Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, is a world-class museum and showground that sits on approximately 37 acres and showcases an assortment of automobiles. While the museum offers a look under the hood of cars of different makes, models, and eras, it does so using a cutting-edge AV system. To ensure a world-class museum and learning experience, the museum features an assortment of displays and video walls throughout the massive venue, with Just Add Power’s Video Over IP platform in the driver’s seat.
While automobiles are the main attraction in the 65,000-square-foot facility — which features four temporary exhibition galleries, a 297-person theater, research library, cafe, and two private dining rooms — the museum’s AV system called for a high attention to detail. There are 50 LG displays throughout, including an LED video wall in the Great Hall and marquee, and a massive 16’x20’ video wall in the theater. The Savoy creators wanted to have a flexible distribution system that would allow staff to distribute any video source to any screen with a touch of a button on iPads running Crestron Go control app. There was no shortage of sources either, with a multitude of cameras in each of the galleries and the theater, laptop wall inputs in the dining rooms, LG webOS digital signage players, and Blu-ray players. This would require flexible IP-based video distribution capable of distributing any source of up to 4K and UHD resolution with ultra-low latency to any screen in the network, whether it was a standalone display or one of the many video walls throughout Savoy.
Just Add Power fulfilled all the requirements of the Savoy Automobile Museum by offering a modular and scalable video over IP distribution solution. The system employs Just Add Power transmitters and receivers, which were configured across seven Luxul XMS-7048P switches, utilizing the museum’s Cat-6 network infrastructure.
To distribute the range of sources at the museum, 18 3G+ 767DSS transmitters were installed. The 767DSS allows input up to eight audio channels from the Just Add Power system for playout on Dante-enabled and AES67 devices and extracts up to eight channels from the audio network for playout across the system. This was perfect solution since the museum is heavy on live audio, using several Audix wireless mics to conduct tours and presentations. Additionally, two 717WP2 wall plate transmitters were installed in each dining room, enabling users to share laptop content on any screen in the building.
Each screen in the system is equipped with a Just Add Power 509POE receiver, capable of processing Ultra HD and 4K video over a single Cat-x cable. The 509 POE features an onboard pass-through network port, so that any PoE device can be connected; a network soundbar, IP TV control, or a single display location can be expanded into a video wall. The receiver also easily expands the number of PoE devices that can be added to the system by connecting a PoE switch to the port. This provides greater network flexibility that isn’t restricted by the number of cable runs permitted; when the Savoy wants to add onto their AV experience, the system can be expanded quickly and easily. The dining room also employs four Just Add Power 518AVP receivers, featuring adjustable delay and stereo audio output via a 3.5mm port, allowing audio to be extracted and sent to any display.
The entire system was configured using Just Add Power’s AMP software, which is designed to simplify the setup process for network switches and individual Just Add Power devices. It discovers the switches and the devices on the network, presents them in a list, and allows installers to name them, configure their IP addresses, and assign channels to transmitters — while assisting with updates when new firmware is released.
Indiana State Museum
Located in White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis, the Indiana State Museum houses 70,000 square feet of exhibit space with over 450,000 artifacts showcasing the science, art, culture and history of the Hoosier state from prehistoric times up to the present day. The museum is also home to the Indianapolis IMAX Theater featuring the state’s largest movie screen. The building itself, constructed completely from Indiana materials, is a work of art, with icons representing each of Indiana’s 92 counties integrated into its exterior walls.
To provide visitors with unique and memorable experiences, the museum sought to create engaging new interactive exhibits. They decided on touch-panel kiosks that incorporate elements of digital signage and use either motion or touch-activated audio and video. Delivery of content across every floor required a scalable and flexible 4K over 10G IP AV distribution solution. In addition, local control and KVM breakout capabilities were ‘must haves’ for the project. The kiosk design left minimal space for the AV equipment, so a small footprint was a necessity.
Shawn Huddleson, AV Manager for the Indiana State Museum selected SDVoE-based IPX Series Transceivers from Aurora Multimedia to deploy across the variety of new museum exhibit spaces. The project employed a total of thirty-two transceivers, three 48-port Huawei 10G fiber switches, and related accessories. Because the IPX units are transceivers, the IPX-TC1 units are configured as transmitters or receivers based on their function in the implementation. IPX units set up as transmitters handle a variety of media playback sources.
The transmitter-configured units reside in the server room alongside the audio processing and network distribution equipment and the exhibit control system. The units configured as receivers are installed in the kiosks or behind exhibit walls. Their small form factor makes them an easy fit.
The IPX Series was ideal for this installation, using the bandwidth of standard 10Gbps copper or fiber, it supports large and scalable audio/ video matrixing, while supporting a ‘single-box’ distributed platform, elimating the need for a separate AV switcher, control system, videowall processor, audio/DSP converter and a variety of other devices.
Experimental Aircraft Associaion
Established in 1953, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an international organization of aviation enthusiasts. Since its inception, the EAA has grown internationally, with over 200,000 members and nearly 1,000 chapters globally. As a non-profit organization, the EAA is committed to growing aviation through participation and education, delivering educational offerings and activities that guide new participants and reducing barriers to participation.
The EAA recently unveiled a new Education Center at their Oshkosh, Wisconsin headquarters. The two-story, 30,000-square-foot facility is designed to further develop aviation education and training. The $6.2 million project features an innovative Pilot Proficiency Center, a hands-on Youth Education Center and the EAA Conference Center. The Pilot Proficiency Center features a state-of-the-art skill-building and training center featuring flight simulators for general aviation pilots. The 15,000-square-foot Young Education Center provides youths, parents and teachers access to interactive and project-based activities that inspire and nurture the next generation of aviators. The corporate events space features small conference rooms and a larger events space that can be configured based on the size and requirements for private events.
Arrow AV Group, a long-standing, family-owned provider and integrator of audiovisual presentation, assisted listening, theatrical lighting, and control technologies, was selected to design the audiovisual system for EAA’s Education Center. Arrow AV Group wanted to capitalize on system flexibility to enable EAA to utilize the Education Center for private corporate events.
“Our initial design included all AV-over-IP components to ensure future compatibility and ease of infrastructure installation,” says Shaun McClure, CTS, CQD, MTA, systems engineer for Arrow AV Group. “After approval of the project, however, we learned that the manufacturer that we had designed the project with could not meet the project timelines. We reached out to our contacts at Visionary and they were able to help us redesign the system with available components without otherwise compromising our design.”
Arrow AV Group integrated 21 PacketAV DuetE-2 Encoders and 21 PacketAV D4100 Decoders across all video displays at EAA’s Education Center. In the Youth Education Center, the PacketAV Matrix Series is distributing video to three Panasonic laser projectors, which enables presentations for large groups or three, smaller breakout rooms. Visionary’s PacketAV Matrix Series enables simplified video connectivity in two small conference rooms and a larger events space – all part of the EAA Conference Center. Notably, broadcasting and streaming of video is possible from any room in the new facility, including from the wind tunnel, to accommodate overflow viewing. The new functionality enables EAA to live stream the demonstrations and lessons to classrooms and learning environments throughout the country.
