Solsound Chooses Furman CN Series SmartSequencers™ For Mid-Atlantic Community Church

Mid-Atlantic Community Church is typical of many young 21st-century churches: steady growth has prompted moves to larger temporary quarters even as it embarks on the first phase of what will become its own permanent campus of buildings in Crofton, Maryland. The church’s headquarters office is located in an office park warehouse. The congregation meets at Crofton Middle School every Sunday morning, after outgrowing its original space at Crofton Elementary School where its first services took place shortly after it was founded in 2004.

What the church, which offers children and adult ministries as well as annual activities and volunteer events in the community, needs most is flexibility when it comes to its media systems for its incipient new location. “The church’s FOH mixer was very specific about how he needed his systems to power on,” explained Art Reiger, founder and owner of Solsound (www.solsound.net), the Edgewater, Maryland based AV systems integrator that just completed the installation of an RCF line array sound system as well as a distributed paging system in the church’s new “gymnatorium,” a huge building that will house basketball courts, classrooms and a performance space. “He wanted the systems to have very specific delays between power-ons, to avoid any hiccups with components such as the IDR rack at back of house and the laptop he has connected to the FOH console.” 

“We had just completed [another] project where we used a Furman CN-2400S and a Furman CN-20MP, and the combination proved stellar,” he said. “For the Mid-Atlantic Community Church project, the Furman CN series units let us program the exact delay intervals between component power-ups. In some cases that was as much as two minutes. In fact, the Furman system can give you as much as seven minutes delay time. No other product can do that. Plus, the ease of installation is excellent. As long as the cabling is correct, you can customize each unit perfectly and quickly using the DIP switches. From a designer and an installer’s point of view, you can’t get that combination of a high degree of flexibility and ease of installation anywhere else.”Reiger had the solution, one that began with a Furman CN-1800S SmartSequencer™ 15-amp bidirectional power sequencer for the BOH rack’s 15-amp circuit and a CN-2400S 20-amp bidirectional power sequencer for the building’s FOH 20-amp circuit. Used in conjunction with several Furman CN-15MP and CN-20MP MiniPorts, the Contractor Series SmartSequencer™ bidirectional power sequencers give Reiger and his team everything they need to meet the client’s requirements. 

The Furman CN-1800S (15 amp capacity) and CN-2400S (20 amp capacity) SmartSequencers™ are designed for commercial A/V installers.  The units combine AC power distribution, protection, filtration, sequential system power on/off, and optional compatibility with Panamax/Furman’s BlueBOLT® hosted remote power and energy management platform.

The CN-1800S and CN-2400S feature Furman’s SmartSequencing™ technology, which allows large and complex A/V systems to be powered on and off safely with the simple press of a button or turn of a key, even by nontechnical personnel. The SmartSequencer’s bidirectional communications between installed units enables a primary unit to control and sequence multiple secondary units, ensuring that multi-zone electronic systems are powered on and off safely and dependably from a single control point across an entire installation. Units can be connected via current loop at runs of more than 1,000 feet, with backwards compatibility with Furman’s legacy sequencers and/or third-party products.

Providing robust control options, the CN-1800S and CN-2400S are equipped with RS-232 ports and command sets for PC control or integration with control systems. An optional RS-232-to-Ethernet adaptor — sold separately — adds full IP-addressability to the unit so it may be controlled, programmed, and monitored from any Web-enabled device with Panamax/Furman’s cloud-based BlueBOLT platform.

Stampede Rides Ahead of the Herd at InfoComm 2014

Industry-leading distributor of ProAV solutions to showcase innovative high value added systems for digital signage, unified communications, AV/IT, and presentations that take dealers out of the trap of commodity pricing. 

Challenging dealers to see that ‘the profits are always to be found in the details,’ Stampede Presentation Products, Inc. today said it will use its InfoComm 2014 exhibit to showcase a number of specific system solutions for digital signage, unified communications, AV/IT, and presentations that add value and profit for dealers looking to beat the trap of commodity pricing. 

