AV issue 11

Track Talk: Grand Prix Comms $6.95 inc gst

Other Features ‘n stuff…

And some stuff A new line for other little things

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06

Editorial Warm Glow of the Topics

sports, or entertainment, or education or shopping, or travelling, or worshipping, or quilting, or cooking, or any other field of human endeavour. Quite the contrary, it’s because AV is inextricably entwined with everything we do, from conceiving children, to bringing them into the world, to educating them, feeding and clothing them, entertaining them, keeping them healthy and even finally farewelling them at the end of our lives.

AV is utterly pervasive, and becoming even more so every day as AV technologies become more available and more attainable, and, most importantly, more useful. This means, of course, that articles in AV will become even more random in their background and even more difficult to predict; something that stops us (and hopefully you too) from becoming set in our ways. So look forward to future issues when we can rope together our random article topics under such banners as an ecclesiastic special, a crime and punishment special, an anatomical special, an astronomical special and a gastronomic special.  Andy Ciddor, Editor If you can suggest a topic that we haven’t covered yet, or better still a loopy way of linking our randomness into themes, please contact me: andy@av.net.au

for th

e audi

ovisu

al prof

essio

nal

You may have noticed that one aspect of AV is even more absurd than usual. We have arbitrarily declared this to be our Sports Special Issue. It doesn’t mean that we are going to have an AV system designer in his budgie smugglers as a centrefold, partly because this magazine is perfect bound in sections of 16 pages, which means that it isn’t the right shape for a centrefold, and partly because in the interest of good taste, most of the AV industry isn’t the right shape for a centrefold either. Our choice to call this a Sport Special was based solely on the fact that I noticed we had three articles in the pipeline that happened to be set against backgrounds where sport is taking place. The irony of this is that while others in the AV office thought that a sport issue was a great idea, I’m not even slightly interested in sport, even as a spectator. I occasionally watch a few minutes of a sport on television, but that’s only to see the design of the television coverage and to check for new and exciting places that cameras and microphones have been deployed.

The truth of the matter is that while we attempt to cover as wide a variety of audiovisually-related topics as possible, and frequently even push at the boundaries of what may be defined as AV; our coverage of the AV world is pseudo-random (as far as I can tell).

The accident of having three articles with sport lurking somewhere in the background made me think about how this came about. It’s not that sport attracts AV or that AV is particularly involved with

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Crew Pete Swanson leads Lincolne Scott’s AV consultancy business and has spent over a decade in the world of AV integration including as a contractor with Electrosonic and as an AV designer in the UK. He is almost uncontrollably passionate about improving the AV industry and has found an outlet for this passion in his work with InfoComm, where he is currently Chair of the Asia-Pacific Region Council and a member of the Performance Standards Planning Committee.

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

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

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

Mandy Jones is Events Manager for Museum Victoria, responsible for producing media launches and special events across the organisation’s four sites (Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks and the Royal Exhibition Building). Previously she worked in venue hire sales, and in all aspects of indoor and outdoor theatre including production and stage management, lighting design and operation.

For many years Mandy was the Melbourne correspondent and photographer for Connections/CX magazine, and also served on the ALIA committee as a board member and honorary secretary.

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

Paul Collison is a freelance lighting designer based in Sydney. He has a purple suitcase that is more a home than his house and has an addiction to a decent espresso and a good Eggs Benedict on crispy bacon, not ham. Armed with these vices he takes on the world of lighting design and operation on special events, both domestically as well as overseas.

Normally adept at writing six or seven lines in an email, Paul is making a laughable attempt at adapting that style to articles in AV magazine.

alchemedia publishing pty ltd (ABN: 34 074 431 628) PO Box 6216, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 info@alchemedia.com.au All material in this magazine is copyright © 2010 Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd. The title AV is a registered Trademark.

Apart from any fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. The publishers believe all information supplied in this magazine to be correct at the time of publication.

They are not in a position to make a guarantee to this effect and accept no liability in the event of any information proving inaccurate. After investigation and to the best of our knowledge and belief, prices, addresses and phone numbers were up to date at the time of publication. It is not possible for the publishers to ensure that advertisements appearing in this publication comply with the Trade Practices Act, 1974.

The responsibility is on the person, company or advertising agency submitting or directing the advertisement for publication. The publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions, although every endeavour has been made to ensure complete accuracy. 24/5/10

Graeme Hague worked for the last 20 years in regional theatre venues as an audio, lighting and AV technician.

Graeme is a regular contributor to AudioTechnology magazine and is the principal writer for the Guerrilla Guide to Recording and Production (www.guerrillaguide.com.au). He owns a Maglite, a Leatherman and a wardrobe of only black clothing which proves he is more than qualified to write on any technical subject.

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Issue 11 REGULARS NEWS News from the AV world. Includes an interview with XTA’s Waring Hayes.

16

INFOCOMM NEWS Regional news from InfoComm.

64

TERMINATION AV heroics given due recognition.

66

FEATURES

48 42

44

EYE OPENER The World Expo opening ceremony counts as one of the greatest spectacles ever. An Australian insider tells all.

26

ICY RECEPTION Melbourne’s new Icehouse gets a cool AV fitout.

34

LOVE ALL The Queensland Tennis Centre has some smart new lighting control.

42

MICROSOFT WORLD Mr Gates’ new Customer Briefing Centre.

44

TRACK TALK We check out F1’s state-of-the-art comms.

48

REVIEWS NOBO KAPTURE DIGITAL FLIPCHART Yes, a digital flipchart.

56

ALCONS AUDIO LR14 LINE ARRAY Ribbon transducer-base PA.

58

REVOLABS EXECUTIVE HD Boardroom wireless mic system.

60

TUTORIALS AUDIO COVERAGE UNIFORMITY STANDARD InfoComm & ANSI’s first joint standard.

62

NETWORKING ESSENTIALS Including a look at ethernet connectivity and networking standards.

65

34

56

58

DME ON DEMAND With DME On Demand, full-day training on Yamaha’s DME Series – the future-proof DSP that speaks your language – is available year-round by appointment.

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Yamaha’s DME Series open-architecture digital signal processors are the go-to solution for audio system designers and integrators around the world. That means that if your audio network speaks a certain language, we do too.

To make an appointment for Yamaha DME On Demand training, call (03) 9693 5272 or email jason_allen@gmx.yamaha.com For more information on Yamaha’s digital mixers and processors, as well as Yamaha and third-party MY cards, visit: www.yamahaproaudio.com

After their well-attended Adelaide sessions in May, Yamaha’s Commercial Audio trainers are visiting Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth to conduct intensive 3-hour training seminars on the operation of Yamaha’s incredibly popular LS9 digital mixer. LS9 School will provide the ideal opportunity for system integrators, installers, live sound technicians, broadcasters and church technical staff to gain valuable hands-on experience on the LS9 console.

Sessions will have a maximum of two participants per console.

Entry is by approved application only.

For venues, dates, session times and application details, please go to: www.yamahamusic.com.au/ For further enquiries, please contact Yamaha Commercial Audio: (03) 9693 5272 | jason_allen@gmx.yamaha.com

Corporate Solutions Sales Consultant An excellent national sales career opportunity exists for an experienced Audio Visual sales person to represent a number of high quality integration technologies for residential and commercial projects. The key objectives are to further develop partnerships within the following sectors: . . . . . . . . .

Architects Consultants Contractors CIOs, CTOs, IT Managers, Project managers Educators Engineers/Technicians Facility/Venue Managers AV/IT Integrators Installers

The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate, firstly, a successful track record in the management of technical product sales, marketing and collaboration. A comprehensive understanding of commercial audio visual products is also essential.

Must be a team player.

Salary and rewards will be commensurate with the importance of this role. This is a very exciting position in a leading, formidable and expanding organisation. In the first instance please submit your resume’ to the following: admin@productionaudio.com.au www.productionaudio.com.au

016

NEWS

AVIAs – THE HEAT IS ON

INTEGRATE INKS DEAL WITH INFOCOMM Alchemedia Events and InfoComm International has announced an exclusive co-operative agreement between the two organisations for the Integrate Show. From 2011 onwards the event will be known as ‘Integrate Expo in association with InfoComm International’.

InfoComm International is the leading trade association representing the commercial audiovisual industry. InfoComm provides industry education, creates industry standards and offers the Certified Technology Specialist program – the only audiovisual certification accredited under the International Standard ISO/IEC 17024.

Louise Brooks, Integrate Event Director is understandably delighted: “InfoComm International’s name is synonymous with excellence and raising standards in the AVcommunity around the world and it is an honour for us to be so closely associated. InfoComm International chooses its partners very carefully and there’s no doubt Integrate and its supporters will benefit from this exclusive relationship as we plug into the considerable expertise and connections of such a formidable international association. For our part, the Integrate team will continue to work tirelessly to raise the standards and the expectations of an event such as ours in this region.”

Jonathan Seller, InfoComm Regional Director, Australia & NZ, adds: “The feedback we had from our Australian members after the first Integrate in 2009 was that, finally, we had a local show that was the right

BRUCE JACKSON HEADLINES INTEGRATE

Australian audio royalty, Bruce Jackson, headlines Integrate 2010. Bruce has spent four decades living a life that pushes the technical envelope. Whether it be as the go-to sound man for some of the biggest touring acts the world has ever seen – think: Elvis, Springsteen and Streisand; acting as audio director for some of the most ambitious one-off events on the planet – think: Shanghai World Expo opening ceremony; or starting up companies that would entirely change the way we work – think: Apogee converters or the Dolby

fit for our industry. The event drew a mix of attendees from the whole supply chain, from manufacturer through to technology manager, and there was a substantial education offering. Part of the latter was a one-day, seven-seminar InfoComm Academy education day titled ‘Future Trends in AV Technologies’, which sold out to 110 delegates. For 2010 we will be increasing our education offering to all three days of the show, with workshops on digital signage and videoconferencing among the highlights.

“We are therefore delighted to have formalised our relationship with Alchemedia Events and are looking forward to working with them to develop and grow Integrate in the years to come.”

Peter Swanson, CTS, Chair of InfoComm’s Asia Pacific Council, adds: “Integrate has been doing a great job of providing a central focus for our industry and the news of the co-operative agreement with InfoComm is another exciting step on the journey. To me, it’s a logical step following the mutual support the two organisations have provided each other with to date, and I believe it will help to make the annual show an even more valuable experience for our local market.”

Anticipation is building for the upcoming Integrate event in August 2010, taking place from the 24th – 26th at the Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries, Sydney.

Integrate 2010: www.integrate-expo.com

Lake Processor – Bruce has never been one to stay in his comfort zone.

What with this history you’d suspect Bruce would have a hellavu collection of war stories, and you’d be right. Sit back and marvel as Bruce recounts some of the most daring, audacious, hilarious, and thought provoking anecdotes you’re ever likely to hear, along with some amazing photographs from Bruce’s personal collection.

Whether you were humping PAs around the traps in the ’70s or a Gen Y audiovisual whiz-kid this

Headlining session provides a unique opportunity to hear from a dead-set legend that’s still the best in the game.

Get onto the Integrate site to secure your ticket (only $11) for this session. Seats are filling fast.

The pro AV industry is getting right behind the AVIAs. We’re hearing time and again that the AVIAs are being recognised as this region’s only independentlyadjudicated awards and can be legitimately be regarded as the official awards of the Australia/NZ pro AV sector.

Entries for the AVIAs is now open. Get along to www.avia.com.au where you’ll find an entry form which will walk you, step by step, through the procedure.

In the meantime, here’s a quick recap: the Audio Visual Industry Awards (AVIAs) are an awards program for the Australia/NZ AV industry, rewarding excellence and innovation.

Six seasoned industry professionals will sit on the independent judging panel, who will be looking for unique and groundbreaking approaches to tough or complex problems.

There are six awards categories: Best Installation $1m+, Best Installation Under $1m, Best AV Production, Best Use of AV in Post Secondary Teaching, Best Use of AV in K-12 Teaching and the Innovation Award which will reward the ‘best idea’ however big or small.

The AVIAs will be awarded on the second night of Integrate 2010 (August 25) in a rather salubrious cocktail party (don’t panic, there will be beer as well), where the industry’s best of the best will be recognised in front of their peers.

Entry forms need to be submitted by the end of June, so if you’ve not yet submitted your entry, you really need to get on your bike. Don’t miss out!

AVIAs: www.avias.com.au

DN-F400 digital audio player and RC-F400 controller

SUPER TUESDAY, SUPER LINEUP Integrate 2010’s Super Tuesday program – so popular in 2009 – is bedding down and comprises be a formidable lineup of international luminaries and local AV warriors. Here’s the rundown as it stands: AV & Lighting Systems Designs: Pete Swanson from WSP Lincolne Scott builds on his successful presentation of Integrate 09, looking at current trends in audio visual and lighting systems and their integration with interior design. We consider future trends in this area, both in terms of technologies and design approaches. Test your theories and those of others in a discussion following the presentation.

Projection Screen Technology: Da-Lite’s Adam Teevan takes us through screen size, gain, viewing angles, and other factors can easily mean the difference between success and failure in projects where second chances are hard to come by. This seminar will cover the relevant basics and best practices which will make it easy to specify the right screen with confidence.

Analogue Sunset: With analogue video broadcast being phased out by the end of 2013, now’s the time to understand the affects of the Analogue Sunset on your future AV system designs including cabling, connectivity and system performance. Presented by Crestron’s Jason Tirado.

The Future of Real-Time Video & Graphics Over IP: Extron’s Dave Pincek helps us understand the technologies associated with deploying both hi- and lo-res video on an IP network. We will be covering compression standards, network protocols, error correction, latency and all other aspects of integrating streaming technology.

Asset Content & Device Management in Tomorrow’s Facilities: The use of networks to deliver content, managed devices and control assets will be vital to the facilities and IT managers of tomorrow’s corporate, education, government and hospitality environments. Graham Barrett from AMX looks at the technology and solutions that will help the industry deliver on these requirements and provide a true return on technology investment.

Tickets for this full-day program are going for a paltry $99 – superb value – and will doubtlessly sell out in a hurry.

SEMINAR BOOKINGS NOW OPEN You can now find the entire Integrate 2010 education program online. Peruse the schedule, read through the descriptions and then book your tickets through our secure payment page.

There is a veritable smorgasbord of AV-related seminars and workshops, including three days of seminars staged by Hills SVL. Topics include: Hearing Assistance, Sound Reinforcement in Difficult

Spaces, 100V What’s Old is New Again, Integrating the Unintegratable, Directions in Digital Projection and more.

You’ll also find info on programs such as these: Digital Signage One-Day Conference: Digital Signage is looming extremely large as the next big audiovisual growth market. InfoComm will be running an Introduction to Digital Signage course alongside a selection of highprofile case studies. You can find more detail online.

Video Conferencing &

Telepresence: This one-day conference will expose the new developments and the integration of video conferencing. Infocomm will be presenting its VID214 Video Conferencing program as part of the day.

That web address again: www.integrate-expo.com

DN-F400 • • • • • • •

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RC-F400 • • •

Quick - select remote control partner for DN-F400 Rapidly navigate menu trees of audio segments, effects and signals Ideal replacement for FX carts, other storage devices

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Schools

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Gyms

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Houses of Worship

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Broadcast

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018

NEWS

2

3 1

1/RIEDEL HIT THE RIGHT BUTTON

2/NEXT GEN SONY PROJECTORS

3/BARCO ON THE OUTER

Lots of products offer complex, even bewildering routing option nowadays, so Riedel Communications has been thinking outside the box by placing some emphasis on the user-labelling and identification of assignable keys on its control panels. The Artist 1100 Series OLED control panel, which is Riedel’s new premium control key panel for Artist digital matrix intercoms, features the next generation of high-res colour OLEDs. With 65,000 colours and a resolution of 140dpi these displays provide excellent readability and are able to show up to eight highly detailed characters of up to 24 x 24 pixels, ideal for displaying icons and Asian characters. Definable marker colours for the keys complete the labelling options and provide instant function and signal identification. The panel has individual rotary encoders to adjust the listen level of every talk key, five dedicated function keys, a builtin high-power loudspeaker, an XLR headset connector and a removable gooseneck microphone.

