SYSTEM INTEGRATION OF THE MONTH
AV integrated Systems Magazine introduces
'Systems Integration of the month'. Each month, the magazine will highlight one AV installation from various
installations happening all over India. For this issue we feature an installation of ATLONA’s state of the art
AV systems by Play Technology. This segment of the magazine will accentuate one noteworthy AV installation each
time but does not estimate it as ‘the’ best AV installation.
Play Technologies Creates State-of-the-Art Corporate AV system for Indian Consumer Goods Giant
Collaboration is always the keyword when it comes to enhancing communication in corporate audio-visual environments. This is exactly what Play Technologies, one of the leading systems integrator based in Mumbai, India, was approached to improve upon for India’s largest consumer goods company.
Based in Mumbai, the consumer goods and one of marketing giant offers household name brands in 20 categories-from soap to coffee to water purifiers-that touch the lives of two out of three Indians. The company sought to establish a multi-presentation AV application in its headquarters to help executives share information crucial to their business in two workspaces within their headquarters-a “formal room” for higher level financial presentations and meetings, and an “informal room” for smaller gatherings. When extra space is needed for larger events, presentations can be shared with both rooms simultaneously from either location.
In both spaces, Play Technologies was tasked with the installation of multiple displays, sophisticated connectivity for meeting participants, audio reinforcement gear and lighting automation functionality. In addition, it was crucial for the entire system to integrate wireless capabilities and be conveniently controlled via touch screens in each room.
A severe time constraint hastened finalization of the project, as high-level meetings were scheduled to take place in the finished facility in a matter of weeks.
“For a complex project with such a tight timeframe, we needed to take advantage of our team’s expertise and willingness of the client to work with us closely to hit all our marks as successfully and efficiently as possible,” said Santhosh Shenoy, engineer, technical design, Play Technologies. “In addition, we wanted to ensure system performance and reliability by using the best gear possible, which included Atlona switchers, scalers, and extension transmitters and receivers to connect all elements.”
Several key technologies were employed throughout the system, including a sophisticated annotation application, which enables meeting participants to interact with presentations and take notes that are stored on a PC. For this, Play created a subsystem with a USB backbone and several KVM switches to carry USB signals to connected participants throughout the spaces. Annotative touch application frames were added to LED screens to transform them into interactive displays as well. The system’s embedded PC enables users to access content stored on the network via a remote keyboard mouse.
Both rooms also offer complete wireless HD presentation capabilities for a wide diversity of documents, programs and content-including PowerPoint, Excel, Word documents, PDFs, photos, and screenshots-from any meeting participant’s iOS or Android mobile devices to be shared on displays. Mac and Windows notebooks also connect seamlessly, making presentations and collaboration from almost any device incredibly fast and easy for as many as 32 people.
Additional collaboration is possible via Quad-View mode on displays in the rooms, enabling up to four presenters to share content simultaneously. A Remote View application enables up to 40 participants either at the back of the room or in other locations to log in from a web browser to view the presentation on their mobile devices.
Any source connected to the system in either room can share content to any of the displays, which can be switched between any two-in either room-on the fly. In all wired presentations, it is possible to annotate presented content via embedded PC or AV floor points.
For the formal room, Play installed a Sony VPL-SW630C projector, an M-685 smart board, four LG LED 43E3KB displays-each with custom 43-inch display touch overlays-all driven by five Dell thin client PCs. For audio, the room was outfitted with two Stonewater ceiling speakers and an Apart audio amplifier. A Logitech wireless keyboard mouse and a keypad are used to control the system components.
Connecting this high-powered system were several Atlona products, including an Atlona AT-UHD-H2H-88M HDMI Matrix Switcher, three AT-HD-SC500 Dual HDMI, and VGA Scalers, five AT-UHD-EX-70-EX70-2PS-RX HDBaseT to HDMI Receivers, three AT-UHD-EX-70C-RX Atlona HDBaseT to HDMI Receivers, three AT-UHD-EX-70C-TX HDBaseT transmitters and two AT-HD570 HDMI Audio de-embedders.
For the informal room, Play installed two Custom 43-inch display touch overlays, two Stonewater ceiling speakers, an Apart Concept1 audio amplifier, wireless presentation, and lighting systems. These were linked via several Atlona components, including three AT-UHD-EX-70C-TX HDBaseT transmitter, five AT-UHD-EX-70-2PS HDBaseT to HDMI kits, and three AT-HD-SC500 dual HDMI and VGA audio scalers.
Once the project was completed, the Play Technologies team did not have the opportunity to fully test the new system before the meetings called by the end user’s CFO. Remaining on-hand in the days leading up to the meetings, and standing by at the gatherings as well, Play prepped the system and the client for this major event.
“We were very anxious as we did not have the time we normally do for testing a completed system,” said Shenoy. “It was very gratifying to have all aspects of the system work without fail over the two days, as well as our client’s appreciation.
“We’re proud to work with a diverse group of AV improvement professionals who share their expertise, knowledge and years of experience that collectively represent thousands of successful projects. For AV connectivity, it was widely agreed among us that Atlona is the go-to brand for performance, reliability, and support.”