In addition to the gourmet pizzas and pastas, burgers and wings, customers frequent Canada’s Boston Pizza chain to enjoy high-definition sports viewing in the sports bar and the family-friendly restaurant. With at least 25 big screen HD displays and one 9-display video wall per restaurant, guests are made to feel they are in the front row of the sporting events.
Christian Tellier’s company, CES, implemented AV over IP systems at five Boston Pizza restaurants to make sports viewing from any seat a reality. Designed with the user experience in mind, Tellier installed MuxLab’s IP-based extender with its ProDigital Network Controller for control via two mini iPads. Each restaurant averages four AV sources that feed content to the video wall above the bar, plus the many HD displays mounted along every corner and wall to ensure viewing from any table.
Each of the restaurants was equipped with MuxLab’s HDMI/RS232 over IP Extender Kit with PoE, which delivers AV to displays via an Ethernet switch. MuxLab’s Video Wall over IP Extender Kit with PoE created the video wall using one receiver for each display. The MuxLab ProDigital Network Controller simplified the connection and control of sources and displays with a personalized, graphical floor plan that is very user-friendly. Two mini iPads control everything. One is wall mounted and one is mobile to handle customer requests from anywhere in the bar or restaurant.
“Each implementation from start to finish took less than five days. There were actually no significant challenges at all. MuxLab was ideal for this scenario. I support the MuxLab brand because their support is perfect. Plus, we have access to their engineering teams, and we can grow together on projects to enhance AV over IP installations,” explained Tellier. “We championed AV over IP because it gives mobility combined with the stability of cable. We never recommend going totally wireless in commercial environments. For a bar/restaurant selling entertainment, you need reliable, dependable infrastructures because they are quite frankly superior. In this case, each restaurant can control the AV system using one Digital Controller; that’s a couple transmitters and multiple receivers for the displays using two iPads. Its completely compact, still mobile friendly and totally reliable.”