Riedel: (02) 9550 4537 or www.riedel.net

Sony is adding two new models to its line of highbrightness 3LCD business projectors, designed for fixed installation applications.

The new VPL-FX500L model ($10,495) delivers 7000 ANSI lumens of colour light output and is capable of the widest lens shift ‘in its class’, suitable for large-screen applications in venues such as university lecture halls and corporate auditoriums. The 4200-lumen VPL-FX30 ($4495) is equipped with 1.6x standard zoom lens for flexible installation, making it well suited to mid-sized classrooms, lecture theatres, boardrooms or meeting rooms.

Both projectors incorporate Sony’s Bright Era technology with a native XGA resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and feature a sleek, white cabinet, allowing them to easily blend into white ceilings when installed.

There are no terminals or ventilation slits on the rear side allowing both projectors to blend neatly into the ceiling when mounted.

“These are the first in a series of new projectors that offer outstanding total cost of ownership, through long-life lamps and filters and extremely low power consumption – all while delivering high brightness and high performance,” said Les Boros, Product Marketing Manager, Display Technologies, Sony Australia.

Sony: 1800 017 669 or les.boros@ap.sony.com

Unless you’re one of the rare folks who don’t watch sport on television, you can’t have missed the sudden prevalence of scrolling LED boundary fences at the football, cricket and overseas soccer – sorry, that’s “football”. Barco has put a new team on the field with its SP-4816 LED Sports Perimeter system, a 14-bit colour display panel measuring 2560mm x 800mm and 160mm thick. Pixel pitch is 16mm both vertically and horizontally. Synchronisation with professional broadcasting equipment can ensure that the images remain flicker-free on your telly at home. The SP-4816 can be driven by either mains power or DC battery, so it’s no surprise to know they come as both permanent or temporary installations. In fact, Barco says that 225 metres of the display can be easily loaded onto one truck and set up within three hours… must be a different crew to the one we know. The SP-4816 can be programmed to display any information compatible with Barco’s range of image processing tools.

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

NEWS IN BRIEF

Avid has completed the acquisition of Euphonix, a manufacturer of digital audio consoles, media controllers and peripherals, giving Avid the capability to deliver a series of products to meet the needs of customers ranging from independent professionals to the high-end broadcasters. Avid plans to maintain full support for both the Euphonix family of products and its existing Icon solutions, plus develop compatibility with Avid and third-party software including Pro Tools.

Avid: www.avid.com

Blackmagic Design has announced full compatibility with the new Sony HDCAM-SR SRW-5800/2 deck for capture and playback in native 2K. In 2007 Blackmagic Design introduced a new 2K SDI format to take advantage of the faster speed of 3 Gb/s SDI and this in turn allowed real time capture and playback of 2K 2048 x 1556. The new 2K over SDI format is an open format and Blackmagic Design are expecting it to become widely adopted.

Blackmagic Design: www.blackmagic-design.com

Many will know that Panasonic bought a controlling interest in Sanyo last year. AV asked Bill Crichton, Managing Director of Sanyo Oceania, what the deal means for projectors: “From Sanyo’s perspective we will be putting more emphasis on projectors,” stated Crichton. “In fact, our global aim is to achieve 40% global share in 2010. We will build on our strengths in the venue and education markets and our intention is to now grow in the entry XGA market as well.”

Sanyo: www. sanyo.com.au

Syntec International will officially end a 25-year association with Tannoy on June 30, 2010. Citing a “change in our product portfolio, continued growth in our consumer division and the expansion of the Sennheiser Installed Sound products, the new Neumann studio monitor products and our increased commitment to Apart and K-array”. Audio Products Group has snapped up the brand: “We are very proud to be able to work with Tannoy. I am confident that Tannoy’s portfolio of innovative, high-quality products will complement our

existing loudspeaker offerings, and strengthen our presence in the consumer, professional and installed sound markets,” explained Ken Dwyer, APG’s Managing Director.

In announcing its appointment, APG acknowledged Syntec for its contribution to the brand over many years, and pledged to work with Syntec to ensure that the transition will be smooth for all parties.

Audio Products Group: 1300 134400 or audioproduct.com.au www.syntec.com.au: 1800 648 628 or www.syntec.com.au

Tune in to the comprehensive

pro audio range from Sony

4 4/SANYO: BIG BRAND ON CAMPUS Sanyo’s PLC-WM5500L ($5999, pictured above and available July) is a WXGA, 5500-lumen LCD projector for fixed installations, suitable for lecture halls at high schools or universities, large and middle conference rooms, and digital signage. Some of the features include: long-life optical engine with inorganic panel, mechanical shutter, built-in 7W speaker, HDMI terminal, powered lens shift (H/V), five lens options in common with XM series, corner keystone correction (H/V), a wired LAN network control function, optional PJ-Net organiser compatible (control + image transmission), and ‘Picture in Picture’ and ‘Picture by Picture’ function.

Just as new is the ultra short-focus PLC-WL2500 ($1799, pictured top and available August). The new model was created for educators and business professionals, and offers long periods of maintenancefree use, thanks to its hybrid filter and long-life lamp. The projector is more useful than ever, thanks to a full-range of features, including a 10W speaker.

Newer still is the soon-to-be-released ultra short-focus projector. The PDG-DWL2500J ($2999, available August) represents an advancement on the PLC-XL50: it’s considerably smaller and can project large images from an even shorter distance. The new models are 3D Ready,.

Sanyo: 1300 360 230 or info@sanyo.com.au

The Professional Choice From wireless and wired microphones to versatile A/V mixers offering integrated control with a variety of projectors - Sony’s comprehensive range of pro audio solutions offers an assurance of reliability, quality and consistency.

With a host of systems and accessories to choose from, together with proven performance in broadcast, production and AV applications, it’s hardly surprising that Sony’s pro audio range is the professional choice.

With things getting bigger, brighter and demanding more bandwidth, cables are sometimes overlooked.

Belden is keeping pace with three new products in the Brilliance Precision Digital Video Cable range, the 1794A, 1694WB and 1694D. For example, the 1794A is a new construction specifically to meet the requirements of 1080p/50-60 technology and will accommodate 3Gb data rates (3GHz of bandwidth).

Belden: 1800 500 775 or australia.sales@belden.com

Magenta claims its new FiberMax Engine technology represents a breakthrough in the transmission of bandwidth-intensive video, audio, USB and other auxiliary signal types through industry standard, and relatively low-cost fibreoptics. The breakthrough was announced by none other than Magenta’s “Chief Creatologist”, Danny Barnycz.

(Isn’t Tom Cruise one of those?)

Image Design Technology: (02) 9417 4924 or sales@idt.com.au

Event company Haycom has purchased an Adamson Metrix line array system. It’s the first to be purchased in Australia and it can be used complete with 12 mid/high boxes over four subs or be broken down into smaller configurations. Haycom chose lightweight MC2 amplifiers to power the speakers with an Adamson system controller doing the processing.

Haycom Staging: www.haycomstaging.com.au CMI: (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au

PCM-D50 Linear PCM Recorder The latest addition to Sony’s family of portable audio recorders, built rugged and compact to withstand the demands of any environment.

• 96kHz/24 bit, virtually noise-free recording quality • 4GB internal Flash Memory, plus expandable Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo™ slot for up to an additional 4GB

www.sony.com.au/production proaudio.au@ap.sony.com 1800 017 669

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NEWS

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2

3 1/AUDI CALL IN CAV–ALRY

2/NEW RENTAL MODELS

3/NEW VIDEO FROM VADDIO

Audi takes its brand name seriously and doesn’t like to be associated with anything that won’t reflect the quality and reputation of its cars. So when it came to a new sound system for its Audi Lighthouse showroom near Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport – part of a global Audi Terminal concept – the big cheque book came out and Credible Audio Visual Solutions (CAVS) won the job. Ignore the service and staff sections for the moment – they weren’t forgotten. Where it really counts for impressing clients, the showrooms, 29 x TOA 2852C ceiling speakers were installed in each of the two large display areas, complemented by 8 x TOA HB-1 sub-woofers and all driven by 9 x A-2240 amps. Control was by Biamp’s Nexia SP and DaVinci software. The result? “Pretty average”, according to press releases until CAVS’ system designer Alex Smyth got busy tweaking the installation’s control interface. Then things got impressive with 102dB of flat response pumping from those ceiling speakers.

Audio Products Group: 1300 134400 or www.audioproducts.com.au

In previous issues we’ve brought to your attention new projector models from Norwegian-based company Projectiondesign that are a little more specific in their applications: multi-screen simulations and the like.

Broadening its aim, the newly introduced F82 series caters to the rental and staging market demands for high-quality, reliable and bright images, as well as providing the installation options needed for this market. The series features a brightness of up to 10,000 lumens, and promises low cost of ownership and return on investment. Proprietary Advanced Color Optical Processing (ACOP) enables optical calibration and gamut switching on the fly without electronic calibration and loss of bit depth, as well as Projectiondesign’s patented two-lamp DuArch technology for fail-safe operation. The two available models feature native 1080p or WUXGA resolutions and are compatible with all standard input signals. The F82 series is also available in passive stereoscopic versions using Infitec technology.

Amber Technology: 1800 251367 or display@ambertech.com.au

From Minnesota USA, Vaddio, a manufacturer of specialty pan/tilt/zoom cameras and high-end camera control systems, has released a high-definition Video Whiteboard that operates as a standalone device without any fixed or PTZ cameras in the system.

Vaddio also incorporated technology that eliminates the needs for a PC and puts all of the setup and user whiteboard controls onto a digital control panel integrated directly into the whiteboard frame. When it comes to straightforward scribbling, Luidia’s patented ebeam technology is coupled with ultrasound and infrared sensors to capture the presenter’s whiteboard marker pen strokes on the whiteboard surface. The digital control panel offers the presenter the choice of three marker stroke sizes, a ‘clear all’ option and ‘save to .jpeg’ option. A calibration button is also available from the digital control panel for easy setup and installation. The Video Whiteboard can be used in a variety of applications from videoconferencing, content creation, IMAG, rich media systems or in any system that will benefit from using a whiteboard as a video input device.

Transitions Systems Australia: 1300 864 835 or au.transition-asia.com

XTA, XTA … Read All About It

UK-based road warriors, XTA, are heading indoors with a new focus on networked installation processors. AV spoke to long-time XTA design engineer, Waring Hayes.

AV: We haven’t heard much from XTA in recent years? What’s the story?

Waring Hayes: It hasn’t been an easy time for a company like XTA. DSP has become cheaper and PA manufacturers can build DSP into their systems, so they’re tuned out-of-the-box, and they can lock out all the settings that

people shouldn’t mess with. So you’re seeing fewer third-party processors and they’re more often designed into a PA’s amplifiers from scratch.

In many ways, it could have spelt the end for XTA, but thankfully there are still people who want flexibility and have a processor to apply to different systems.

So things haven’t taken the downturn that they could have; even in the thick of the GFC we only saw a tiny drop-off.

But it hasn’t simply been a case of ‘we’ll just ride out the storm’.

That’s why we’re now looking into the network audio side of things.

Lake and Lab.gruppen kicked that off by using Dante, making us sit up and take notice. They’re getting people to trust networks outside just installation work. Yamaha has pushed things forward by having a Dante card you can stick in the back of its desks… So that’s become much more a focus for XTA. AV: When traditional rock ’n’ roll manufacturers make installation gear, it often means rebadging a device and removing most of

the knobs.

WH: Right. Our DP6i was a little like that – a repackaging of our popular DP226 – but what we’re now releasing is much more; it’s far more than a 448 with a new front panel. We’ve thought long and hard about what extra things we need for installation work, such as our Dante-based NXBoB8 and NXBoB16 breakout boxes. [See elsewhere in news for more detail on XTA’s new DC1048 with Dante networking.]

AV: It sounds like it’s harder for companies like XTA, BSS and Klark

Teknik to remain relevant in live sound now their turf has been usurped by others in the signal chain?

WH: You can’t stay in business building only digital crossovers.

But I still think it’s going to be a while before people trust their desks to be doing all of that processing – i.e. going straight from the multi outs of the desk into the amps. There’s always going to be amps in a rack, and perhaps most of the DSP is going to end up in the amps; but I think it’s going to be years before that approach is

Tune in to the comprehensive

pro audio range from Sony

4/ALEDIN’S MAGIC LAMP Robert Juliat showed the prototype of its upcoming LED profile, the AledIN, for the first time at Frankfurt’s Prolight & Sound. It seems Robert Juliat is sticking to its guns despite the growing number of affordable, moving head LED fixtures on the market. It’s promising the AledIN will achieve significant output and ‘superlative’ framing and projection from a low-powered LED light source without compromising the quality of gobo projection or shutter cuts. It also says a power consumption of 85W enables up to 28 units to be run off one domestic power outlet, making it attractive for venues where power availability is limited. The AledIN will come with a choice of two colour temperatures, 3200K or 5800K, so it should blend in with any general lighting rig, tungsten or discharge. Three zoom options will be available or alternatively any Robert Juliat 600 Series profile can be converted by changing the existing lamp base to the new LED light source base. Production is expected to commence later this year.

Show Technology: (02) 97481122 or www.showtech.com.au

The Professional Choice From wireless and wired microphones to versatile audio/video mixers and recorders - Sony’s comprehensive range of pro audio solutions offers an assurance of reliability, quality and consistency.

With a host of systems and accessories to choose from, together with proven performance in broadcast, production and AV applications, it’s hardly surprising that Sony’s pro audio range is the professional choice.

UWP Series UHF wireless microphone package entirely trusted. After all, it’s not the best environment for DSP. It’s hot, and the amps get rattled and lugged about. In theory it should just be numbers crunched in a box, but practically it can have a detrimental effect on the way it sounds.

Also, we know that many engineers at the top of their game want their own boutique processors or toolkit. They don’t want to trust their sound to something that’s locked-off in a black box.

AV: You mentioned that DSP has

become very affordable. But are DSP-based processors going to lose ground to CPU-based gear?

WH: I don’t think so. The clever part of an XTA device isn’t simply the filtering, it’s what we do to make it sound good. For example, a parametric bi-quad section in a DSP is pretty much the same no matter who does it, so if that’s your only measure of success... well, you’d be in trouble. But it’s the little things. Getting the converters to sound right; using good components. I don’t think having it all on the computer will

work. There are limitations on the way you can manipulate the sound in a computer.

Again, for example, the DP226 was a huge product – not so much for the filtering – but the way the limiting worked. You can hammer the hell out of it and it still sounds good. Meanwhile, you can have another box that does the ‘same thing’ or on a computer or use the limiter on the desk, but it won’t sound as good.

CMI (XTA): (03) 9315 2244 or www.cmi.com.au

Each package has a transmitter and receiver so you’re up and running straight from the box!

