Westin Long Beach Hotel Hosts Local Businesses and Events in High-Tech Meeting Space Protected by Furman

Competition is stiff among hotels that want to host events and corporate meetings for local businesses. To attract the event planners and meeting managers, the Westin Long Beach Hotel in Long Beach, California, recently transformed its large ballroom into a 4-room convertible space with divisible walls. To further enhance the space, the hotel turned to local integration firm Spinitar to incorporate the latest audio system and technology. According to Rudy Zavala, Associate Systems Designer at the firm, the goal of the installation came down to three things: simplicity, functionality and reliability.

“One big ballroom is great if you want to host large receptions or conferences, but the ability to split the space into four smaller rooms offers the hotel greater revenue opportunities and opens access to smaller parties and budgets,” Zavala explained. “But it’s not as simple as just putting in some convertible walls. Separate rooms mean you need separate audio systems and control interfaces that can also function as a single unit when the room is fully open for a larger event. To do this we used QSC’s Core 500i network audio solution backed by the protection of a BlueBOLT-enabled Furman F1500-UPS to ensure smooth, effortless operation 365 days a year.”

Routing all the power through the Furman UPS boasts multiple advantages. Utilizing the BlueBOLT cloud-based power, energy and network management platform, the device enables Spintar to access the equipment at its power source from anywhere in the world using any Web-enabled device. In case of a locked-up device or system power issue, the integrators can do remote hard resets of the touch panels, amplifiers and network switcher, even the entire QSC system if needed, greatly reducing service calls. This provides efficiency for both the hotel and the integrator, saving them time, money and frustration.

Featuring Furman’s advanced Series Multi-Stage Protection (SMP) surge/spike protection circuit, Extreme Voltage Shutdown (EVS) and Linear Filtering Technology (LiFT), the F1500-UPS provides the hotel with professional-level protection, filtration and backup combined with features engineered specifically for the needs of A/V systems. Fully programmable, the unit features an intuitive LCD front panel interface, which displays valuable system and diagnostic information, such as battery time remaining based on current load and voltage input/output. Additionally, critical load management capabilities allow hotel employees to prioritize allocations of battery power to connected equipment while the unit’s programmable IR blasters provide safe shutdown of remotely based equipment.

“Easy-to-use is an all encompassing term,” Zavala concluded. “This means that guests must be able to walk in to the space and use the system right away, every time. Additionally, the hotel managers and staff should be able to operate the meeting rooms without worrying about complicated technology. The GUI we created for the audio system is a floorplan of the space, with each touch panel opening up to its section of the room, and all the other sections are available by simply flipping to the next page of the interface. This way presenters can quickly use the input panels to hook up a microphone, iPod, or video player to one section or the whole room, while setting volumes for each specific area.”

Best of all, the system is designed to be easy-to-use for the integrators themselves. Incorporating the Furman F1500-UPS into the system simplifies the configuration, ultimately saving Zavala and his team time and money through BlueBOLT remote power management.

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Drones Offer Pro AV Dealers an Unprecedented New Revenue Opportunity as Surveillance Applications Take Off

Drones are becoming increasingly important in assisting first responders and law enforcement officials in the area of surveillance, according to Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly, who today asserted that this increase in drone usage offers ProAV dealers an unprecedented new opportunity in security, live event, and law enforcement surveillance applications.

“It should come as no surprise that one of the most immediate and promising applications of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, is in the area of surveillance,” Kelly said. “Law enforcement officers, first responders, live event producers — anyone engaged in the critically important tasks of security and surveillance are quickly understanding the benefits of drones, and the FAA is beginning to allow their use for these applications.” 

Just last month, according to Kelly, the Michigan State Police department became the first police force in the nation to receive statewide authorization by the FAA to use drones for law enforcement purposes. After reviewing the department’s safety and program procedures, the FAA approved the use of an unmanned aircraft to photograph crash sites, search for lost people, inspect natural disasters and conduct surveillance. 

“All of these applications are casebook examples of how an exciting new technology like drones can be immediately incorporated by ProAV dealers into their product mix,” Kelly added.  “Our industry, collectively, has the dealer network with the expertise in the video category and the vertical market end-user relationships required to seamlessly integrate drones into meaningful solutions that save time, money and in some cases, lives." 

According to Kelly, two issues have stood in the way of making the use of drones a practical reality for customers who need and rely upon cost-effective surveillance solutions in their day-to- day life — concerns about privacy and the availability of educational resources to train drone operators.  “In my opinion, both of these concerns can now be addressed in a way that allows for this remarkable new technology to quickly become a mainstream part of 21st century surveillance,” Kelly commented. 

The FAA has made it very clear that it is in the process of developing standards and guidelines for the safe and legal use of drones in commercial applications, in ways that do not violate an individual’s right to privacy. The guiding principle in this process is to make sure that drones are used, not in a broad general way, but rather in an controlled environment where the owner/operator would have a right to have a security professional present. “The altitude limit of 500 feet further ensures that drones used for surveillance will not be used to monitor the activities of the at large general population,” Kelly added. 

