FEATURE: SHOW CONTROL
THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILIARITY
Dataton’s Fredrik Svahnberg makes an interesting point. “Show designers have to remember that, at the point where visitors interact with a show, it’s important that the technologies are familiar,” he says. “Look at multi-touch interfaces, for example. It’s not long ago that most consumers would have struggled with those – but now, they’re very familiar with them because they’re featured on so many mobile phones and tablets. Consumers are similarly familiar with gesture and voice control, or with stereo 3D. Those have been important changes in the recent past, and they’re transforming show control.”
especially Asia and the Middle East. The live event market is a bit slower – maybe because it is mainly a US and European market.” “For Watchout, we see
growth primarily in digital signage applications in museums, retail and exhibitions,” adds Fredrik Svahnberg, marketing director at Dataton. “Regionally, the US and China are busy for audio show control of sound effects, and Germany and Switzerland for combinations of our performer tracking for vocal localisation as well as sound effects automation,” says Dave Haydon, a director of Out Board. TiMax technology from Out Board features ‘source-oriented reinforcement vocal localisation’ which makes amplified sound seem to come from precisely where a performer is on stage, and is used in a range of applications that include corporate events, high-tech circuses, attractions, museums, night clubs and dance events as well as theatre.
“Scandinavia has always been a strong market; France is hotting up – and we’re always busy in the UK with very diverse projects.”
CHALLENGES Show control systems face two significant challenges. The first is that the number of devices to be controlled has undergone rapid growth, making shows ever more complex. The second is that those devices have become increasingly capable, operating at higher speeds
and bandwidths and using increasing audio and video resolutions. Add to those challenges the need to ‘hide’ that complexity from operators and the requirement to not just entertain but captivate an increasingly jaded, hard-to- impress audience, and it becomes apparent that those working in show control have plenty to think about. Stucken provides an
example. “Frame accurate synchronisation of audio and video sources across networks is of extreme importance, since so many show control set-ups rely on a multitude of different devices to create a seamless end result,” he says. “As customers demand ever more advanced show set-ups, the number of different systems and devices that have to be integrated is growing accordingly. This is why network synchronisation is so important for creating a smooth production and communication workflow.” While connectivity has, by definition, always been integral to show control, its significance is increasing. “Networking between
scenes and signals has become more and more important,” says Michaela Berger, who is sales manager, multi-display at AV Stumpfl. “To achieve interaction and synchronisation, you need a connection between all your devices. A lot of different signals have to be synchronised to get a perfect result; audio, DMX, video, relays, network signals and so on – they all have to be seen as one complex system.” “Our systems rely heavily
on Cat5 or fibre-based control networking, as well as wireless which is essential for programming spatialisation and panning actually in the soundfield or audience area,” notes Haydon. “We also support multiple different multichannel audio network and transport formats like Dante, MADI, Ethersound and Cobranet which are invaluable for interconnecting the relatively high input and output channel counts we use for distributed systems in vocal localisation and audio show control.”
CONNECTIVITY: GOING FURTHER Networking together the individual elements of a show in order that they are co-ordinated is, of course,
www.installation-international.com January 2013 25
At the Kuala Lumpur International Music & Light Festival 2012, 14 Christie 20K projectors were linked to an AV Stumpfl Wings Platinum 4 Master Server
fundamental. However, the influence of connectivity is becoming far wider. “In theme parks, shows are becoming extremely complex, needing faster processing with faster controllers, for example,”
notes Carru. “But in theme parks, we are evolving from localised attractions with no link to localised attractions plus supervision. In other words, it is now possible to have a central dashboard of all the attractions in a park
plus a centralised park-wide control system to monitor and supervise the entire park.”
That ‘supervision’ isn’t just about the ability to check that all devices are functioning correctly.
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