• Space Diversity Reception ensuring stable signal reception • Rugged and lightweight to provide reliability and mobility needed for field and venue applications

www.sony.com.au/production proaudio.au@ap.sony.com 1800 017 669

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NEWS

2

3

1 1/AUDIX: DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

2/SANYO: BRIGHT & BIG

3/XTA MAKE AN XTRA EFFORT

We know that turning mobile phones to ‘silent’ or ‘vibrate’ is never enough. The always ill-timed RFinduced bleeping of a phone demanding attention sneaks insidiously into nearby electronics and ruins the moment. To combat this, Audix has released the MG12, MG15, and MG18 professional miniature gooseneck condenser microphones with circuitry providing RF immunity protection from cell phones and wireless GSM devices. The MG gooseneck system is equipped with a dual preamp circuitry – one located in the capsule housing for condenser operation and the other in the base of the XLR. Internally balanced, the audio path is isolated from hum and noise – and pesky mobile phone signals. Other features include machined brass capsule housings and fittings, copper tubing integrated with wound flexible steel for secure and exact placement, field replaceable capsules, serviceable electronics and a variety of optional accessories. All three models are available in both cardioid and hypercardioid polar patterns, operate on phantom power of 18 – 52V and in non-reflective black matte finish.

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

Reflecting the needs of the industry for large-screen projectors that produce bright images, Sanyo’s PLCXF1000 is equipped with a QuaDrive engine that adds a ‘Colour Control Device’ to the conventional 3LCD system in order to control yellow light independently.

The engine gives images “remarkable new levels of rich colour”, ensuring users are able to give highly visual and engaging presentations. The PLC-XF1000 provides an impressive 12,000 lumens of brightness and is suited to use in brighter environments where big-screen images with rich colour are required, such as brightly-lit conference rooms and University halls.

The innovative design of the PLC-XF1000 features an Active Maintenance Filter (AMF) system which reduces the amount of time needed for maintenance, by automatically detecting obstructions to the airflow, including dust, and advancing the cartridge to a new filter. Longer lasting cartridges that have filter rolls equal to 10 regular filters reduce the filter cartridge replacement frequency to approximately 10,000 hours for reliability and cost efficiency.

Sanyo: 1300 360 230 or info@sanyo.com.au

Maybe it’s just me, but lately we seem to have seen a lot of in-house installation devices with network and GUI accessibility only for configuring and lessthan-workable front panel controls. So I’m glad to see XTA bucking the trend with the DC1048 Integrated Audio Management processor. Getting into the menu functions is easy via quick access keys on the front panel and there’s a front-mounted USB port for plugging in a PC, allowing a technician to tweak away to their heart’s content, before disconnecting the computer again. Presets can be programmed for unskilled staff to initiate or even set on timers to take those unreliable homo sapiens out of the picture altogether. Of course, the unit can be networked if you want, which also allows for remote wall panel controls. The DC1048’s matrix is four inputs feeding eight outputs. There are no less than eight bands of parametric EQ are on each input, plus there are limiters. An additional control line will tap into an override memory for emergency messages.

CMI: (03) 9315 2244 or cmi@cmi.com.au

NEWS IN BRIEF

HM Electronics Inc. (HME, not the Australian staging people), based in California has announced an agreement to acquire ClearCom Communication Systems.

Clear-Com will continue operation as a wholly-owned subsidiary of HME, with no changes planned for its product portfolio. HME is a pioneer of digital wireless intercom solutions for restaurant, hospitality, sports and pro audio markets.

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

Tecom, an Israel-based company and inventor of the TechPod Interactive Multimedia Lectern has announced its latest feature, a docking port allowing iPads and iPhones to directly interact with the TechPod’s integrated audiovisual technologies. Tecom will be demonstrating the technology at InfoComm 2010. If its iPad malfunctions and bursts into flame we reckon another one won’t be far away...

Tecom: www.techpod.com or info@techpod.com

Green Hippo has taken an update plunge. Based around Intel’s i7 processors the Hippotizer revisions work in conjunction with v3.0.14’s Playback Engine software resulting in more video playback layers.

Previous machines ran between two and five layers depending on the specs and age of the system whilst the new i7 based units are capable of eight layers of full HD playback simultaneously.

Clearlight: (03) 9553 1688 or www.clearlight.com.au

Sony’s European ISS Division has developed an interactive tabletop surface to rival Microsoft’s MS Surface. Called an Atractable, the surface will react to touch, movement, specific items placed on it and supposedly analyse the body movement of someone nearby. The core of the Atractable is a conglomeration of video-based tracking equipment mounted under the surface of the table and focused upwards.

Sony: www.sonybiz.net/vision or www.sony.com.au

Phonak Communication’s new guide-U system is designed for noisy facilities and features one or more speech transmitters – up to 10 in total – while visitors wear a guide-U receiver around the neck and can choose between headphones or an around-theear headset. Guide-U’s Dynamic Speech Extractor identifies and separates out speech sounds from the surrounding ambient noise, automatically adjusting the output.

Phonak: (02) 8858 1800 or info@phonak.com.au

EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY JOIN THE REVOLUTION

Join some trailblazing educators and audiovisual innovators for a day that will change the way you view the classroom forever.

There’s nothing hypothetical or pie in the sky about this one-day conference, the sessions will be bristling with practical examples of how audiovisuals and IT have has transformed real-world learning environments.

Integrate has joined forces with the Association of Educational Technology Managers (AETM) along with special guests who have pioneered the connected classroom and e-learning in the K12 and post-secondary sector.

24th - 26th August 2010 2010

Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park, Sydney, Australia

www.integrate-expo.com

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FEATURE

Eye Opener The Expo 2010 Shanghai Opening Ceremony had it all.

Lighting production manager Paul Collison gives us a control room-eye view of the spectacle.

Text & Images:/ Paul Collison

“Bigger than the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Beijing” is how some journalists described the Opening Ceremony of World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. While this may not quite have been the case, it was certainly played over a much bigger area.

We’re used to seeing lots of lights and audio in stadia these days, however, something the scale of this event is almost unprecedented.

I can certainly say that in my opinion, only a country with the resources of China could pull off a show like this.

There were two main parts to the show.

Inside was a completely lavish affair. This was the start of the evening where performances embracing the world’s cultures took place alongside the obligatory protocol moments.

A wall of 8mm LED, standing 4m high and spanning the entire 60m width of the stage, created the back drop. More LED, embedded

in the vertical facets of the staging helped spread imagery over an even greater area.

Over 500 moving lights of all shapes, sizes and brands encompassed the stage, broken up with spherical shapes sympathising with the curved performance stage. Lighting control was via two grandMA(1) consoles.

Outside is where things got crazy. Like some mad exclamation mark at the end of the indoor ceremony, a sound, light, laser, water and firework spectacular took over proceedings.

Let’s start with the ‘performance space’.

The Expo site covers an area roughly the size of 1000 football fields. Dwell on that for a moment as you then consider that the Huangpu river, on which the show was centred, averages about 300m in width. The performance space extended between the Lupu Bridge in the West and

the Nanpu Bridge on the East, a distance of approximately 2.7km. Even though the entire Expo site was part of the show, with certain key pavilions choreographing their external LED and lighting treatments along with the show, the focus was firmly on the river and the 250m-long LED screen. It’s about now that you should get a rough idea of the size of the project.

SEARCHING FOR SUPERLATIVES

Searchlights were placed every 12.5m on both sides of the river, then continued at a somewhat higher density across each bridge. There were other key locations back from the river where pockets of searchlights were placed. Part of the key focus was, of course, the spectacular China Pavilion with some of the other more prominent buildings employed as lighting positions.

FEATURE

027

Shanghai Nights: Searchlights, pyrotechnics, vast video displays, yachts, lasers, illuminated bridges, moving lights, illuminated pavilions, fountains, illuminated buildings, barges, and a city-sized sound system; this little 30-minute spectacular had it all – almost literally –and bigger than anything that has ever been done before.

“Outside is where things got crazy”

The searchlights in question were AutoLT 4kW and 7kW. Locally manufactured in Shenzen, they are particularly durable and reliable fixtures. Agricultural as most searchlights are, the AutoLT fixtures run a CMY colour mixing system, as opposed to the usual gel and scroller arrangement used by others. It’s certainly not a great CMY system. Pastels are near impossible, however the more saturated colours are fine. The AutoLT fixtures may appear to be a little cheap, however, they proved to be an incredibly reliable device; surviving lashing storms, heat waves and sub-zero temperatures. A fault rate of well below 2% is better than most name brands from Europe and the US, particularly when you consider that these fixtures spent almost three months in the elements with absolutely no additional environmental protection.

Enhancing the performance area in front of the VIP areas were 200 Clay Paky 1500W long-throw wash fixtures. Sprinkled around the system, with a higher concentration on the LED screen, were 200 Martin Atomic strobes. Also integrated in the lighting system were the existing architectural LED fixtures on the bridges at either end of the performance space.

Control was via a grandMA2 system. Six control surfaces with Network Processing Units, two-port nodes and NSP (four-port nodes) spread over the site. Fibre optic distribution of MA-Net2 was favoured over a proposed system of wireless ArtNet distribution. This turned out to be a wise decision, given that the energy created by the fireworks actually disrupted the SMPTE broadcast during the show.

Lighting designers Robert Dickinson

and Ted Wells, who designed the 30-minute spectacular, were constantly amazed by the talents of the local crew. Every searchlight in the system at some point required a tweaking of the lamp. This task took 20-odd local technicians two nights to accomplish – approximately 480 man-hours – something that would have taken four times as long in any another city.

MADE FOR THE BIG SCREEN

Continuing with the big theme, a custombuilt LED screen helped deliver the show’s creative narrative. Stepped at three heights from 15m to 25m high in the centre, the screen occupied a whopping 250m along the Puxi side of the river. Pixel pitch was 125mm, and, given that the distance to the VIP area was over 300m, it was more than clear enough for detailed viewing. With

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FEATURE

A spectacular scene from the indoor component of the Expo Opening Ceremony

content developed by Spinefex of Sydney, the screen at times helped with colour and movement, but also delivered the creative narrative. It was hard to comprehend the size of this screen from any distance. From the public viewing area the screen was, of course, big, but until one got near it, the actual size was difficult to fathom.

ETC Audiovisuel of Paris is often confused with Electronic Theatre Controls Inc. of Madison, Wisconsin – the ETC company that makes lighting fixtures and consoles. This ETC is, in fact, a company with many years experience in large-format projection. Having founded the PIGI art of projection, they are now focused on video control and projection. Fresh from a long stint in Vancouver for the ceremonies at the Winter Olympics, ETC used its proprietary

video playback system, OnlyView, to send two HD feeds to the large screen. A station at the control centre allowed the programmer to manage the OnlyView system from the other side of the river via a 4km run of optical fibre.

CRACKER OF A SHOW

If there is a country in the world than can let off some crackers, it is China. Lead by Sydney-based Foti International Fireworks, who has had a presence in China for over 10 years, eight Chinese fireworks companies combined to produce a show that was roughly eight times the size of Sydney’s annual New Year’s Eve display. With dozens of triggering sites to cover, both in the Expo precinct and as far as 5km away at the Pearl Tower, the distribution of timecode for pyrotechnic

Photograph: Zhang Wei

synchronisation was a major challenge. The solution was to distribute it via three separate wireless networks. FSK (Frequency-Shift Keying) modulated timecode was broadcast over two independent voice-comms channels, while linear (SMPTE) timecode with its higher bandwidth requirement was carried over what was effectively a beefed-up audio distribution system, based around standard in-ear monitoring receivers.

At some points during the show, there were thousands of triggers within a matter of seconds, creating what was one of the most stunning fireworks displays ever witnessed.

For the dress rehearsal a few days earlier, roughly 25% of the show was triggered to ensure all would run to plan on the day. Even this display was spectacular.

AKG

DMS 700

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

CRITICAL COMMS

On a project of this scale, where crew are distributed over literally hundreds of locations and the technology spread even further, communications are absolutely critical. Following the system specification drafted by project communications consultant Scott Willsallen, the PA People (PAP) from Sydney, which is almost part of the furniture at large-scale events like this, provided all of the communications, both wired and wireless.

Its responsibilities extended to the surveillance camera systems, data networks and the site-wide distribution of SMPTE timecode.

Over 900 handheld two-way radios were distributed to almost a dozen contractors. The Clearcom Eclipse matrix system was interfaced to the 32 duplex radio channels required to cover all services. The main Eclipse matrix system was hosted in the Cultural Centre, while a second,

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

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FEATURE

Photograph: Ian Cooper Above: The world’s largest video screen – as seen from behind.

Left: one of the hundreds of riverside towers adorned with AutoLT searchlights, JBL Control 30 loudspeakers, Clay Paky movers with rain hats and the obligatory (but permanently attached) fire extinguisher. Note the extensive use of wooden blocks and ratchet straps for searchlight mounting.

Right: Audio replay control suite with surveillance video screens, redundant pairs of Fairlight Xynergi Media Production Centres, Eclipse talkback station, multiple timecode display unit and OEM speaker mountings.

fibre-linked Eclipse frame was located at the RF transmission site in an office tower some 2km away. A further 12 key-stations, at five additional locations, were connected into the Eclipse matrix system via IP over the site’s data network, rather than the usual dedicated comms cabling. Despite the complexity of such a large system, actual communication during the event proved to be a simple affair.

To enable stage management, logistics, pyro and lighting, to see parts of the site not visible from the sixth-floor control position in the Expo Cultural Centre, feeds from the site’s 16 surveillance cameras could be monitored via Sony’s Real Shot Manager Advanced software on desktop computers in control and office areas. The PAP data network provided file access, internet, data communications and surveillance across the entire site, from the LED screen to the bowels of the Cultural Centre.

The PA People also brought along its new Ethernet-based multiple time display system.

In addition to the usual task of displaying the master timecode coming from the audio

replay machines, this system is also capable of a range of other time displays. These included GPS-locked time-of-day for multiple time zones and shared, remote stopwatch timers controlled by stage management. Display units could therefore double as time-of-day and countdown clocks outside of show time, and be located wherever the site data network was available.

BARGE-SCALE WATER EFFECTS

ECA2 of France supplied two water-effect barges affectionately called Man and Woman.

Both barges on their own were an impressive display of light, laser, water and projection.

They both held various amounts of LED wash fixtures running back to a grandMA(1) Ultra Light console. As well as controlling lighting, the console ran all the water pumps on each barge.

As part of the permanent installation on the Expo site, Aquatique, also of France, has installed a 200m-long water fountain.

Usually synchronised to music for a nightly

performance, the fountain proved to be a spectacular centrepiece of the Opening Ceremony. Located directly in front of the VIP area, it really placed the spectacular into the laps of the crowd. The combination of valves, articulated hoses and incandescent light sources provided some simple, but effective moments.

AUDIO: SONIC BOOM TIME

Multiple levels of redundancy played a huge part in Audio Director, Bruce Jackson’s concept for the event’s audio system, which was supplied and installed by ACE Professional Sound and Lighting. The primary distribution system consisted of a dual-redundant star topology fibre network, carrying MADI data from a Studer Route 6000 (with dualredundant modules, of course) to Studer D21m distribution racks located at 15 points on both sides of the Huangpu river.

The D21m racks then each distributed AES/EBU (by dual-redundant fibres) to a series of amplifier racks, each of which was

FEATURE

The predominant scenic elements for the Opening Ceremony were video. The backdrop was a 60m wall of 8mm LED, while the floor was covered with projection from four doubled-up pairs of Christie Roadster S+20Ks on the mainstage, four Christie Roadster HD+35Ks on the forestage and a further four Roadster S+20Ks mounted on ZAP yokes for moving effects and special areas.

Courtesy: Wincomm Technology

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FEATURE

Because nothing much else was going on other than lasers, searchlights, video screens, pyros and half the city lighting up, some 6000 radiotriggered, 500mm LED balls were released into the river to slowly colour cycle while they drifted downstream.

Inset: Some of the half dozen grandMA2 control surfaces in action during the show.

managed by a BSS BLU-160 processor.

