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AV Takes Flight In Busy Terminal

Few airports have rivaled Chicago's O'Hare Airport as a traveler's nightmare. But in a bid to repair that reputation, the city-owned airport, in concert with its largest tenant, United Airlines, has deployed a sophisticated high-definition digital video electronic messaging and display system in the airline's bustling Terminal 1 lobby.

AV Takes Flight In Busy Terminal

Few airports have rivaled Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as a traveler’s nightmare. But in a bid to repair that reputation, the city-owned airport, in concert with its largest tenant, United Airlines, has deployed a sophisticated high-definition digital video electronic messaging and display system in the airline’s bustling Terminal 1 lobby.

CHALLENGE: Assemble dynamic and essential traveler information from a host of far-flung sources, convey it to displays, and ensure it can be quickly digested.

SOLUTION: Use robust video processing hardware and custom designed content management software to create a flexible and highly capable video distribution network.

IN THE CROWDED SKIES, piloting an aircraft from Point A to Point B is no small feat. The same might be said for the task of moving airline passengers through crowded airport terminals. Today, just getting from the terminal curb to the jetway can be a logistical challenge.

Securing tickets, checking luggage, moving through security, checking the status of flights, finding ground transportation — they’re all part and parcel of the modern air travel experience, yet growing more glitch-ridden all the time. Owing to its sheer size and traffic volume, few airports have rivaled Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as a traveler’s nightmare. Perennially running neck and neck with Atlanta’s airport as the nation’s busiest airport, O’Hare at times tests the patience of even the most savvy road warrior.

Spanning the 510-foot length of the area above the United Airlines check-in counter in Terminal 1 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, a ribbon display consisting of 138 Clarity Margay displays relays vital travel information to travelers.

But in a bid to repair that reputation, the city-owned airport, in concert with its largest tenant, United Airlines, has deployed a sophisticated high-definition digital video electronic messaging and display system in the airline’s bustling Terminal 1 lobby. The goal: in the most user-friendly way possible, give the 30,000 to 70,000 travelers who enter the terminal each day a smorgasbord of information, with an emphasis on what they need to get to their destinations as quickly as possible.

Designed by Chicago-based AV design firm Sako & Associates and installed by Electrosonic Systems Inc., a Minneapolis-based integrator and component manufacturer, the $5 million system processes an array of different types of content from a host of sources and routes it over a secure network in the terminal to some 210 displays in four distinct, functionally specific videowall configurations. The solution was built around video playback, control, display, and distribution gear manufactured by Electrosonic, and relied heavily on customized control software and interface solutions developed by Electrosonic’s Media Networks Group.

In addition to a selection of Electrosonic videowall processors, the project utilized products capable of handling the demanding video switching, routing, and distribution needs of the system. The resulting solution includes: 40 Extron MAV88 and MVX88 video routers, 42 Sigma Electronics VEQ2105A and VDA-21 video distribution amplifiers, two Cisco 4500 Series 144-port switchers, and 138 Magenta Research MultiView 450CS/S composite video to Cat5 converter transmitters, paired with corresponding MultiView UTX composite video to Cat5 converter receivers.

More than a year in the making, based on United’s vision for an unrivaled traveler-friendly terminal with information delivery at its core, the system tapped both companies’ capabilities to fashion a networked video and messaging creation and distribution system on a daunting scale. “Our challenge was how to best utilize digital display technology to help United alleviate the mounting confusion in the terminal lobby and move people through as quickly as possible,” says Sako chairman and project director Bill Sako. “We looked at a lot of technology vendors, but most of the solutions were too narrow. Ultimately we had to come up with a new solution for something of this scale.”

Specializing in the manufacture of video processing gear for large, custom applications and the software needed to create and manage content distribution, Electrosonic emerged as the bidder deemed most capable of bringing a system for so large a project to life, Sako says.

John Zink, Electrosonic’s Midwest regional manager, says the company’s ESCAN control software and iMediate content management software, combined with specialized processing and scaling components designed to transport large bundles of video and graphics over long distances made the difference. “A lot of different solutions could have been used to attack the challenges that the four display areas posed individually, but no single solution from any other vendor would have worked,” he says.

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AV Takes Flight In Busy Terminal

Few airports have rivaled Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as a traveler’s nightmare. But in a bid to repair that reputation, the city-owned airport, in concert with its largest tenant, United Airlines, has deployed a sophisticated high-definition digital video electronic messaging and display system in the airline’s bustling Terminal 1 lobby.

Indeed, the scale issue is most evident in the project’s most eye-popping component: a ribbon display stretching 510 feet horizontally over the lobby’s automated check-in kiosks. Comprised of 138 Clarity Visual Systems Margay 50-inch DLP, 16:9 displays suspended side-by-side, the lobby-spanning ribbon now chiefly carries information directing travelers to open self check-in kiosks and the security check-in areas.

But the display, thought to be among the longest ever assembled, has been configured to do much more. While each of the 138 displays is served by a single, dedicated rack-mounted Electrosonic MS-9100p MPEG-2 player, and one backup MS-9100p is available for every seven Margays, the functions of each have been synchronized using a genlocking feature that had to be programmed into the system. The result is a ribbon capable of acting as one large display, permitting frame-accurate playback of video or graphics, such as an image of a plane flying across the length of the ribbon.

“Getting the displays to stay in sequence was a major undertaking,” Zink says. “The MPEG-2 players aren’t designed to be genlocked, so getting 138 displays all hooked together and running in sequence was a challenge.”

