEG is a different beast altogether. JPEG compression is, in simple terms, a way form, HDTV could require from 10MHz to crunch down the size of still images for storage and playback. Unlike MPEG, there to 30MHz of bandwidth—something that was impractical and expensive to achieve. aren’t any groups of pictures anchored by I-frames; instead, every frame in a JPEG stream is an I-frame. (Think of those flip movies you made as a bored kid in social-studAnd, so, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) came into existence to (continued on page 90) 92

Sound & Communications October 2019

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