Each of the BLU-160 processors was then connected to its two nearest neighbours by BLULINK over (dual-redundant) fibres.

This then formed a dual-ring-topology BSSbased network linked to BLULINK nodes in the audio control room, that was completely independent of the primary, Studer-based star network. The BSS processors were also linked into the site data network for remote control.

Dual ring networks are widely used because of their ability to maintain connectivity in the face of multiple device and connectivity failures. Combined with an independent dual star network, this 64km fibre distribution system could have maintained audio signal delivery in the face of anything short of multiple direct hits on the Expo site by a cluster of asteroids (Jackson may even have had a plan for that eventuality).

At the 72 amp racks along the river front, each BSS BLU-160 processor fed analogue audio to a stack of Crown XTi-2000 amplifiers that powered their share of the 400 or so JBL Control 30 loudspeakers.

In the VIP area, dual-redundant consoles – a Soundcraft Vi3 and an analogue console – were provided to set local listening levels.

Here the Crown amplifiers drove two stacks of 10x JBL Vertec VT4889-1 loudspeakers, with the bottom end provided by 8x JBL VT4880a cabinets.

Main control consisted of dual-redundant Soundcraft Vi6 systems connected to the Studer Route 6000 via MADI, and the secondary BLULINK nodes via AES/EBU. Local monitoring was JBL LSR 4328P loudspeakers.

The primary replay system was an A/B roll pair of Fairlight Xynergi Media Production Centres, each consisting of a Xynergi controller, a CC-1 card in an HP computer and an SX-20 for local audio analogue audio outputs. Main audio outs were connected to the Studer 6000 system via MADI. The backup replay system was – you guessed it – a dual-redundant pair of Fairlight MPCs. The only difference was that the audio was delivered directly to the backup VIP area console via analogue rather than via the Studer Route 6000.

BEST CHINA

Size and scale is something that has been mentioned throughout this article. It’s something that really can’t be underestimated.

When there is a fault on a certain piece of gear, and that gear is a 20-minute drive away, faultfinding can be incredibly laborious.

Basic things take inordinate amounts of time. The fact that this show ever made it off the ground is a testament to the producers, David Atkins Enterprises. Technical Producer, Richard Martin said “Engineering the world's largest LED screen and gaining the authorities’ approval to erect it was one of the most challenging, yet satisfying, tasks I have undertaken in 32 years of technical production.”

The project involved an incredible amount of logistics and political management in a relatively short period of time. In something like four months, this project went from concept to fruition. To be the first western company to produce a state event in China is truly a feat on its own. To do it with such success is another entirely. 

Teachers’ favourite The Sanyo PLC-XE50A ultra short throw projector ticks all the right boxes for Australian teachers.

80" image from just 8cm distance (it’s the world’s shortest throw LCD projector)^ Flexibility of wall mount or floor or tabletop projection Reduced power consumption: less than 1 Watt in standby mode Produces bright, clear images even in well-lit rooms* Robust design with protected mirror and no external buttons Anti-theft education-only orange cabinet RRP: PLC-XE50A $2,999; Lamp $249

For more information on Sanyo’s range of projectors call 1300 360 230 or visit www.sanyo.com.au

BLDD933

^ As at 15th February 2010. * XGA resolution 1024 x 768; 2,000 ANSI lumens

Side view

034

FEATURE

Icy Reception The Icehouse: Melbourne’s coolest new venue.

Text:/ Mandy Jones

One of Melbourne’s newest recreational venues is now officially its coolest ...literally. At temperatures between -3° and -8°C, the two ice rinks at the National Ice Sports Centre at the Docklands have added ice sports to Melbourne’s enviable reputation as the sporting capital of Australia.

Known as the Icehouse, the $58 million facility was developed by ING Real Estate Developments Australia it is situated in the heart of the Waterfront City precinct between Costco’s flagship Australian store and the troubled Southern Star Observation Wheel, currently in the process of being reconstructed.

As the largest winter sport facility in the southern hemisphere, the Icehouse features two full-sized ice rinks suitable for ice hockey, curling, short-track speed skating, figure skating and recreational skating. The complex also includes a gymnasium and sports medicine clinic as well as a range of retail and function spaces, including the compulsory bar, cafe and merchandise shop required at any contemporary recreation facility.

After a 14-month construction period, the 7200 square metre Icehouse opened in February this year. Designed by Cox Architects, the exterior of the finished building resembles a glacial melt line and is a subtle hint at the frosty conditions inside.

Video specialist Massteknik was appointed as the audiovisual contractors to the project by construction company Hansen Yuncken and its client ING Real Estate. Tim Mitchell, Business

Development Manager for Massteknik came on board as project manager for the audiovisual design and installation and has seen the project through from concept to completion.

PUCK-ER RINK

Rink 1 is called the Henke Rink in honour of the Chairman of the Olympic Winter Institute and one of the founders of ice sports in Australia, Geoff Henke. As the main competition rink, it is standard Olympic size (60m x 30m), has stadium seating for 1000 spectators, dressing rooms for the athletes, and complies with rigorous International Ice Hockey Federation standards. As a venue it is stark and functional. The wall decor is made up of monochrome blocks of varying greyscale and the rink is illuminated by high-bay discharge floodlights.

It’s clear that this rink is all about business, and the glass barriers around the dasher boards are a clue to just how serious business on the ice hockey rink gets.

Massteknik partnered with Jands to provide an audio system for Rink 1 that is typical of similar competition rinks.

“We worked with John Dignum and Glenn Helmot from Jands on the audio throughout the venue. In Rink 1 there are 10x JBL AM6215 cabinets, five directed at the seating and five directed at the ice for the competitors, all powered by Crown CTS-2000 amps,” explained Tim. Rink 1 features a 4m x 3.2m, 240- x 192-pixel LED screen, and while it’s fully video enabled, its core purpose is to work as a scoreboard

and timing display for the ice hockey games played beneath it. Fully outdoor-rated, the screen is made up of Lumidiem C16 Panels with a 16mm pixel pitch with a brightness of 5000cd/m2. Screen control is by a Vizomo video processor and content is a combination of Dise digital signage software and TecViz, a dedicated sport scoring system, both controlled via a Crestron-based touch screen.

“TecViz is a tried and true system that was developed by Massteknik in Sweden and is currently used in around a dozen ice hockey venues throughout Sweden and Europe. As scoring systems go, it’s fully optioned and includes countdown and countup clocks, customised text for team names, penalty alarms, score horns, the works. The only downside was the manual was in Swedish so it had to be translated into English,” Tim remarked.

Inside the scoring booth, the Crestron touch screen control system enables scorekeepers and officials to operate the scoring system and make PA announcements via a Shure ULX series radio microphone system.

Massteknik also installed ice hockey match essentials such as green and red beacon lights that are triggered by IR remotes held by the goal umpires to indicate goals and lock-outs when the game clock is stopped.

PARTY ON

The Icehouse’s second rink is named the Bradbury Rink after Stephen Bradbury, the short-track speed skater who famously won Australia’s first Winter Olympic Gold medal at

FEATURE

035

The exterior of the Icehouse is designed by Cox Architects to resemble the melt line in a glacier.

Photographer: Mark German

Left: The PA and lighting for Rink 2 are all rigged overhead from an impressive truss system designed by Lightmoves. Recreational skaters enjoy themed evenings such as kids discos, ‘80s nights and music video nights.

Photographer: Angelo Marcina

036

FEATURE

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Rink 1 is the main competition area and has stadium seating for 1000 spectators. Shown here in ice hockey mode, the large LED screen is utilised for score and time displays.

Photographer: Mark German

the 2002 Salt Lake City games by being the last man standing when the entire course fell over. Fittingly, it is on this rink that you are most likely to see the best spills as this rink is used for public recreational skating, as well as figure skating, speed skating and curling.

As an Olympic-grade training venue, the Icehouse provides in-house professional trainers for the figure skaters and speed skaters, with training sessions running from 6am daily. To accommodate the demand for the two public skating sessions each day as well as the late night sessions on Friday and Saturday nights, there are 2300 pairs of rental skates on hand.

While this rink doesn’t have the stadium seating and scoring booth that Rink 1 has, it makes up for it by having a slightly bigger C16 Lumidiem LED screen, this one measuring 8m x 4.4m with 480 x 264 pixels.

Its position at one end of the rink makes it ideal for showing music clips. Tim expects the LED screens in both rinks to have long lives because of the constant temperature.

“This venue is extremely climate controlled – it is absolutely temperature stable and has

to be, because we are effectively working with huge blocks of ice that contain around 54,000 litres of water. From a climate point of view, in such a temperature-stable and humidity-controlled environment, these electronics will happily run and run, and that’s the added benefit of using outdoor rated screens (IP64 from the front and IP57 from the back),” Tim explained.

The PA for Rink 2 comprises eight JBL AM6215 cabinets, again powered by Crown CTS-2000 amplifiers, with all the speakers rigged from the overhead lighting truss and directed to give full coverage of the ice as there isn’t an audience to accommodate.

Local control of music is from a DJ riser next to the rink with a simple Tascam playback unit which enables figure skaters to bring their own CD or iPod to train to.

Throughout the facility a Nightlife hard drive music subscription system is used to deliver an endless array of music video clips. These are not only fed to the two large LED screens, but also a number of IPTV networked screens in the retail and function spaces. On Rink 2 these clips are used as

The Icehouse: www.icehouse.com.au Massteknik (TecViz, Lumidiem, Crestron): www.massteknik.com.au Lightmoves (Martin, MA Lighting, GIS): www.lightmoves.com Jands (JBL, Crown, Shure): www.jands.com.au Show Logic (Medialon): www.showlogic.com.au Cox Architects: www.cox.com.au Hansen Yuncken: www.hansenyuncken.com.au Arup: www.arup.com Nightlife (Hard Drive Music System): www.nightlife.com.au Element Labs (Vizomo): www.elementlabs.com

the background music to the public skating sessions.

To create a versatile rig that would serve Rink 2’s varied usage, Massteknik partnered with Lightmoves for the design and installation. The Lightmoves team was headed up by Braham Ciddor as system designer, Warren Hegarty as project manager, Andrew Sherar as technical designer and commissioning engineer and Paul Sirianni as installation electrician.

The lighting rig is all about colour and movement and includes 16 Martin smartMAC 150 watt discharge lamp moving-head profiles, 96 LED pinspots, 72 LED Par 64’s and eight mirror balls. LED fixtures were the logical choice in order to minimise heat generated by the lighting rig, but also for long lamp life and reduced energy consumption.

“This system works pretty hard, it’s on for the two main skating sessions each day, and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until midnight. So lamp life and power consumption are big factors.”

Lighting control is from a PC-based

Use your existing ethernet network for audio solutions Bi-Amp DSP with Cobranet

Media Matrix DSP with Cobranet

Bosch NetMax N8000 Centralised digital signal processor Ethernet switch

Projector

ION 2.0 Radio mic Ethernet switch

Ethernet switch

Ethernet switch

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Radio mic

Presenter computer Plena mixer

ION 2.0

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ION 4.4 Loudspeakers

Public address system Plena mixer

Conference room 1

Conference room 2

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Consider a cost effective and powerful audio over ethernet solution for PA systems from Bosch Communications Systems. Our solution uses your existing cable infrastructure via Cobranet-enabled devices, and can be used with any DSP including Netmax, Praesideo, and products like Bi-Amp and MediaMatrix.

Our solution features the ION 2.0 wall mount configuration that enables low latency conversion from analogue audio to LAN to take place at the wall. The ION 4.4 is a 1/2 width 1U rack mount configuration with 4 analogue mic/line inputs and 4 analogue outputs. ION 8.8 is a full rack width 1U rack mount configuration with 8 analogue mic/line inputs and 8 analogue line outputs. The 2,4 & 8 channel versions have on-board data signal processing capabilities (DSP) which can take the processing load away from the centralised processor, providing a more flexible architecture in your system. The channel model can also split out audio channels from the Cobranet bundle or combine channels into bundles.

This solution can be applied to paging & communications in hotels, hospitality suites, convention centres, corporate meeting rooms, schools - the possibilities are endless! Contact Bosch Communications Systems for a demonstration or more information today.

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038

FEATURE

Courtesy: Brown’s Precision Welding

Above & right: The lighting, PA speakers and mirror balls are suspended from a hinged ‘X’ truss with angles of 120° and 60°.

Top right: CAD rendering of X truss with hinged end-plates. Below: The DJ console in the Bradbury Rink.

Photographer: Mark German

grandMA located in the AV control room. With around 10 show states pre-programmed, plus the good old ‘triggers to music’ mode, most typical uses are covered, and for anything out of the ordinary, a grandMA desk can easily be patched in to operate the rig in a live setting.

THE X FLIES

The truss rig designed by Lightmoves for the lighting and PA is made up of 36 three metre sections of Browns 300mm box truss. Two straight sections per side complement a large central cross truss to provide coverage of the full length of the rink. A combination of 500kg and 1000kg Swiss-made GIS electric chain hoists enable the trusses to be flown in and out as required.

Tim describes the centre piece of the cross truss system as “an engineering masterpiece”.

As a result of the Icehouse’s roof being built as light as possible in order to reduce the amount of steel and overall weight, early testing revealed a high degree of flex in the roof

as the truss was being flown out.

“Due to this flexing in the roof, the rigid prototype cross truss joiner cracked during testing so Browns redesigned it with hinged joints so it has plenty of give in it. It’s a really clever piece of rigging,” Tim commented.

The facility boasts a ‘5 Star Green Star’ equivalency rating, based on its design, construction and operation, and uses 40% less energy than typical ice skating rinks. Rainwater collected from the roof and stored in large tanks was used in forming the two rinks and continues to be used for all ice resurfacing requirements as well as toilet flushing and washing facilities.

With the Sochi, Russia winter Olympics less than four years away, it’s entirely possible that Australia’s next skating or ice hockey champions are hard at work right this minute training at the Icehouse. Then again, they may have popped over the road to Costco for a bulk carton of muffins. They really are delicious. 

The driving force.

AWARDS CATEGORIES BEST INSTALLATION $1m+

This represents the most innovative, best conceived and consistently excellent audiovisual installation of the year.

BEST INSTALLATION UNDER $1m

This award provides smaller installers and integrators the chance to show their wares. The install that best meets the unique demands of the project wins. Doesn’t need to be the most glamourous or highest profile project going around.

BEST AV PRODUCTION

This award covers all staged events – commercial product launches, madefor-TV spectaculars, one-off events etc. The winner doesn’t necessarily need to be the most lavish production but the best conceived application of AV technologies and design.

The new OPERADIGITAL Series Ten years after the first Opera Series, dBTechnologies presents a totally new generation with features never seen before. Three different power classes, ranging from WW RMS, equipped with ”, ”, ” or ” loudspeakers, can be combined with our powerful active subwoofers, to be able to build highly flexible systems with a performance of up to W RMS.

BEST USE OF AV IN POST-SECONDARY TEACHING

This award covers audiovisual projects and installations in the postsecondary education sector.

BEST USE OF AV IN K-12 TEACHING

This award covers audiovisual projects and installations in the K-12 (Kindergarten to Year 12) education sector.

INNOVATION AWARD

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

The new OPERA DIGITAL offers, thanks to latest technology, % more power at a

2010

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Download your application kit now: www.avias.com.au

VIDEO CONFERENCING

&TELEPRESENCE Integrate 2010 will host a one-day conference to expose new developments and the integration of video conferencing.

Who’s it For?: Regardless of whether you’re a CIO/CEO on a fact-finding mission; an integrator installing VC; or you’re a Technology Manager looking for the right VC system, this day-long conference has you covered. The course focuses on video conference environments, where the room makes all the difference between a great experience and a marginal one.

