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FEBRUARY 2015 | 35 Audio Visual Systems From boardrooms to courthouses, the audio visual industry continues to make great strides by STEFAN DUBOWSKI The Next Frontier K en Lewis, co-owner of audio visual (AV) solutions provider Sight N Sound Design Inc., remembers the bad old days when audio systems for board- rooms, council chambers and other meeting places were "gated." Some 30 years ago, such microphone-and-loudspeaker combos contained technology that detected when someone was speaking and turned loudspeakers on or off. This feature was supposed to ensure that just one person's voice would be heard at any point. But it didn't always help. In fact, sometimes it flat-out wrecked communication. "If two people shouted at the same time, both sets of loudspeakers would turn off and neither person would hear the other," Lewis says. "Then they'd shout louder." Today, audio equipment for meeting rooms isn't so intrusive. Sight N Sound uses software and audio engineering processes to place loudspeakers strategically so anyone speaking is heard clearly. New microphone technology picks up and conveys natural speech evenly so people don't have to shout to be understood. "No matter the room, there's a certain amount of acoustical loss," Lewis says. "In our designs, we compensate for that loss so anybody in the space will hear the person speaking as though they were one metre away." Audio systems certainly have changed over the last few decades. Video systems have, too. Across the board, AV technologies provide substantially better sound and image quality than ever before. And thanks to ongoing product development – not to mention innovative approaches to installation – consumers and businesses in the market for AV equipment today may find that it can be used in surprising ways. Order in the court Sight N Sound, for example, has developed a reputation for creating audio and video systems for courthouses. "We did all of the P3 projects for Infrastructure Ontario in this last wave, including courthouses in St. Thomas, Thunder Bay, Quinte, Waterloo and the Forensic Services and Coroner's Complex in Toronto, which has courtrooms for the coroner's court and meeting rooms," says Lewis. Voice intelligibility is crucial in legal chambers. "The defence lawyers shouldn't be able to argue they're handicapped because their client sitting in the accused box can't hear the proceedings," he points out. But modern courtrooms are more than venues for procedures of justice. They are reflections of our culture, our society. The Thunder Bay courthouse, for example, uses elements of native architecture to speak to the region's large First Nation community. "Infrastructure Ontario wanted to make the rooms in the courthouse more reverberant to rely on natural speech as much as possible," Lewis explains. As well, the Aboriginal Conference Settlement Room, where case conferences, family hear- ings and community functions are held, is circular with a stone hearth in the middle for smudging ceremonies. Sight N Sound applied its sound engineering techniques and installed microphones and loudspeakers in exactly the right spots to make sure people meeting, discussing and arguing in these spaces are heard clearly. The audio equipment effectively augments the acoustical characteristics that result from hard surfaces and curved walls. One restaurant, two moods The latest AV technology suits the hospitality industry as well. Usually, restaurant operators target specific kinds of customers: fine diners versus buffet eaters, for example. One restaurant chain decided it would profit more if it could transform its locations to satisfy different types of customers at different times of the day. Specifically, "they're interested in having a casual, yet sophisticated restaurant atmosphere that can transform into a sports bar later at night," says Mike Teolis, owner of AV services company GAVmgmt Inc. For this client, GAVmgmt used specific audio designed to provide unobtrusive background music during meal hours, and crisp, clear sound at game time. GAVmgmt also installed a video wall – a bank of screens that can work together to produce a single image, or independently to show different content. Thus the restaurant can display a number of games at once, potentially pleasing (or displeasing, depending on how the teams are doing) a wider swath of sports fan patrons. Lighting plays an important role, too. It can create a bright, friendly environment at lunchtime, a softer, gentler atmosphere at dinner and ideal illumination at game time. GAVmgmt installed LED fixtures linked to central controllers that automati- cally adjust the lighting levels according to the clock. The bulbs in these fixtures aren't your average sort. Unlike most LEDs, they produce a range of colours, giving the restaurateur an additional tool to set moods and atmospheres. Even more unusual is the way the lights receive electricity. "We're not using electrical wiring," Teolis says. "We're sending the power over data cables. It's less expensive because we're running power to the individual fixtures at nine volts as opposed to 120 volts." Toss your flipchart Turning attention to equipment for boardrooms, Sharp's Audio Visual Ltd. recently became one of the first AV vendors to offer SMART's kapp – a large electronic tablet ideal for brainstorming and collaboration. Think of it as a digital replacement for the standard paper and easel flipchart, or the typical dry-erase whiteboard. Kapp users can draw and write on the device's surface, just as they would with those traditional presentation tools. But kapp captures the user's marker strokes in real time so that people outside the room can watch the process on their computers or mobile devices. Video wall install by Sharp's Audio Visual Ltd. in the ATB Offices, Calgary; Sharp's control room equipment in the Emergency Operations Centre, Calgary; Sight N Sound creates bespoke audio and video systems for courthouses.

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