AVPRO SYSTEMS UPGRADE MULTI-NATIONAL’S JOZI AUDITORIUM

EDGE-BLENDING IN EGOLI

In December 2012 AVPRO Systems won the contract to upgrade the AV set-up of an auditorium at the multi-national corporation's offices in central Johannesburg.

According to Phillip Otto, project manager on the installation, the client had a number of reasons to upgrade the auditorium. Firstly, they wanted to upgrade from Standard Definition to High Definition in order to align with the technical standards of their London office. Secondly, the existing teleconference system was out of date, with equipment that has not been supported for over five years. Thirdly, the current analogue system was technologically out of date.

Phillip said "The client had a relatively advanced auditorium, but needed that edge when it came to their bigger events. We believed installing Crestron Digital Media and Kramer digital equipment would certainly give them that".

Phillip's team had been looking forward to the challenge since the multi-national approached them in the year before. "Our first challenge was the massive amount of redundant cabling that had to be removed," said Phillip.

The next challenge was the setting up of the three 6000 lumens projectors on a curved wall with edge-blending and some geometrical correction. Apart from optimising the positions of the projectors, we had to make sure they were physically 100% secure, "Our client was really serious about safety, especially in the corporate environment," added Phillip.

Abrie du Plooy – Product Manager for GALAXY and NEC at Electrosonic SA – who assisted with the installation, admits to being challenged when he discovered all the intricacies posed by edge-blending and geometrical correction. Once installation was complete, the GALAXY PRO Video wall processor had to be matched to the total viewing area now covered by the three projectors.

"It took a bit of thinking and along with rusty mathematics we carefully designed the display area on the GALAXY PRO to match the viewing area on the screens," said Abrie. Thanks to the GALAXY Wall Control Software, and after a trial run or two, the said design functioned flawlessly. However, the real challenge was yet to come.

Abrie explains what Edge-Blending is: "It simply means to overlap either side of each adjacent projected image and thus create a flowing image without any visible edges or lines from the individual images". To achieve this, one has to sacrifice pixels from either image by moving them over one another in order to form a smooth transition from the one image to the next, and the more pixels used, the smoother the transition. "It was recommended that we use as much as 20% of each display for the overlap section," adds Abrie.

On a Full HD image (1920x1080), 20% horizontal edge blending, amounts to almost 400 pixels (200 either side), which would turn a 16:9 screen ratio into a very unusual ratio of 8:9. Something that would ruin any input that one tries to display on the screen. However, the GALAXY gives operators the freedom of treating the entire edge-blended area as one big display, and with the functionality in the software that allows one to create an image of any size and shape, anywhere on the display, the screen ratio was no problem at all.

The GALAXY PRO Video Wall controller, with the Wall-Control software package, handled all the relevant inputs in their correct screen ratio across the wall. The system is also designed to only use areas displayed on any one or two of the three projectors at a time, in case one of them would go faulty. This, combined with the redundancy already built into the GALAXY in the form of dual-power supply and a dual RAID-1 hard drive set (both hot-swappable), makes it a very redundant, mission critical system.

Phillip says the clients are satisfied with the huge benefits the upgraded system offers: apart from utilising the latest technology on the market, the new camera system can be operated without a camera operator, with resultant savings. HD means better quality and better projector images. The new system requires less control room equipment "We reduced it from three equipment racks to only one rack", said Phillip "And less equipment means fewer faults".

State of the art AV? Fewer faults? Cost-savings?

Now those are benefits even multi-nationals love.

 

BILL OF MATERIALS

Display System

• 6000 ANSI Lumens Projectors
• Custom Ceiling Mount Brackets
• Custom Built Curved Frame Screen
• HD DVD Players
• Crestron Dimming
• VersaLight White LED Light
• VersaLight SMD Power Supply

Camera System

• Integrated HD Cameras
• Camera Controller
• Network Switch

Video Conferencing

• HD Video Conferencing System

Audio Conferencing

• Audio Matrix
• Dual Telephone Hybrid

Digital Media

• Crestron Digital Media Switcher
• Crestron DM 8G+TM Input Card
• Crestron CAT 5 Input Card
• Crestron DM Input Card
• Crestron DM Input Card
• Crestron DVI/RGB Input Card
• Crestron SDI Input Card
• Kramer Automatic Switcher
• Kramer HD Video Matrix

Output Cards

• Crestron HDMI Output Cards
• Crestron 8G HDMI Output Card

Transmitters

• Crestron 8G DM Wall Boxes
• Crestron 8G Twisted Pair TR
• Crestron Media Input
• Crestron DM CAT Transmitter

Receivers

• Crestron DM Room Controller

AVPRO AT A GLANCE

AVPRO Audio Visual Systems Consultants was established in 1990 by managing member Dries Nel and has a staff of nine. He says: "We are turnkey integrators of audio visual solutions for boardrooms, auditoriums and video conferencing". Dries has a simple philosophy: "AVPRO will respect the individual needs of each customer and offer professional, reliable and cost-effective solutions through extensive, cutting-edge research". AVPRO has done installations for cellular phone, mining and motor companies as well as government departments. Dries says his secret to surviving in a competitive industry for so long is simple: "We view a project as the process of converting the client's defined requirements into a viable operation." The process includes ten steps: from brief preparation to support. Dries believes in detailed planning and clear communication with clients. His belief in the process makes AVPRO's slogan a promise and a guarantee: You think it. We do it.