Collaboration: Interest in Video Conferencing and telepresence generally is running white hot and this one-day conference is perfectly timed to provide CIOs, Integrators and Technology Managers with the information they need to stay ahead of the game.

Unified Communication: The classes will highlight the importance of properly designing the environment and will discuss the audio and video technology behind the room. Topics will include sightlines, camera angles, lighting, display sizes, audio reinforcement and some basic networking issues. This session includes an InfoComm Academy Video Conferencing program and provides renewable units (RUs) toward InfoComm certification renewal.

Stop Press: The day will kick off with a case study presentation from Cisco’s Communication & Collaboration team.

Places are strictly limited so bookings are essentials.

Email: seminars@integrate-expo.com or book online, go: www.integrate-expo.com and follow the links.

Certification Renewal Units

24th - 26th August 2010 2010

Hordern Pavilion & Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park, Sydney, Australia

www.integrate-expo.com

®

042

FEATURE

Love All The Queensland Tennis Centre is packed to the (Pat) Rafters with lighting control.

Text/: Graeme Hague

It was once remarked, by someone obviously ungrateful, that the worst thing to ever happen to tennis was the discovery that a tennis court is the perfect size and shape to fit on a television screen. In other words, tennis had become big business – like most popular sports – and would suffer accordingly. Well, if facilities like the Queensland Tennis Centre (QTC) in Brisbane are considered a bad thing, some people are plainly never going to be happy. Built as part of the Mirvac Group’s Tennyson Riverside Development project, the QTC is already a landmark venue for the sport in Australia, being the first in the country to provide all three Grand Slam surfaces of clay, grass and cushion acrylic (ah… that’s hardcourt to us football fans). The main centre court, the Pat Rafter Arena with seating for 5500 people, is equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and audio.

Which is all very good for the occasions when some kind of pre-eminent tournament is being held at the centre, but what about the other 50 or so weeks of the year? While the tennis world’s attention is focused on the QTC’s main court, of course everything has to go right, but the bread and butter of a facility like this comes from the daily use of the other 23 courts, the change rooms and the meeting and function rooms. In these, everything has to go right, all the time. After all, the QTC is now the headquarters for Tennis Queensland and the Queensland Academy of Sport.

SEEING TENNIS IN A NEW LIGHT

Not surprisingly it’s all about lighting and an important factor to consider is that a large tennis centre presents an unusual lighting challenge. Most sports stadiums have multiple lights and areas to manage, but they’re concentrated on a single playing surface like a football field or cricket oval.

The QTC has 24 separate courts including the main arena, which can require a multitude of combinations of lights on and off at each one. Much more precise levels of control across a large number of separate sections is needed. The issue isn’t only about avoiding inadvertently turning off the power just as some grumpy McEnroe-like chap is about to serve the ace of a lifetime. Mismanagement

of lighting in a venue such as this can cost tens of thousands of dollars in wasted energy every year. So it’s an investment to install a fine-grained control system and gain accurate time management of electricity consumption.

Some things haven’t changed; court hire is based on a timer system and yes, the lights are automatically dimmed when your time runs out. Each and every court can be controlled independently or grouped into any arrangement of multiple courts. But there also had to be provision for certain courts to be locked out of the hire system when necessary, such as when they’re permanently allocated to training or as warm-up areas for the main court. Of course, the Pat Rafter Arena needed to be completely isolated from the hire sections.

Stowe Australia, which was the electrical contractor for the project, engaged Clipsal to provide an engineered and guaranteed lighting control system for QTC. Clipsal turned to Auztech to perform the design, supply and implementation, as it is a Clipsal Platinum partner and has full manufacturer backing and guarantees.

With the level of flexibility required, a Clipsal C-Bus system was installed along with Clipsal Schedule Plus software. Master control is provided by a C-Bus MkII black and white touchscreen. A library of presets was created for common situations, and right from the beginning QTC staff were able to dial up required lighting with just a few simple menu selections. Programming was not restricted to the lighting of the playing surfaces. Like any large business structure with meeting facilities, the network included the corporate suites and function rooms. A variety of presets were created for these too, with individual controls in each room to allow local override of the settings sent from the central management PC. TRACKING THE HOURS

Another important aspect of the whole system is the requirement to monitor lamp life and apply maintenance across the entire grid. The courts each have two or three separate banks of lighting, with only one being used at any time. Usage is rotated between banks, which

reduces wear and tear on all of them, thereby prolonging the life of the fixtures themselves, plus it gives the capability to switch to another lamp in case of a failure. The accumulated burning time of the lamps is displayed on the central control system and faulty lights are highlighted instantly. The display actually shows estimated lamp-hours only, based on the time the fixtures are powered up. There is no intelligent data sent from the fixtures themselves. Once the software indicates that certain time-limit thresholds are reached the staff are alerted that a lamp may lose brightness or fail altogether and maintenance procedures can be carried out.

On a normal day-to-day basis, the QTC’s best approach to efficient energy management is based on the detailed lighting scheduling the system provides, plus the ability to narrowly focus on specific areas. In some places motion detectors are used to trigger lights only when necessary. However, in Tournament Mode the shots are called by Tennis QLD and this means most of the lighting is on and you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole green, conservative caring-and-sharing of the planet mindset is temporarily forgotten in favour of being able to see a furry tennis ball heading for between your eyes at a hundred miles an hour… very selfish. Okay, that’s not true, since Tennis QLD was an important part of a consultation process to determine exactly what was or wasn’t needed on during the big games. A lot of thought went into it.

Often these large projects need the contractors to return and tweak the system or make adjustments, but in this case everybody got it right first time. The only significant addition to the job was a laptop computer with fully compliant version of the Clipsal Schedule Plus software being installed in the Pro Shop that can act independently of the main server in the administration area.

When the serious tournaments are being played, no doubt the QTC glows like a beacon against the Brisbane night sky, but you can still be sure that neither a single, unnecessary light is glowing nor a kilowatt of power being wasted. 

043

Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

FEATURE

Schematic control of lighting for all the external hire courts.

The control screens for the two ‘Show Courts’ display the level of lighting control possible, including choosing which bank of fixtures to use and three levels of brightness. Read-outs of estimated lamp usage time are also displayed.

044

FEATURE

Microsoft World Introducing the ‘Customer Briefing Centre’, Microsoft Australia’s world-first presentation and training facility.

Text:/ Tim Stackpool

Meeting the expectation of customers is a combination of interpretation, project management and considered planning. Other times it is a result of good luck, voodoo and happenstance.

Not so when it comes to products and services offered by Microsoft, following the establishment of the Consumer Briefing Centre (CBC) at the North Ryde headquarters in Sydney.

Microsoft describes the CBC as an interactive space where various product partners, consumers, journalists, retailers and staff can experience first-hand the company’s vision for what it calls Connected Entertainment. The space represents a trend among corporations to have a full-time customised space to display and demonstrate their products, away from the more traditional glare of a tradeshow or exhibition hall.

And upon entering the room, it’s easy to see the contrast between this environment and a tradeshow floor. The interior architecture, planned by interior designers The World Is Round, is very swish, with the emphasis solidly on the many screens that people use in their daily lives, including mobile phone, PC and TV. And while the room in its entirety may represent every bloke’s personal fantasy entertainment pad, it’s not hard to envisage how the individual technologies in the CBC could quite easily be integrated into any modest house or corporate facility.

Matthew Ball, Marketing and Communications Manager for Microsoft Australia described the room as a multifunctional platform available for use in a number of ways. “Primarily it’s purpose built to demonstrate our Connected Entertainment vision, which involves showing content transition from one of the many screens in consumers’ lives to another,” he said. “For example, we demonstrate video content moving from PC to mobile phone to XBox to

a PC on the other side of the world.”

In other words, here’s how Microsoft World would elegantly, seamlessly, work and play together. And it sure is an impressive display, encompassing 45 minutes of various visual elements transitioning from one medium to another – for those of us into this sort of thing, it’s almost like a religious experience. An impressive vision.

GOOD GAME

Grand, integrated visions aside, wouldn’t it be great to take over the CBC for a night of gaming? Fret not, Microsoft is thinking the same thing. The space will on occasion transform into a VIP gaming zone for key media, complete with live multiplayer interaction. Key retailers are also given demonstrations of products within the room and major Microsoft enterprise customers are hosted within the surroundings to introduce any or all of the entire Microsoft consumer proposition.

“We also use the space as a specific event location, such as if we were launching a new product, say an Arc mouse, for example,” Matthew Ball said. “We would have the room entirely branded Microsoft – the screens, video footage, imagery, everything. We have product showcase plinths in the foyer, and these would present hardware models too.”

Given that the room is quite new, Microsoft is yet to implement any changes to its marketing or design strategy following the feedback from the audience inside the CBC, but this is considered to be likely once the testing of products via this method becomes more commonplace.

“The room was a significant investment for the business and return on investment did not follow any standard rules of thumb,” said Ball. “Firstly, because it is a room and secondly because it is a flexible platform. We were fortunate to have Microsoft executive David McLean as the project's executive

sponsor. He liked the vision for the room and provided strong direction on how to make our case to the business of the investment worth of this project.”

It remains too early for Microsoft to ascertain if the installation has been effective, but reportedly most of the 500-odd people entering the room so far, experience an ‘ahha moment’. Most comment on the design, the atmosphere, and the different way to demonstrate consumer experiences. “We have had nothing but positive feedback,” Ball told AV. TECHNOLOGICAL IMMERSION

On the technology side, for Samuel Mangano, Microsoft Australia’s Technical Events Project Manager, the room is an excellent immersive environment. “All of Microsoft’s consumer hardware and software can be showcased in the one room,” he said. “All the aesthetics of the room make it versatile for presentation, demonstration and trial formats. The room is very modern, loaded with technology, and very cool.”

The dominating feature of the room is the Sanyo PDGDHT100L 1080P projector running a custom short-throw fixed lens mounted on a custom floor stand. The projector’s native resolution is full HD (1920 x 1080) with an output of 6500 ANSI lumens.

“The sheer size of the HD rear projection screen, gives us the ability to show up to five inputs at once,” Samuel Mangano said. “The modular lounge format allows the room to be transformed from a presentation type mode to a gaming room mode, and the room is fully automated from an AV perspective by the folks at Credible Audio Visual Solutions (CAVS) and includes C-Bus lighting control.”

From start to finish, the build and installation took around three months to complete, with input from CAVS and Microsoft’s own V-Team.

FEATURE

045

“The room is very modern, loaded with technology, and very cool.”

Rear projection screen , lectern, modular couch and surround sound in the main presentation area.

046

FEATURE

HOWDY PARTNERS

In essence, the room is used to demonstrate the Microsoft products that you would expect, including Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Phone, music players, the XBox 360 and other Media Centre and extender capabilities. The regular fare of mice, keyboards and webcams are included for good measure, as well as the impressive Microsoft Surface.

Some of those items are demonstrated and used in conjunction with partner’s hardware and are provided to Microsoft to assist with showcasing products. These include various laptop manufacturers and mobile phone suppliers.

This is what gives the room its versatility. From the aforementioned Connected Entertainment Vision to specialised product demonstrations, the ability is there to not only demonstrate a variety of products, but also control how the products can and should be demonstrated.

As far as is known, this facility could be a world first in terms of the platform’s flexibility. Other showcases do exist, such as the Microsoft Home of the Future in Seattle as well as many fixed gaming lounges around the world, but nothing along the lines of this Sydney installation. As Matthew Ball said: “It is a pleasure to use the room. To showcase the full power of the MS Connected Entertainment vision in a way that is simple to understand and simple to see and demonstrate. In action, it makes the ‘seeing is believing’ philosophy a reality.” 

SURFACE APPEARANCES Looking no more threatening than a modest coffee table, Microsoft’s Surface has a touchscreen as the table top, which allows users to manipulate content by the use of gestures. In fact, the gesture recognition system does not solely rely on hand movements, but can involve the movement of any object on the screen surface. This includes such things as coffee cups or café menus. After several years of being a solution to a problem that nobody had yet encountered, around 20 Microsoft partners, across many countries, are currently developing applications for Surface’s interface.

INTRODUCING RED!

Video conferencing facilities in one of the meeting rooms

SOME DETAILS Rear Projection

Sanyo PDGDHT100L full HD 1080P (1920 x 1080) projector fitted with a fixed short-throw lens and on a floor-mounted rear projection stand.

4380mm x 2460mm (w x h) Screen Technics custom rear projection screen.

Front Projection

3 x Sanyo PLCWXU30 720P ceiling mounted Data Projectors projecting images from 3 x Acer EL1600 eMachines.

Visualiser

Lumens CL500 25fps progressive XGA ceiling-mounted visualiser Video Switching

Extron MGP464 Video Wall Processor controlled by an AMX NI4100 Integration Controller & Samsung Q1 Touch Panel.

Gaming Consoles

10 x XBox 360 Elite Consoles connected via HDMI TVs

8 x Samsung LH46MGQLBC/XY 46-inch commercial LCD display panels 1 x Samsung 55-inch Series 8 LED display panel PCs

1 x Sony VAIO VGN-CS36GJ/W notebook PC 1 x Acer Aspire One AO751h-52Bk netbook 1 x HP Pavilion DV series notebook 1 x HP Touchsmart touch PC 1 x Samsung notebook All running Windows 7 & Office 2010 1 x custom-built network server

The new Remote Ethernet Device, RED-1.

The first graphical remote control from Biamp Systems.

Easy to use. Easy to install. And easy on the eyes.

Networking

2 x Netgear ProSafe JGS524 Gigabit Switches 2 x Belkin managed routers 1 x Belkin ADSL 2+ modem

RED-1 is the control you’ve been waiting for.

Surface

1 x Microsoft Surface retail unit Amplifier

Integra DTR 8.8 7.1 THX Professional theatre / AV receiver Speakers

Sonance THX in-wall front speakers in a custom enclosure Energy centre and rear surround speakers Energy 12-inch active sub-woofer Music Players

2 x HD music players Mobile Phones

4 x Windows Mobile 6.5 devices Video Conferencing

Polycom VSX-7000

FOR YOUR NEAREST DEALER:

Lighting

Australia: Call 1300 13 44 00 or visit www.biamp.com.au

Clipsal C-Bus controlled

New Zealand: Call 0800 111 450 or visit www.audioproducts.co.nz

048

FEATURE

Track Talk The 2010 Formula One season is in full swing, with one of the most sophisticated comms systems going around. Andy Ciddor backs his ’86 Laser into the pit lane and throws Bernie the keys.

Text & Images:/ Andy Ciddor Of all the staff and freelance writers on AV, I was the ideal choice to cover the Australian Formula One Grand Prix when Riedel invited us to see its handiwork at the event. It’s not as if I’m completely inexperienced with motor sports.

I have previously been to the Australian Grand Prix when Dad took my brother and I to stand on the grass beside the Albert Park track in the early ’60s to see some very loud cars whizz past.

I’m told that one of the blurs was Jack Brabham and that another was Stirling Moss. That first involvement with motor sport failed totally to usurp my interest in electronics and transform me into a petrol head. So much so, that at the time of this visit visit to the Grand Prix, I was still driving a 26-year-old Ford Laser, which I have finally given away on the exasperated advice of my mechanic.

While anyone else on the AV team may have been distracted by the shiny (and extraordinarily loud) F1 cars and the cream of the world’s racing drivers, I was much more interested in just how deeply embedded in F1 racing Riedel has become. Like most people in the industry, I couldn’t help being aware of its involvement in both wired and wireless communications, and talkback systems for such high profile events as the Beijing Olympics and the recent Papal tour. I was also aware of the increasing use of Riedel equipment for comms, and more recently the transport of audio and video signals for outside broadcast. What I wasn’t expecting was the extent of its involvement in the business of data and communications infrastructure for the travelling circus that is Formula One motor racing.