“Stampede always rides ahead of the herd when it comes to pointing the way to the future for our dealers,” Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly said today.  “Our corporate vision is to be the best at creating value for our partners and just one more way we are providing our customers with integrated system solutions that add value to their end-users and profits to their business.  We believe this is the new model for our industry — an industry that is being reinvented by the commercial reality of the Internet of Things.  And this couldn’t come at a better time for an industry looking for a path forward out of the woods of commodity pricing.”

According to Kelly, Stampede’s InfoComm 2014 exhibit program will reinforce this commitment by showcasing real world solutions in channels like corporate, healthcare, education, house of worship, and digital signage.  “In each instance we will show customers how to stay ahead of the herd in their local markets by adding profitable connectivity tools, software, accessories, and new devices that didn’t exist five years ago.  These are the areas that add profit to the system configuration and sale.”

The message is taking hold throughout Stampede’s organization, Kelly stressed, and it’s bringing a number of new manufacturers into the Stampede portfolio.  In fact, the company has added 30 new lines since last year’s InfoComm Show including Afficom, ASK Proxima, BlueBOLT, Cenique, Christie (Brio line), CompuLock, DISE, DJI, Huawel, Korus, Marshall Electronics (Unified Communications), MasterVision, Neurona, Niles, Oklahoma Sound, OSD Sound, Parametric Sound, Peerless (Outdoor Display line), Revolve Robotics, Richo, Samsung (Tablets line), Sapphire, ScreenScape Networks, SecureAVCarts-AVRhodem, StreamTV Networks, SunBrightTV, Surf Communications Solutions, TSItouch, WePresent, and WyreStorm Technologies. 

“If there is one message we want our manufacturers and dealers to take away from InfoComm 2014 it is that Stampede is always ahead of the herd when it comes to providing intelligently designed, profitable solutions that work for our manufacturers, our dealers, and, most importantly of all, the end user customers we all ultimately are in business to serve.”

Museums Represent The Next Frontier For Digital Signage Solutions

AAV integrators looking for exciting new business opportunities need look no further than their local museum, according to Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly and Stampede Sr. Relationship Manager Todd Teachenor. Integrating AV into museums and galleries offers many benefits for both integrators and museum directors, including increased customer engagement and operational cost cuts. 

“Museums and galleries need to be engaging, like the ever-evolving world they showcase in,” Kelly said. “Digital displays are extremely beneficial to museums and galleries, since they can educate and promote to a single person or a vast audience at the same time.”

While some visitors may seek a more intimate one-on-one conversation with staff, Kelly says, other visitors may want to explore the museum at their own pace. Introducing technology into this market allows for both options to be employed simultaneously, so museums and galleries can effectively capture guests’ attention.

“For example, the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, the premier place to experience the history, arts and culture of the Hawaiian people, represents an instance in which tradition meets technology,” Kelly explained. “The museum enhances scientific research, educational programs, and extensive collections with interactive displays for guests.”

Digital displays greatly enhance material in areas of science and education. At the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, video and 3D animation provokes curiosity in children and adults alike. In the museum, five floors house eleven permanent exhibit halls containing state-of-the-art video and 3D computer animation. “Visitors can engage in hands-on activities, interactive kiosks and educational games,” Kelly added.

According to Teachenor, AV integration allows museum and gallery directors to save money by updating information through visual displays. “Integrators can work directly with museum directors to create, change and visualize content for digital displays. Ultimately, this ability to easily alter display content saves museums a significant amount of money.”

The Professor Wellbody Exhibit at Pacific Science Center in Seattle, for example, showcases the latest progress in health-related research occurring in the Pacific Northwest. The featured theme and content in ‘The Studio’ changes every six months, offering visitors an opportunity to learn about new advances in health research. To do so, museum curators use interactive displays so that switching content is easy, effective and cost-saving.

The greatest opportunity for AV integrators, concludes Kelly, is to convert traditional static signs to interactive displays. This can be achieved extremely cost-efficiently, while tripling or quadrupling the total of size of a digital signage market.

“Enhancing facilities with AV equipment is not replacing exhibits,” says Kelly. “With the right focus and design creation, museums and galleries will capture more and more tech-savvy generations by focusing on the priceless works of art with their own story to tell.”