Montecito Club Makes a Hole in One With Just Add Power’s Ultra HD Over IP Platform in Upgraded Amenities
BACKGROUND
In March 2019, the Montecito Club in Santa Barbara, California, reopened after a three-and-a-half-year, $75 million renovation. In addition to a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, the 101-year-old private golf and social club upgraded its amenities to the 21st century with a new 6,500-square-foot fitness center, state-of-the-art screening room and movie theater, AMF Bowling Alley, outdoor theater, men’s and women’s lounges, and much more.
In addition, the Club has been outfitted with displays ranging from 43 inches to a whopping 85 inches across all areas — from the Pro Shop and members’ lounges to the pool and tennis court — as well as two Vivitek DU8090Z laser projectors. Installed by Central Coast Audio Visual, each display plays out live sports and other content from its own DirecTV receiver. Two Apple TVs are shared among the displays for streaming movies, while a digital signage PC allows the Club to promote member events and provide leader boards for ongoing golf tournaments.
THE CHALLENGE
With details like old-growth oak floors, hand-carved African mahogany doors, and Venetian plaster ceilings, a luxurious design is a central element to the Montecito Club experience. For the Club’s owner, it was important that the new displays didn’t detract from its elegant style. Each needed to be mounted cleanly on the wall, with no gap or any source equipment cluttering the space. To achieve this, all sources for the displays scattered across the massive property would need to be located remotely in one centralized location. This made cost-effective and reliable video distribution a critical aspect of the project. To provide it, Central Coast Audio Visual turned to Just Add Power (J+P).
“We explored using another solution at the Montecito Club, but only the Just Add Power platform offered such exceptional performance and reliability at a fair price point,” said Chris Wilson, president of Central Coast Audio Visual. “In addition, Just Add Power offered one more critical advantage to this installation: simple scalability. During construction, the scope of the project continued to expand, and without being limited to a specific source or display count, we were able to easily accommodate that growth.”
THE SOLUTION
Central Coast Audio Visual utilized J+P’s 3G Ultra HD Over IP system, which offers ultra-low 16 ms of latency from source to screen and supports 4K Ultra HD resolutions and HDMI 2.0 devices with HDCP 2.2. The platform enables seamless switching between any resolution HDMI source as well as uncompressed lossless multichannel audio formats, including Dolby Atmos support. Video wall functionality is built-in for displays installed in portrait and flipped configurations, as well as image push, pull, and pop features. An integrated scaler on the receiver automatically adjusts the picture to fit the screen.
Each of the Montecito Club’s 22 rack sources is equipped with J+P’s VBS-HDIP-718AVP 3G+ A/V Pro transmitter, while VBS-HDIP-508 PoE receivers are attached to the Club’s 18 displays. The Ultra HD Over IP platform is engineered to provide complete scalability, so expanding the system with an additional screen or source is as simple as adding another receiver or transmitter. The J+P system is supported by a Cisco SG500X 48-port switch with a secondary SG500X 24-port switch connected via Fiber. Simple control of the entire AV system is provided by Crestron. Staff and Club members can easily control each display individually to change the programming using iPads and Crestron touchscreens.
THE RESULTS — A Hole in One
Project highlights include a video wall in the men’s lounge, which consists of an 85-inch display flanked by two 43” displays on each side. Members can easily select the TV they want to use and navigate the DirecTV channel lineup or select Apple TV for streaming options all from the Ipad provided by the bartender. For outdoor movie nights, the theater in the members’ lawn features a drop down 133” Da-Lite Screen and a Vivitek DU8090Z laser projector setup for rear projection. With the tap of a button, staff can select one of the Apple TVs as a source and easily begin a movie on the lawn.
A late addition to the project was the AMF Bowling Alley, which is located in a separate building on the property. Central Coast Audio Video had a spare fiber connection between the primary MDF and the second building’s IDF, allowing them to extend J+P over fiber to the secondary Cisco SG500X switch. From the switch, Central Coast AV was easily able to add another Vivitek DU8090Z laser projector keeping the entire video system run over Just Add Power.
“The owner and members of the Montecito Club have been very pleased with the clean look of the displays in the space, and how simple it is to control them,” added Wilson. “And it has delivered the performance and reliability the Club expects. The system has performed flawlessly since its deployment and its scalability will allow us to easily meet future growth, whether it’s more displays or additional sources.”