Riedel has long since accepted (as everybody inevitably must), that all data transmission is destined to become a stream of Internet Protocol packets – it is actually an IP datagram trucking company – and got on with building all its products from that standpoint. Once you take that decision, the infrastructure you install and manage can just as easily be handing VoIP, HTTPS, SAMBA, FTP, VPN or PPPoE as talkback, audio, SDI or digital trunked radio. As Riedel’s involvement with Formula

One Management (FOM) has deepened over the years, its data management, transport and distribution has become the infrastructure on which the entire event is based.

COMMS: TEAM EFFORT

At the most fundamental level, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) race controllers must have high priority direct communications with each participating team and its manager. Irrespective of the technology or supplier selected by each team for its internal communications, the FIA’s Artist S Ring includes a node and a panel at each team’s pitwall control centre which links into the team’s own comms system. This system also captures and records the audio link with the driver for use in broadcast coverage and race archives. The ‘Team Radio’ feeds used for the race broadcasts are also transported by this Artist network.

The ring includes the digital radio links to all FIA course officials, FIA service providers, the Mercedes-AMG medical car, and to Bernd Mayländer in the Mercedes-AMG safety car.

An additional backup analogue radio system also connects the FIA race officials, the safety car and the medical car.

Each participating team then has an independent comms system to link its team members in the pit, in the garage, at the pitwall control centre, around the track, the race car when it’s inside the garage, the various motorhomes that serve as offices and accommodation (the resemblance to a circus becomes clearer) and, increasingly, also with a comms panel back at the team’s factory. Much of this involves full-duplex interfaces to both analogue and TETRA (TErrestrial Trunked RAdio) handhelds. The link to the race car on the track is via a customised TETRA terminal that includes a high-noise environment driver microphone and an audio control box that incorporates switching from wired to wireless comms, volume control, and noise cancelling and volume adaptation processing. For the 2010 Formula One season, Riedel are providing these services to eight of the 10 teams.

FEATURE

049

Courtesy: Australian Grand Prix Corp

050

FEATURE

A pitwall control centre. Each team has a custom-built facility to allow engineers to monitor vehicle performance telemetry, race conditionsand tactics, and communicate with the driver, the pit mechanics, the garage and the factory, during a race.

The communications component of Riedel’s work on the current F1 Grand Prix tour involves the deployment of some 17 Artist S nodes and 26 Artist 32/64/128 nodes, about 210 intercom panels, seven digital partyline systems, each with approximately 20 beltpacks and 35 radio interfaces. There is also a TETRA base station and several repeaters feeding some 800 handheld terminals, two analogue repeater stations with several handheld units, and around 400 customised, high-noise environment Riedel Max headsets.

BROADCAST

Riedel’s Mediornet system, which incorporates real-time signal transport, signal routing and format conversion for SD and HD broadcast video, multi-channel audio, communications and data feeds – all over a single fibre pair – is an integral part of the broadcast system for the Formula One event. FOM’s ‘World Feed’ forms the basis for the television coverage that reaches almost every corner of the planet, making F1 racing one of the world’s most-watched sporting events (only eclipsed by the Football World Cup and Olympic Games). Mediornet provides

the links between the heavily-fortified FIA race control area and the equally-well-protected FOM broadcast compound.

DATA LINKS

It’s easy to understand how Riedel became involved in the data infrastructure of the Formula One event. It was already running a 10km fibre ring between all points on the track for communications, race control cameras and broadcast signals, and providing connections into the national telecommunications networks of the host country for links back to the various teams’ offices and factories. So it was only really a matter of doing a great deal more of the same to provide the total data and telecommunications networks for the event.

Riedel provides an event data network that carries information for the FIA document service, the FIA marshalling service and the FIA weather service, out to each of the teams. This includes reticulating and securely recording the feeds from the anti-tampering security cameras that monitor the secured parc fermé (literally: closed park) area where each race car is required to be stored once it has been checked by the FIA stewards.

One of the fleet of IP surveillance cameras used by FIA stewards for monitoring cars against tampering.

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Main fibre patch field. One of the two that leapfrog between race venues on the circuit.

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FEATURE

The gull-wing Mercedes-AMG safety car has a boot full of comms gear including both TETRA and analogue radio links to FIA race control. No room forthe golf clubs and a picnic hamper.

The event network connects to local telecommunications networks via a 155Mbps MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching) link. This enables carriage of a wide variety of data, including documents, engineering data, telemetry and communications links to the factories of the supported teams. It also carries the TV-over-IP feed for the German broadcaster RTL. LOGISTICS: KEEP THE MOTOR RUNNING

Under F1 manager Christian Bryll, a team of 10 Riedel technicians travel with the Formula One roadshow throughout the racing year, providing round-the-clock service to the supported teams, in addition to the services contracted to the FIA and FOM. With a requirement for 50 to 60 frequencies to be allocated at each event, Riedel has one person in its head office whose sole job is frequency management and allocation for Formula One. There are also

two network technicians who work in advance of the roadshow, supervising contractors to lay and test the fibre at the next track so that everything is in place awaiting the arrival of the thousands of shipping containers, trucks and motorhomes that descend on the venue 10 days before the race, then move out within 24 hours of the finish. To enable the infrastructure to be in place ahead of the arrival of the circus, there are duplicate sets of fibres, patchfields, media converters and routers that leapfrog ahead of the roadshow to allow sufficient time for installation and configuration of a stable network infrastructure.

My conducted tour of the Australian F1 Grand Prix has finally changed my opinion of motor racing. While it’s probably too late for me to become a petrol head like my rallydriving brother, I can at least appreciate the complexity of the technologies that hold motor racing together. 

“A team of 10 Riedel technicians travel with the Formula One roadshow throughout the racing year”

DIGITAL SIGNAGE Integrate 2010 presents a one-day conference: Digital Signage – The Power of Digital Networked Display.

Networked: Digital networked displays are one of the fastest growing sectors in AV – airports, shopping malls, the supermarket, real estate agent windows, pubs and clubs… they’re now a part of life. And the displays themselves are becoming bigger and/or more sophisticated: touchscreens, LCDs, outdoor screens, projectors, even holographic displays are now all employed to deliver the ever changing message.

Packaging the Message: The hardware might be affordable and in many cases ubiquitous, but packaging the targeted message to ensure it informs, directs, stimulates and inspires remains a considerable challenge.

What You’ll Learn: This class discusses the ‘human’ factors of a digital signage system. Explore sign placement, legibility and the effective use of sound combined with signage. Learn how to discuss and present networked and non-networked signage solutions to your clients with confidence. Digital signage applications, environments and physical aspects of sign placement are also discussed. Topics will range from simple signage systems to more elaborate solutions. Learn how signage solutions can be installed to maximise customer impact. This session includes an InfoComm Academy Digital Signage program and provides renewable units (RUs) toward InfoComm certification renewal.

Places are strictly limited so bookings are essential.

Email: seminars@integrate-expo.com or book online, go: www.integrate-expo.com and follow the links.

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

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056

REVIEW

Flipping into the Future Nobo Kapture Digital Flipchart Text:/ Tim Stackpool

Electronic whiteboards have long been common fare in meeting rooms. It just takes a few strokes of the Texta, some brainstorming and magically a print-out of the company’s future marketing strategy is ready for distribution. But what if the hotshot presenter insists on using the trusty old, technologicallychallenged flipchart? Most executive PAs will tell you the responsibility often lands in their lap to transcribe the notes, translate the scribble and hope in their hearts that the spirit of the discussion has been faithfully committed to legible type.

As you would expect, technology has come to the rescue. Acco Australia has introduced the Nobo Kapture Digital Flipchart, a conglomeration of existing technologies skilfully combined into an effective and surprisingly affordable solution.

DECEPTIVELY SIMPLE

At first look, the flipchart appears as ordinary as any other, but by using the ‘special’ pen, the words and diagrams written on the chart are faithfully reproduced onto a ‘paired’ computer screen: wirelessly and in real time. Then, any flipchart images subsequently saved to the PC can be stored and emailed as a PDF (Adobe’s Portable Document Format) file to the meeting participants. The way it works is quite clever, and the smarts are contained in the both the pen and the flipchart paper itself. The pen is about average size for a larger felt marker, but the underside of the instrument conceals a micro camera that ‘reads’ the flipchart paper.

It does so via an invisible dot pattern on the surface of the paper. Each dot pattern is unique

to the page, and each page is unique within the flipchart pad. There are three unique pads to choose from, giving a total of 180 combinations of individually identifiable pages.

When the camera in the pen detects the page, it immediately begins to transmit the drawing data via Bluetooth to the Nobo Kapture software on the PC, which proceeds to display the image on the screen. If the presenter changes the page (i.e. flips the chart to a clean page), the camera in the pen recognises this change due to the unique dot pattern on the page and launches a new virtual page on the PC. As the speaker flips back and forth within the pad, the software follows those moves by recognising the dots as pen is put to paper.

When the presentation is done, the image files can be automatically combined into a PDF via the inbuilt PDF maker, which then can be emailed as is, or pasted into any form of presentation that supports the PDF format. A JPEG option is also available.

BUTCHER’S PAPER WRIT LARGE

Some advantages of such a system are obvious, others not so much. For a presenter who loves giving presentations via a flipchart, this digital flipchart adds a new dimension to what might be considered a tired old method. In a large conference setting however, the technology really shines. That presenter’s tired old method can now be incorporated into IMAG (Image MAGnification) in a more savvy fashion, finally making flipcharts a reasonable communication tool for an enormous audience. Instead of merely shooting the flipchart with a video camera, the live output of the software can

be viewed on a big screen. No longer will the IMAG be obscured by the presenter writing on the flipchart. The dreaded ‘shoulder in shot’ or ‘back of head’ is finally avoided. Also, as many as four pens of different colours can be assigned to the one ‘display’, making breakout sessions more interesting as each team’s notes on their individual butcher’s paper page can be seen in real time on the big screen as they write.

A sophisticated guest speaker is going to have a field day with this, considering the ex GST entry level price of under $300 for a starter kit which includes the digital marker pen, the digital flipchart pad with 20 sheets, ink cartridge, USB receiver and software. For event producers and AV specialists, the office capture kit contains more of the same with a digital pen, a carry case and three pads of 60 sheets rather than just the one of 20 sheets, at less than $500 ex GST. The reseller prices are considerably less.

Putting the general wow-factor aside, the entire system is easy to use and is truly plug and play. The extra ‘hardware’ in the pen does not make the writing instrument any more cumbersome than using a regular jumbo marker, and there is no appreciable difference with the paper, weighted at 80gsm. Even the unique dot patterns on the pages that are key to the entire magic are invisible to the naked eye.

Using Bluetooth, there are no wires attached to the pen, or the flipchart, meaning the PC or laptop receiving the data can be up to ten metres from the presenter. It’s a portable, neat and tidy system, running on either Windows or Mac OSX 10.5. 

REVIEW

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IN DETAIL Nobo Kapture Starter Kit: Includes 1 digital marker pen, 1 digital flipchart (20 sheets) pad, 1 black ink cartridge, 1 USB receiver with software, set-up card for camera pen pairing and identification, and pen battery.

RRP $299 ex GST.

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Nobo Kapture Office Kit: Includes 1 digital marker pen, 3 digital flipchart (60 sheets each) pads, 6 ink cartridges, 1 USB receiver, pen carry case, set-up card for camera pen pairing and identification, and pen battery.

RRP $499 ex GST Consumables: Digital Flipchart Pads, pack of 3 with 60 sheets per pad, RRP $135 ex GST. Digital pen ink cartridges, pack of 6, assorted colours available, RRP $19.95 ex GST. Extra Digital Pen with micro camera and Bluetooth connectivity, RRP $99 ex GST, black ink cartridge included.

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REVIEW

Alcons Audio LR14 Line Array Alcons’ ribbon transducer-based line arrays are infiltrating the theatre market with considerable success. AV finds out what all the fuss is about.

Text:/ Christopher Holder

Ribbon transducers are perfect for line arrays. Even R&D teams not using them begrudgingly agree that ribbons are, technically speaking, the most natural candidates for turning your line array into a ‘line source’.

‘Line source’ is the tap-your-nose, thosein-the-know buzz term used to describe a line array that acts as a true line array throughout its entire frequency range. Anyone with a bit of know-how can put woofers and midrange drivers into a cabinet in such a way that they couple (act as one larger driver). For coupling to occur you need the drivers to be spaced half a wavelength apart of the highest frequency they’re reproducing. Like I say, that’s easy enough for low and mid frequencies, where the wavelengths are relatively long. But for high frequencies it’s a physical impossibility when you’re using conventional tweeters – you simply can’t jam them close enough together. This is why (line source progenitors) L-Acoustics’ hush-hush axehead-shaped waveguide was such a big deal when V-DOSC was released.

The unique geometry of the V-DOSC horn allowed all the sound of the tweeter to emerge as one phase-coherent cylindrical wavefront.

Bingo, if you can achieve this you’ve met the ‘line source’ criterion.

Ever since V-DOSC was unleashed, other manufacturers have tried to pull off something similar with their HF section. And, if you look at many line arrays, you’ll notice how the centre comprises a high frequency strip – either a column of tweeters or the exit slot of some sort of horn. In other words, it looks a lot like a ribbon driver.

So, regardless of any of a ribbon transducer’s other properties, its ability to be stacked and naturally produce a cylindrical (cheese wedge-shaped) wavefront (thus completing the line source picture) is pretty compelling and potentially saves R&D departments years buried inside CAD programs, wind tunnels and patent attorney waiting rooms.

But how do ribbons shape up in other respects? Thanks to their low weight, ribbons

are known for a fast transient response – they paint a very accurate sonic picture. Along the same lines, ribbons feature extremely low distortion (around one-tenth of the distortion you’ll get from most compression or dome drivers). Ribbons are also well known for their flat frequency response characteristics.

These are all good things, I’m sure you’d agree. So why doesn’t every manufacturer use ribbon transducers? Power handling is one issue – traditionally, ribbons simply couldn’t chuck out enough sound. And, traditionally they’re also fragile, which isn’t a good look when you’re on the road. Other issues include low efficiency and low impedance (more voltage is required to drive ribbons).

DUTCH TREAT

The first real encounter I had with Alcons Audio was at last year’s Integrate exhibition in Sydney. Alcons boss, Tom Back, was there along with Australian importer, Loud & Clear’s David Betteridge. Tom Back is Dutch and has a Dutch matter-of-factness that gels well with Aussie sensibilities. There’s none of the ‘unsurpassed, totally unique, yadda yadda’ marketing doubletalk out of Alcons and Tom, which is cool, because it helps you believe what does come out his mouth.

Tom started Alcons in 2002, and by basing the PA designs on a new ribbon transducer technology, Alcons is self-evidently taking a road less travelled. All the speakers, amps and processors are developed and manufactured in-house.

THEATRE TIME

My next close encounter with Alcons was at the Playhouse at Canberra Theatre. The Playhouse is typical of many theatres around the country in that the output is extremely varied: from Bell Shakespeare, to rock/pop concerts, to school musicals, to a grand piano recital with a microphone. An Alcons LCR system had been recently installed in this venue so I thought I’d drop by for a look and (more

The new LR7 is the micro addition to the Alcons line array family. With one 6.5-inch low/mid and a Pro Ribbon driver it’s 5dB down on its bigger brother, the LR14, but shares the same voicing and can squeeze into places most line arrays can only dream about.

importantly) a listen. The system comprises eight of the smaller LR14 line array modules above the proscenium. Each LR14 packs two 6.5-inch low/mids and a four-inch ribbon transducer. There are three LR14Bs, which are the double 12-inch subs that are arrayed above the centre-hung LR14s. Alcons VR12s (a passive box with a single 12-inch driver and a six-inch ribbon) make up the left and right hangs.

