BY ANNA HAYES
19/07/2019
Just Add Power recently played a vital role in delivering an end-to-end AV solution throughout the 178-room Calile Hotel in Brisbane.
The hotel’s facilities include: a 30-metre pool, award-winning restaurant, cocktail bar and retail space. Its meeting and event areas include two private boardroom / dining rooms, a grand ballroom with adjoining terrace, and an outdoor amphitheatre.
To meet the needs of any occasion, the Calile called on Soho Sound Design to outfit the spaces with the latest AV and presentation equipment.
Soho Sound Design installed Meyer Sound loudspeakers processed by a BSS Soundweb network. The visual components consisted of Christie project in the function rooms and amphitheatre with Samsung displays in each boardroom / dining room.
The AV system had to be capable of distributing digital TV set-top boxes, six in-house music video channels from Nightlife Music, as well as numerous local sources including BenQ InstaShow wireless presentation systems.
The hotel required a scalable and reliable system to accommodate video distribution and give staff the ability to easily switch to any source on any display as well as connect HDMI devices. The shared in-house video sources in the system would need to span two comms rooms meaning that a fibre-capable solution was required. Two of the sources were also to be distributed to the hotel’s 720p VOD system for play on hotel room TVs.
Scaling was a key feature required and Soho turned to Just Add Power’s (J+P) 2GΩ/3G PoE transmitters and receivers.
Soho Sound Design owner Jason Roesler said they had initially considered using HDBaseT at the Calile but said they weren’t suitable for what was a very unique installation.
“We knew though that Just Add Power would be up for the challenge. The company offers rock-solid products that allowed us to deploy a reliable video network solution, backed up by excellent customer service and support.”
J+P’s 2GΩ/3G PoE transmitters and receivers combine the enhanced audio and feature-set of the company’s 3G Ultra HD Over IP system with the maximum 1080p resolution of 2G HD Over IP devices.
The Calile’s system supports 1080p video with HDCP 1.4, all lossless audio formats including Dolby Atmos, control endpoints with RS-232 and IR, and image push, pull, and pop features. An integrated scaler on the receiver automatically adjusts the picture to fit the screen.
The hotel’s wireless presentation systems, STBs, and nightlife media players are equipped with J+P’s VBS-HDIP-705POE 2GΩ/3G transmitters. The four function rooms feature a total of 10 transmitters integrated in walls and floor boxes, allowing HDMI sources to be plugged in for client events. Projectors, displays, and the VOD system are outfitted with VBS-HDIP-505POE 2GΩ/3G receivers. The receivers provide control over the projectors via RS-232. Since the Samsung TVs in the boardrooms don’t fully support RS-232, two J+P VBS-HDIP-IRD IR dongles are being used for IR control. At the VOD system, the receivers downscale the hotel’s in-house channels to 720p.
The Calile’s J+P system is engineered to provide complete scalability, so expansion with an additional screen or source is as simple as adding another receiver or transmitter. Furthermore, the solutions provide the hotel with infrastructure to meet future 4K requirements by mixing and matching devices, with 2GΩ devices on 1080p sources and 3G on 4K sources.
The J+P system is supported by two Luxul AV Series AMS-4424P 26-port/24 PoE+ stackable L2/L3 managed switches. With 24 Gigabit RJ-45 PoE+ ports and 10 Gigabit SFP+ stacking ports, each switch provides exceptional network performance and seamless scalability of up to 16 switches (384 ports). The Calile’s control system is powered by RTI’s XP-8v control processor. Staff interact with the AV system using eight KX7 7-inch in-wall touchpanels, two CX7 7-inch countertop touchpanels, and iPads and iPhones running RTI’s RTiPanel app.
Jason added that Just Add Power played an integral part in the project and were instrumental in meeting the Calile’s needs.
“The platform’s flexibility made it simple to accommodate additional displays and connections that were added late in the project. In the future, we will utilize Just Add Power’s 3G+ 767DSS Dante Enhanced Sound System transmitter to expand the system even further, injecting audio from the pool-side DJ booth into the hotel’s VOD system for streaming in hotel rooms.”