Secondly, Kelly said, there is now a very clear path forward for ProAV dealers seeking to offer their drone customers a complete solution.  “Thanks to a strategic alliance Stampede has formed with Unmanned Vehicle University (www.uxvuniversity.com) ProAV dealers will now be able to purchase and resell to their customers specific certified courses that will enable them to operate drones in a safe and sanctioned way,” he added. 

Unmanned Vehicle University is now designing dedicated manufacturer based product training that is customized to show vertical market specific dealers how to integrate unmanned aerial vehicles into their product offerings to customers.  Finally, there is a way to educate dealers on how to integrate drones into their commercial offering and then provide the necessary training to both their employees on the category and their customers on how to operate the drones, providing a complete turnkey solution.  What’s more, the dealers will profit when they resell UVU’s unique training courses.  

“The size commercial drone market will grow to be 12% of the $98-billion in cumulative global spending on aerial drones over the next decade,” Kelly added. “This partnership with UVU will help our customers to be ready to go when these licensing and training regulations are finalized. It will also allow our dealers to offer UVU’s training courses to their end-users as part of their camera drone offering and profit on every class they sell.”

Éducation Avancée Partners With Logic-6 To Better Support Québec Customers

Underscoring its commitment to provide customers with the most innovative educational technology solutions and support, Éducation avancée, a division of Advanced, today announced a partnership with Logic-6 to better support their customers in Québec.

“We are very excited to have Logic-6 represent Éducation avancée in eastern Canada,” Mark McPherson, Vice President at Advanced, said today. “Logic-6 possesses immense experience and expertise in the education technology field. They will only further enhance an already positive customer experience.”

Effective immediately, Logic-6 will be representing Éducation avancée in Québec, providing customers with a complete line of classroom technology and services including SMARTboards, projectors, document cameras, audio systems and classroom installations. 

“Our valued customers have many options to choose from when selecting their classroom equipment provider,” McPherson said “and this partnership truly establishes Éducation avancée as the leading technology provider for school boards and higher education institutions in Québec.”

Logic-6 is a technology broker located in the Montreal region.  By associating with various suppliers, Logic-6 helps customers carry out technological initiatives and IT projects in Québec and the Atlantic provinces.

"We are very proud to represent a tier one AV vendor and the largest SMART Board reseller in Canada. I'm sure our customers will be delighted" said Jocelyn Hamelin, General Manager of Logic-6.

“Thanks to our partnerships with excellent suppliers like Éducation avancée, we have become an indisputable point of reference in the industry. We look forward to transforming Québec classrooms with their solutions.”  Hamelin said. 

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.

NanoLumens Expands Global Dealer Certification Program to Keep Pace with Record Setting Growth

AVI-SPL and JCM Global are now certified to install NanoLumens LED displays and provide comprehensive training and service support for all installations.

Strengthening the level of quality training and service support it provides to its growing base of customers, NanoLumens is expanding its Global Dealer Certification Program with the announcement today that both AVI-SPL and JCM Global have completed a comprehensive training program enabling their staffs to provide direct on-site training and support for the NanoLumens LED displays they install.

“For years, we have adhered to a policy of providing direct factory support to our customers, but this is simply no longer practical given the company’s present and anticipated future rate of growth,” explained NanoLumens Director of Business Development Nate Remmes.  “We need a larger force of better trained and qualified boots on the ground in the territories where our displays are being installed.  The certification of both AVI-SPL and JCM Global is a giant step forward in this expanded effort.” 

As the world’s leading video communications partner, AVI-SPL (www.avispl.com) designs, builds and supports the systems and environments that enable communication and collaboration. AVI-SPL has highly-trained and certified system engineers in more than 30 offices across North America and an international network of solution providers in 30 countries.  AVI-SPL’s depth of expertise across all audio, video and communication technologies allows them to address the most complex requirements from their customers. AVI-SPL works with more than 700 manufacturers to meet each customer’s unique needs. The company’s portfolio includes work with 86% of the Fortune 100 companies.

JCM Global (www.jcmglobal.com) is the world’s leading transaction technologies supplier for the banking, retail, kiosk and gaming industries. With unsurpassed service and support, JCM Global is trusted by operators, manufacturers and integrators on six continents. Its extensive line of award-winning products set global standards with ground- breaking products like the iVIZION®, Universal Bill Acceptor (UBA®) and Vega-RCTM bill validators, Intelligent Cash Box (ICB®) and PayCheck 4TM thermal printer.

According to Doug Fundator, Digital Business Development at JCM Global, “By becoming a certified service partner, JCM is fully prepared to deliver the world’s finest indoor LED solutions. We are all really excited about the additional knowledge learned during the certification and feel we are ahead of the pack when it comes to delivering, installing, and servicing a product that continues to grow in the market place.”