Alcons has made some significant inroads into the theatre market. For example, it’s no secret that the Sydney Theatre Company turns to an Alcons line array every time it has an amplified event. The Pro Ribbon transducers’ flat frequency response is especially good for lavalier mics, which are notorious for revealing any peaks in a sound system’s response, as you generally have to push them quite hard. The result is a very natural voice reproduction, without any whacky carving out of frequencies on the console or graphic EQs. I won’t pretend to have a profound appreciation of what the Alcons line array is capable of after an hour or two in the Playhouse Theatre, but a few things were obvious. Listening to the LR14 array is a different experience. There’s an easy, relaxed nature to the sound. I’m not saying they’re not loud when they need to be, I just think the nimbleness of the Pro Ribbon drivers, their ability to handle peaks without compression, and the evenness of the horizontal dispersion [see The Ribbon Effect box item] means there’s a greater overall comfort to the sound quality. To be more clichéd, I guess I’m saying the LR14 sounds more ‘hi-fi’. The theatre’s Audio Manager, Gregor Murray, had a similar thing to say when describing his shootout experiences: “To my ears, Alcons seem to have a finesse that most of the other boxes didn’t have, particularly in the HF region. And to put on a DPA bud mic and close your eyes… are you hearing that person or are you hearing the boxes? And that’s what it came down to; the Alcons PA simply melted away.”

REVIEW

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FEATURE

“There’s no getting around the fact that Alcons is currently a minnow in the global PA market. But there’s also no doubt that it’s onto something.”

The Playhouse at the Canberra Theatre with its Alcons install. Doing most of the work is the centre hang, above the proscenium, which comprises six LR14s along with three LR14B companion subs.

FULL MONTY

THE RIBBON EFFECT

There’s no getting around the fact that Alcons is currently a minnow in the global PA market. But there’s also no doubt that it’s onto something.

It’d be a mistake to pigeonhole Alcons as a theatre specialist. There are a good number of rental companies in Europe and elsewhere that have thrown their lot in with Alcons. And for the Dutch company’s part, it’s designed all the rigging widgets/scrodgets required to keep its gear out on the road and quickly in the air when required.

Alcons also has its own brand of Class-G, big-arse toroidal amps. I’m not sure why I find this so reassuring, but I do. If it’s an install that we’re talking about, then it means Alcons can match the amps precisely to your needs with the right I/O and DSP cards. But it also means Alcons cares, and it’s searched long and hard for the right amp design to match the fairly unusual demands of its ribbon transducers.

Moreover, for a fledgling manufacturer, the range is broad enough to assemble an Alcons inventory that will cater to just about any job.

Anything from a pole-mounted mini array on a sub, to a genuine belter for a big live event.

Alcons is a class act, with a very classy sounding PA. 

As an out-and-out ribbon specialist, Alcons’ mediumto-large PA products are all based on its RBN Series ‘pro ribbon’ drivers. Leading the charge is the monster RBN1801 18-inch ribbon, which offers more power handling, pretty darn good efficiency (108dB – 1kHz @1m), an operating range of 1kHz – 20kHz (±3dB), and a hefty maximum SPL of 145dB. The RMS power handling of the RBN1801 is a creditable 210W. But unlike a compression driver where peak handling would be around double that figure, a ribbon driver’s characteristics are very different. In the case of the 1801 the peak handling is a whopping 3000W. As you can imagine, this makes for a very different performance when reproducing live music, especially music with a big dynamic range such as orchestral.

As for how robust these drivers are? Alcons has been around long enough and has enough of its gear in the market to have that box ticked.

There are a bunch of other RBN Series pro-ribbon transducers with a variety of waveguides ranging from 90°x40° through to 120°x3° pattern.

Alcons' monster 1801 Pro Ribbon puts paid to any residual concerns about ribbon transducers not offering enough grunt. The RBN1801 sports a frequency range of 1kHz to 20kHz, and chucks out a hefty maximum SPL of 145dB.

CONTACT Loud & Clear Audio Phone: (02) 9439 9723 Email: db@loudandclear.com.au www.loudandclear.com.au or www.alconsaudio.com

060

REVIEW

Revolabs Executive HD A very different take on conferencing microphones.

Text:/ Graeme Hague

Almost every issue of AV we look at some kind of latest, state-of-the-art boardroom or conference installation and a common theme in all these projects is the need to cover all the bases – have a system in place that will cater for every eventuality. Unfortunately, those best-laid plans can go awry when management people have silly ideas that take them away from that carefully designed AV system; the chairman who decides this month’s board meeting would be nice to have in banana lounges on a sunny balcony, perhaps.

For more flexibility in these situations Revolabs has developed a radio microphone system with multiple channels and a choice of discreet, matching microphones to suit any occasion. While the idea of using radio mics isn’t so new or innovative, Revo has streamlined a wireless system design that’s specifically for conference use.

PAIRING OFF

The Revolabs Executive HD Wireless System comes in two types of base stations, a fourchannel and an eight-channel model. Neither has any microphones included – you buy these separately according to your needs. However, the bases stations do come with a matching charger station that also acts as a permanent holder for your microphones – being connected long-term to the charger isn’t a problem – and there’s a USB connector on the charger for updating the microphone’s firmware and provides a facility for Express Pairing.

Before we go further I’ll clarify this concept of ‘pairing’. Borrowed from the world of Bluetooth devices it’s a term to describe the process of associating a particular microphone with the desired channel on the base station. The Executive HD systems aren’t in any way preconfigured with certain types of microphones

hard-wired to permanent channels. Anything can go anywhere and assigning microphones to inputs is called pairing.

FACTORY WARRANTY ROADSIDE ASSIST

Straight out of the box, aside from network capabilities and some global settings, which I’ll explain below, when it comes to actual signal processing the base stations are little more than multi-channel radio receivers with miniPhoenix connections on the rear, amounting to balanced outputs and inputs for each channel.

Some type of mixing or signal processing device console is a must for EQing or inserting signal modifiers just like any run-of-the-mill radio microphone. A software package provides a GUI that displays the microphone status – such as On, Off or Charging – its type (omni, lapel, etc), the firmware version and battery condition. This is in Standard mode, but there is ‘Gold’ mode that’s tied in with an extended service plan that also frees up a few extra greyed-out DSP functions in the HD Control Panel. The service plan offers replacements for any faulty items and extended warranty – including batteries and more –within the agreed period. Services plans are always worth considering, but to be honest, those DSP functions are nothing to get excited about.

There’s a rudimentary gain control and extra microphone muting and locking functions.

Really, they’re the kind of things that could be made available anyway and Revolabs should let the Gold service plan option stand on its own as a completely separate consideration.

HI-DEF OR MAX-DENSE

The global settings in the GUI are divided in two sections. One determines what type of external controller you might have and includes choices like Biamp Audia or Nexia,

a couple of Clear-One units and a generic ‘Control System’. Once any of these are selected, other parameters for flow control, speed and selecting either an RS232 or network connection become available. On the Revolab Executive HD, you can decide between High Definition or Max Density audio. The HD mode gives users a full 50Hz20kHz frequency range and the Max Density reduces the upper figure only, offering 50Hz12kHz and effectively allowing more mics to operate in the vicinity, with up to 32 in HD mode, 40 in Max density mode. The Revolab base stations can be interconnected using a synchronisation (bus) cable, again with miniPhoenix connectors, and, by properly selecting DIP switches on the rear, denoting the unit as either primary or secondary (or slave). Local conditions, including surrounding electronics and other radio devices, will determine at what point, as you add more base stations, you’ll need to try the Max Density mode to squeeze in some more channels.

Conversely, you can reduce the transmitting power of the Revolabs Executive HD from seven (highest) down to zero in the rare event of encountering interference in nearby equipment caused by the microphones or, a more likely scenario, you wish to use multiple Revolabs systems in the same building without any risk of interference. There is also a lowpass filter and a front panel lock – the front panel buttons and LCD readout allows you access to the global settings, a choice of DHCP or Fixed IP and finally a Tabletop Mute mode that forces all operating tabletop microphone models to obey the mute button of any and each mic. That sounds like a dangerous recipe for board members to squabble over who mutes who.

There are three different types of

REVIEW

FEATURE

061

The Revolabs Executive HD Wireless System is built on a four-channel or an eight-channel base station. From there you purchase the microphones and accessories separately. There are three different types of mics plus two adapters. An omni-directional and directional microphone are the two ‘tabletop’ boundary models and there’s a lapel model.

microphones plus two adapters, all built on top of the same transmitter device. An omnidirectional and directional microphone are the two ‘tabletop’ boundary models and there’s a lapel model. One adapter is designed as a straightforward conversion for a normal microphone like a Shure SM58 and the second adapter is for Countryman headsets.

Pairing any of these to a particular channel entails holding the microphone’s mute button for 10 seconds to power-down, pressing it again for another seven seconds to enter pairing mode then holding the base station’s channel button for seven seconds to establish a link ‑ a slightly convoluted process ‑ but for most users, pairing is a one-time affair, performed during commissioning.

ALL DECT OUT

There is no particular channel or frequency allocated to a microphone as this is a DECT-based (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) system that uses a combination of FDMA (Frequency Domain Multiple Access) and TDMA (Time Domain Multiple Access) to find an available timeslot or channel pair, performs a handshake with the transmitter and then makes the hop to this slot – a process that happens several times per second. Because these are digital signals, RF dropouts don’t mean the end of the world, as signal buffering allows error correction before output.

If you do have any problems, each microphone has a multi-coloured, flashing LED that, depending on the colour and frequency of the blinking, is giving you one of 11 status messages. Well done, if you can memorise all these, although the Off ‘status’ (no flashing at all) is pretty easy to figure out.

The microphones are very similar in size

and as an example the omnidirectional unit is square-shaped, 15mm thick, 20mm wide and 90mm long – not much bigger than a disposable cigarette lighter (it’s the best comparison I could think of, sorry). In common with all microphone types is a socket on the bottom for marrying with the charger station and a 2.5mm audio socket for connecting a provided earpiece, primarily with the lapel model in mind. It’s a handy addition and explains the audio inputs on the channels. The system is full-duplex and with the proper signal routing from your mixer, a presenter could be fed some kind of program, for example a realtime translation of an audience question, into the earpiece as the lapel still does its job. With thought, some applications for the tabletop boundary mics might be found, too including hearing assistance devices.

TABLE MENU

Testing the two tabletop microphones revealed both of them as very sensitive; clear with a good tone and well capable of covering a large area. In fact, the sensitivity was too good in one way, since the noise rejection of the directional microphone could have been better. Not surprisingly, noise handling of both was a bit alarming, too. What immediately concerned me most was the vulnerability of the microphones, not so much to being damaged, but to being overlooked on a busy office desk or conference table and constantly knocked, buried or sent flying and ruining the reproduced audio.

Looking for trouble, I tried to pair a microphone with a channel already taken by another unit. It (eventually) linked up without a hitch and the previously-paired microphone displayed a complicated LED message that it couldn’t establish a connection or was out of range – or perhaps it was flagging down a

passing UFO, Close Encounters of the Third Kind style. Then I discovered the microphone mute buttons no longer worked on any of the mics. They changed the status of the LEDs which, flashing red, said the microphones were muted – but they weren’t. I’ll give Revolabs the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a demonstration version/early firmware hiccup.

Otherwise, for all the mute buttons to fail is just plain odd to explain.

EXECUTIVE SWEET?

Finally, I’m struggling with where exactly the Revolabs Executive HD belongs. I realise it’s a wireless microphone system, but touted as a conference room-style device, it lacks a more well-featured, complex GUI with some serious DSP grunt to provide set-and-forget operations and presets in an office environment with clients who will be lacking audio skills. An obvious answer would be to use the Executive HD systems in conjunction with a DSP mixer which does provides all the automatic microphone mixing, EQ, acoustic echo cancellation, etc, that you’ll need.

Despite my whingeing, I’m impressed with the foresight and vision of Revolabs to come up with these systems; the compact low-profile microphones and eight fully assignable receivers in a single 19-inch rackmount unit. I expect that with a few firmware updates and some GUI redesign they’ll iron out the kinks.  Audio Products Group: 1300 134400 or www.audioproducts.com.au HD Executive 8 Channel receiver: $9699.00 inc GST AU $12499.00 incGST NZ Microphones (all types are the same price): $649.00 inc GSTAU $845.00 inc GST NZ

062

TUTORIAL

The Audio Coverage Uniformity Standard What does it all mean?

Text/: Peter Swanson, CTS

For those of you who haven’t been bombarded by the mass media onslaught that is the InfoComm marketing machine, the first joint standard for InfoComm and ANSI was released in 2009. ANSI/ INFOCOMM 1M:2009 Audio Coverage Uniformity is a performance standard that identifies the requirements for performance of loudspeaker systems from the perspective of uniformity across a nominated coverage area.

Those with an eye for detail will already have realised that you can achieve ACU compliance and still have poor intelligibility or a dodgy frequency response. Rome wasn’t built in a day and nor is a comprehensive suite of standards! ACU represents the first step along the path to a powerful set of standards to help us all guide the process of design, installation and commissioning of systems.

And, let’s be honest, many of us are unused to the process of understanding, adhering to and demonstrating compliance with installation standards. This is a great opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the standards process that is common in so many other areas of engineering.

So, let’s focus on what ACU means to our industry and how it can be of benefit to end users, designers and integrators.

As with any standard, one of the immediate benefits is, er… standardising what is delivered on a typical project.

RAISING STANDARDS

Having a standard methodology helps at each stage of the process. For initial project discussions, it helps to set the scene – do you want your system to comply with international standards? If so, we need to expend appropriate budget on loudspeakers and amplifiers. If not, be prepared for a lower quality of performance.

We’ve all had that conversation, but having a standard to back you up lends a little more weight than just saying “because I told you so and I’m an expert”.

The standard itself is very much not a ‘design guide’. It doesn’t tell you to use ceiling speakers, line arrays, horns or clusters – you can still maintain your unique design approach and work with the architect’s aesthetic.

What it does do is call upon the integrator to complete a series of well defined measurements in order to demonstrate either ‘Conformance’, ‘Partial Conformance’ or ‘Non-Conformance’ with the standard.

In a nutshell, the standard says “In order to comply, you must have no more than 6dB of level variation across all measurement locations, in each of 6 ISO octave bands.”

For the record, the bands nominated are 250Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, 2000Hz, 4000Hz and 8000Hz. For applications where a wider frequency response is required, you can also extend with an additional two bands – 125Hz and 16000Hz. One of the areas of weakness in our industry is a lack of clearly identified expectations of what an integrator should present at handover. How do you demonstrate that the system has been effectively commissioned to meet the parameters defined by the client or the consultant? This is not a question that should be asked on every project, for every component – there should be standard methodologies in place. Now, for at least one element, there is.

I have already heard feedback from some leading members of the US AV industry on how positively use of ACU can impact on the handover process. It’s no guarantee of a perfect outcome, but going through the process does help!

But, how long does it take? Anecdotally, you are probably looking at 1 hour of measurement planning for a 1,000 seat hall and another 2-3 hours of measurement and documentation. In the context of such a project, this is a minimal overhead. The best way is to try it yourself – why not get a copy of the standard from the link to the

ANSI online store via www.infocomm.org/ standards and see how long it takes on your next project?