Working with such a large ribbon display concept also posed viewability issues. Numerous display technology options, including LED and LCD, were evaluated and tested for functionality in a space where sight lines, viewer proximity, and ambient light were challenges.

Real-time flight information from United Airlines’ computers is fed to Flight Information Display Systems (FIDS) in the airline’s Chicago O’Hare terminal. Comprised of eight Clarity Margay displays in two areas, the new FIDS is vastly superior to outdated CRT displays that had been used.

To address the unique viewability issues in different parts of the lobby, Sako utilized two types of acrylic screens for the Margay cubes, depending on the challenge. To allow the cubes in the ribbon and security displays to combat ambient light conditions presented by a large window wall, Sako specified Clarity’s two-element Fresnel/lenticular, high-gain light output acrylic screen. For the Flight Information Display System (FIDS) and grand marquee cubes, which presented viewing angle challenges, Sako selected two-element Fresnel/lenticular, high-contrast screens, which allow for optimal viewing from a large target area. And because security check-in lines pose a major bottleneck problem in the terminal, a separate display area is devoted to transmitting information related to the security check-in process. Positioned perpendicular to the ribbon display, three displays comprised of four Margay 50-inch cubes and controlled by Electrosonic VN-2400 network display processors display information such as expected wait times, detailed check-in procedures, and the shortest cues.

While displays devoted to security are a new phenomenon in the modern air terminal, displays showing flight information are hardly new. But the United project incorporates technology to improve the user-friendliness of the standard FIDS.

Flight arrival and departure and gate information, conveyed from United’s secure network and displayed as constantly updated Flash-animated content, is displayed on two FIDS displays in the lobby. Each is made up of eight Margay displays in a 2×4 configuration, and is powered by the VN-2400 processor. Replacing old CRT displays, the Margays don’t suffer from the burn-in that’s typical in these types of static-image applications, and deliver vastly improved readability to travelers on the go.

The focal point of the lobby’s new video system is the Grand Marquee. A double-sided 11- by 18-foot videowall consisting of 40 50-inch Margays (20 per side), the marquee is a busy mix of video and graphics aimed at satisfying the basic information cravings of travelers. Controlled by an Electrosonic Vector large-screen display image processor, the ceiling-suspended wall relays information ranging from national weather and travel delays to live video and news delivered via a ticker at the foot of the marquee. Corralling content from multiple sources and delivering it from a central control room was a major logistical challenge in developing the marquee. With the ability to gather and route two video and two RGB high-resolution/HD inputs from a control room in the lobby, the Vector was the solution’s linchpin, Zink says.

With so extensive and complex a system in place, Sako’s design also had to incorporate tools to allow the airline to control, manage, and monitor the system. A main lobby control room puts content creation, previewing, editing, and scheduling tools at operators’ fingertips. Electrosonic developed a custom graphical user interface to simplify system control. While much of the content is created at United headquarters in nearby Elk Grove, it’s distributed to the control room over a WAN or in the form of a compiled DVD, which is then loaded in the system and its content stored for replay as needed.

System monitoring is accomplished with 16 Panasonic WV-NS324 PTZ Network IP CCTV cameras. Several are installed at strategic points in the lobby, allowing a content manager to get a real-time view of the display blocks and check to see that they’re operating correctly. There are also plans to use cameras to monitor lobby activity for the purpose of further automating traveler messaging functions.

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AV Takes Flight In Busy Terminal

Few airports have rivaled Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as a traveler’s nightmare. But in a bid to repair that reputation, the city-owned airport, in concert with its largest tenant, United Airlines, has deployed a sophisticated high-definition digital video electronic messaging and display system in the airline’s bustling Terminal 1 lobby.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Getting in Sync

Timing, they say, is everything. And that was certainly the case in bringing a 138-display-long ribbon display to life in the United Airlines terminal in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

To make the ribbon capable of seamlessly showing scrolling check-in related content across multiple displays, Minneapolis-based AV integrator Electrosonic Systems Inc. tackled perhaps its biggest genlocking project ever.

A Sigma Electronics TSG 490 test video generator was configured to send blackburst signals through Sigma video distribution amplifiers, across video cable, and on to additional amps in suspended “cloud racks” housing Electrosonic MPEG-2 players that drive the displays.

“The aim is to make sure that each of the players is working in sync with the others, and that’s done by configuring each player to look for the blackburst signal,” says LeRoy Weibel, Electrosonic’s senior project manager on the job.

Depending on the number of displays that make up a contiguous ribbon — typically around seven — the content to be delivered is divided into multiple MPEG files and loaded into the appropriate players. Programmed with time code, the players run the appropriate section and the content is displayed in perfect synchronization on the Clarity Margay displays.

Although only small sections of the 510-foot-long ribbon are being synchronized now, the capability is there to synchronize all 138 displays and the 158 MPEG players (including backups) that run them.

“It’s the largest number of players I’ve ever worked on,” Weibel says. “The unique thing about this challenge was the number of video DAs that had to be used. That was the only way to distribute the blackbursts to that many players.”

In the span of a year, United’s flagship O’Hare terminal has gone from being an information desert to an AV-enhanced information and entertainment oasis. Indeed, given its scope and functionality, the terminal may well be the gold standard for airport terminal upgrades that are sure to gain momentum as information demand grows.

“Flexibility is key to this system,” Zink says. “They now have the ability to change and reconfigure the presentation of information in the lobby based on real-time events, and that’s extremely valuable in these applications.”

Tom Zind is a freelance writer and researcher based in Prairie Village, KS. He has written for a variety of business-to-business publications and can be reached at [email protected].

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