REACHING YOUR OWN STANDARDS

Now, for the consultants out there: a word of warning. If you call on the contractor to conform with ACU, you are effectively calling on them to test your design. I strongly recommend making sure you have verified your design through calculation or modelling prior to tender! The same as designing to achieve a certain Speech Transmission Index (STI) should increase the rigour of your design process, you will now need to make sure that the speakers you are selecting and placing will be capable of achieving ACU requirements.

Having said at the start of the article that ACU can’t guarantee good intelligibility or a uniform frequency response, it may actually be more help than you might first think. I am of course assuming that you’ve invested in a reasonable digital signal processor for your system and that your amplifiers are of a good professional standard. I’m not going to try and solve all the possible problems of the audio design world here, but I would suggest that more than an average number of issues stem from lack of consideration of uniformity of coverage. Therefore, if you get the coverage right it will help in getting you a baseline from which to achieve your goals for intelligibility and frequency response.

For those of you that made it to the last paragraph of another standards article without falling asleep, congratulations! I hope you feel suitably inspired to go and try out ACU as another weapon in your armoury for creating great projects for your clients. If you’re really excited (or you’ve had too many double espressos this morning), don’t forget that you too can get involved in international standards development – just send an email to standards@infocomm.org indicating your areas of focus/interest. 

TUTORIAL

063

FEATURE

“If you call on the contractor to conform with ACU, you are effectively calling on them to test your design�

20 PERSON CONFERENCE ROOM The example assumes a distributed ceiling loudspeaker system on a 2.4m grid and ceiling height of 2.7m. With listener ear height at 1.2m, this gives a minimum grid of 1.5m (listener ear to loudspeaker above). The example also shows the use of separate coverage areas so that measurements are taken only where they are needed.

8 PERSON CONFERENCE ROOM The example again assumes a distributed ceiling loudspeaker system on 2.4m grid and ceiling height of 2.7m. With listener height at 1.2m, this gives a minimum grid of 1.5m (listener ear to loudspeaker above).

BOARDROOM CLASSROOM The example assumes a distributed ceiling loudspeaker system on 2.4m grid and ceiling height of 2.7m. With listener ear height at 1.2m, this gives a minimum grid of 1.5m (listener ear to loudspeaker above). The example also shows the approach where the distance between perimeter grid points is less than 2 x grid dimension. A suggested optional centre measurement is shown in blue.

Measurement Point Perimeter of Coverage Area

064

NEWS

REVIEW

InfoComm News News from the Asia Pacific Region.

INTEGRATE & INFOCOMM SIGN CO-OPERATIVE AGREEMENT Just in case you missed the announcement and haven’t seen the story elsewhere in this magazine, InfoComm International and Alchemedia Events, producers of Integrate, have signed a threeyear exclusive co-operative agreement for Integrate 2011-2013.

See full story in the news pages of this issue.

INFOCOMM EXPANDS PRESENCE IN ASIA PACIFIC Elicia Kimberly Chan joined InfoComm early May 2010 as the Asia Pacific program co-ordinator. Elicia will provide admin support for our Asian and Oceania offices, improving customer service for our members throughout the region.

We would also like to thank Peter Swanson (CTS) of WSP Lincolne Scott for travelling to the US to attend the InfoComm 100, a conference designed to bring together top AV industry thought leaders and volunteers. The purpose of the meeting is to engage AV industry leaders and others in a dialogue on the upcoming changes presented by the dynamics of culture, economics, society, and technological changes to explore leadership approaches to change and new business processes. To view a recording of the proceedings please visit www.infocomm.org/infocomm100 FUTURE DATES InfoComm International Expo, Las Vegas, USA • Education Starts Saturday 5th June

WOMEN IN AV AWARDS Each year, Infocomm International recognises outstanding contributions to our Industry by Women. In 2010, Laureen Jones (CTS) of Victoria University of Wellington, has been recognised with a Women in AV Award for demonstrating leadership and outstanding achievement. Congratulations to Laureen on her achievement. Further details on the Awards can be found on the InfoComm website www.infocomm.org AV WEEK: 18TH – 22ND OCTOBER AV Week is an International celebration of the AV Industry. It’s our industry’s public relations campaign to the ‘Outside World’.

Infocomm has developed many tools to help you promote your business to stakeholders and customers alike. Why not take a look and get involved. Go to www.infocomm.org/avweek for more details.

EDUBUCKS InfoComm members receive Edubucks each year to reduce the cost of staff attending InfoComm Academy courses. 100% of the cost of an InfoComm Academy online class can be paid for using Edubucks, and 50% of the cost of our new Virtual Classroom courses can be paid using Edubucks. Many of our members have unspent Edubucks in their accounts, to find out how many Edubucks you have available please contact Jonathan Seller (CTS) using the details below.

CTS, CTS-I, CTS-D RENEWAL UNITS (RU’s) AV industry professionals holding either the CTS, CTS-I or CTS-D credential must renew every three years. To do this, certified individuals must attain 30 RU’s in the three-year period. These can be earned by participating in most InfoComm Academy Classes or by attending one of the many Approved Manufacturer Training programs held throughout the year. Next time you attend a Manufacturer Training program don’t forget to ask if this program has RU’s. To see the complete list of courses that offer RU’s go to the InfoComm Certification Webpage and download the list www.infocomm.org/certification ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Tony Ebonia (CTS-D) of University of Technology Sydney and Alec Graham (CTS-I) of DRM Audiovisual for taking the time to travel to the United States on behalf of local InfoComm members and the AV industry to contribute to our recent Certification Item writing summit. Their contributions, along with many others, assist InfoComm to maintain the truly international status of our certification program.

• Show Wednesday 9th to Friday 11th June • International Reception Wednesday 9th June 5:30pm.

Concurrent InfoComm Academy Virtual Classroom Courses • GEN109 Essentials of AV Technology • GEN113 CTS Prep • Registration by Tuesday 29th June • Orientation Monday 5th July • Class starts Tuesday 6th July • Members A$600+GST, 50% Edubucks InfoComm Academy @ Integrate • Super Tuesday Program, Tuesday 24th August • InfoComm Networking Function, Tuesday 24th Last Hour of the Show at the InfoComm Booth, RHI. All are Welcome.

• VID214 Video Conference Workshop*, Wednesday 25th August • DGS214 Digital Signage Workshop*, Thursday 26th August. * delivered as a part of the Integrate Conference program.

Architect Lunch and Tours • Melbourne 14th September • Sydney 6th October InfoComm Academy Day and Roundtable Meetings • Melbourne 28th September • Sydney 7th October AV Week • International Celebration, 18th – 22nd October, 2010.

InfoComm Asia Expo • Hong Kong, 17th – 19th November, 2010 For further Information on any of the above please contact Jonathan Seller, CTS, InfoComm International Regional Director at oceania@infocomm.org or look on the regional web page www. infocomm.org/asia-pacific

TUTORIAL

065

FEATURE

Networking Essentials Basic networking, Ethernet connectivity, terminology and typical network requirements.

The following excerpt is from the new and updated InfoComm course Essentials of AV Technology which is available as a selfstudy online course or as an instructor-led Virtual Classroom experience. This course is a comprehensive, introductory overview of science and technology for audio, visual and audiovisual systems integration. Content from this course is the basis for the InfoCommRecognized AV Technologist Test. Learn more about this exciting new education certificate program at www.infocomm.org/avtechnologist.

The first GEN109 Essentials Virtual Classroom debuted in Australia last month.

NETWORKING ESSENTIALS

More and more AV devices require a network connection to be controlled, communicate, share data, stream audio and video, and for help desk applications. Understanding networking basics will help you discuss an AV device’s inclusion on a network with the appropriate IT staff.

The lessons that follow review basic networking, Ethernet connectivity, terminology and typical network requirements.

What is a Network?

Define a network.

In general terms, a network is a group or system of things that are interconnected. There are examples of networks all around you. A network can be informally connected, like your friends or professional colleagues are, or formally connected, like a network of television stations or computers.

In the IT communications industry, a network is a group of devices connected in a manner that allows communication among devices. Networks are categorised by the area they cover, or their scale. To understand and talk to others about networks, you will need to be able to use the basic vocabulary of the IT networking professional. Just as the AV industry has acronyms and common terms, the IT industry uses many widely recognized acronyms and terms. Here are a few of the most common area networks: LAN (Local Area Network)

A LAN connects devices within a confined geographical area, such as a building or living complex. A LAN is typically used to network devices over a short distance and generally owned or controlled by the end user.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

A WAN covers a wide geographic area, such

A communications network that covers a geographic area, such as a suburb or city.

common in home networks. If one computer fails, for example, it is easy to switch the role of that computer to another one. If a printer, for example, is added to the hub, all of the other computers on the star network will be able to access it through the hub.

SAN (Storage Area Network)

Bus Topology

as a state or country. The Internet is the largest WAN: It covers the earth. LANs are connected to a WAN through the use of a router, which you will learn about in an upcoming lesson.

WLAN

A WLAN is a wireless local area network.

OTHER NETWORKS MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)

A SAN is a high-speed special-purpose network (or subnetwork) that interconnects different kinds of data storage devices.

VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network or Virtual LAN)

A VLAN is created when network devices on separate LAN segments are joined together to form a logical group, thereby spanning the logical LANs to which they are connected.

PAN (Personal Area Network)

A PAN is a limited range wireless network that serves a single person or small workgroup. A Bluetooth network is an example of a PAN. So, a network can be as small as two computers that are connected, or as large as the Internet, which spans the world. A LAN can be part of a WAN, or there can be multiple LANs on a WAN. The way the physical connections are made to accomplish the communication between the devices in these area networks is called network topology. Physical network topology describes the general shape of the network when it is connected; it’s the configuration of the parts.

Logical network topology describes the way the information flows through the network.

Star, Bus & Ring Topology

Describe three types of networks: star, bus and ring.

The physical connections that are made in area networks are called network topologies.

There are several common types of network topologies: star, bus, and ring. The topology determines how each individual device on a network will be arranged and connected.

Star Topology

In a star topology, all of the devices are connected to a central point that may be a hub, a switch or a router (discussed in more detail later). Hubs, switches and routers have multiple connection capability. The star topology is

In a bus network, all devices are connected to each other through a single cable. This type of network can be used for controlling light fixtures, for example, or many other types of control systems. As with other network types, each device is identified by a unique number. This number is either set by software or by a mechanical switch.

Ring Topology

Similar to a bus network, ring networks connect devices one after another in sequence with the biggest difference being that the ends of the network are then connected together to form a continuous loop or ring. Information can flow around the loop or ring and if there is a break in the line, the information will still flow because redundant paths can be created.

Ring networks are used by telecommunication utilities for phone, and WAN Internet services use a “mesh” ring topology, or configuration, to create redundancy.  About InfoComm: InfoComm International is the international trade association of the professional audiovisual and information communications industries. Established in 1939, InfoComm has 5000 members from more than 70 countries. Its training and education programs, along with its separately administered Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) and corporately administered Certified Audiovisual Solutions Provider (CAVSP) company credentials, set a standard of excellence for AV professionals. Its basic general knowledge course ‘Quick Start to the AV Industry’ is available free of charge from its website at www.infocomm.org

066

Termination AV gets licked in scaff pole-vaulting.

Text:/ Graeme Hague

Gather round the campfire for a tale from long ago; from an era when video projectors had just crawled onto dry land from the boggy swamps of the R&D department. Back when the giant-sized projectors ruled the landscape, with brains the size of an egg; lumbering and bellowingly loud. Settle in as I crank up the rocking chair, duff my pipe and relate a story of amazing derring-do; of a technician courageously going above and beyond the call of duty; putting his life on the line, just so the show could go on.

The occasion was the North Queensland Games and the location was, not surprisingly, a north Queensland city which will remain anonymous in case someone there decides to sue like a wounded bull. And, by saying ‘games’, I mean the athletic kind, with competitors throwing sticks and hammers, jumping into sandpits and running in circles – the sort of thing the government supports with ‘institutes’ costing millions of dollars so every four years we can cheer on people in swimming togs.

FLIPPING MENTAL

The main feature of the opening ceremony – for which we were spreading a network of timedelayed speakers around the oval – was to be several hundred children flipping coloured cards above their head, vaguely in sync to music. It’s the sort of thing Chinese children can do in their bassinets, but without the threat of 30 lashes and deportation to Tibet, Aussie ‘tin lids’ were finding the drill a real challenge.

But a couple of bad pixels in the synchronised card flipping was the least of the organisers’ problems. Plans started to go astray when the local council, only days before the event, condemned the only grandstand as too rickety to support a full house and banned its use completely. Suddenly no one was going to be seated high enough to witness the card-holding kids and the answer was to get all hands on deck in the construction of makeshift scaffold seating, including poaching any audio crew

who paused even for a second to scratch an itch or suck on a Lan-Choo. Scaffolding was desperately sourced from everywhere, including stocks that clearly hadn’t been used in years.

The running joke among everyone was to ask: “Have you got a ticket for this?”, referring to a scaffolder’s license. We put up tonnes of temporary seating and I doubt anybody actually had the appropriate qualifications, possibly making the whole thing more dangerous than the original dubious grandstand we were trying to replace.

GAMES OVER?

There was another poorly-timed joke. It was Easter – usually a safe dry-weather bet, even in Queensland – and one of the games organisers was a woman renowned for her strong Christian beliefs; beliefs she regularly promoted on local radio. One of the production crew with an evil glint in his eye explained to her that Easter was actually a derivation of ‘Ester Fair’, a pagan ritual where whole villages shagged each other for days and chocolate was only used melted in various forms of foreplay. She wasn’t amused.

Apparently neither was God, who must have been listening, because He decided to make it rain – in fact, it bucketed down in biblical proportions. Then just as everyone figured it was ‘games over’, the deluge stopped, leaving us in bright sunshine as if nothing had happened – except we were all soaking wet, steaming and standing knee-deep in mud. More importantly, almost every cable was lying either in or under water. Nothing worked and suddenly time was seriously against us.

Before anyone attempted to pump any kind of electronic signal through the system, frantic attempts were made to isolate the more problematic areas. Work was punctuated by blasts of spectacular, loud buzzing. I watched a bunch of guys madly re-patching the mixing desk trying to find a clean line, while at the other end of the multicore another crew just as crazily tried re-patching the amplifier racks. One can

only imagine what might have been achieved had they co-ordinated their efforts. Without a doubt, they only succeeded in re-patching each other’s problems back into the system. That damned buzz would not go away.

COMETH THE HOUR

One chap did think outside the box. The AV hero of this story – let’s call him Mick, given that’s his name – had figured the buzz was coming from massive earthing problems thanks to the wet environment, and what had to done first above all else was get one, solid earth for the system.

I found Mick in the middle of the oval underneath the main stage, which was elevated by about three metres and supported by still more dodgy scaffolding. Mick had a sledge hammer in one hand and he was licking – yes, licking – the uprights of the steel supports. Periodically, looking dazed and a little cross-eyed, he’d bash the scaffolding with his hammer.

No drugs were involved. You see, Mick was testing whether that part of the staging was lacking in a good earth caused by heavy rust insulating where the older scaffolding locked together. By licking the steel, he was getting a fair old boot each time he found a section improperly earthed. Pounding the structure afterwards was dislodging the rust, fixing it. He reckoned that at times he was getting ‘about 40 Volts’, but it was hard to tell – his tongue was going numb.

That’s dedication for you.

Eventually the show did go on. A single microphone scratchily announced the games ‘officially open’. That said, no one was there.

The kids were cancelled due to the rain, so thousands of parents and relatives didn’t turn up either. It was all rather an anti-climax.

The only person who did get a – I have to say it – buzz out of the whole thing was Mick. Drug free and one lick at a time.

Got your own tale of derring-do? Contact AV Editor Andy Ciddor. 

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