Article posted on February 2, 2017
Start with a 40-story building with almost a million square feet of space in downtown Houston—that’s a big makeover! Shell Oil, located in the Central Business District of Houston, set out to do that, and it included more than 500 rooms with AV technology.
There were dozens of types of systems, including building-wide digital signage, CATV, room scheduling, large scaled video wall visualization, video conferencing, digital AV transport, switching and touch panel integrated systems throughout.
At the heart of the AV is the Crestron Digital Media (DM) system. While the DM system is not AV over IP, it does use standard Cat5e cable/connectors. Using a digital backbone makes installation easier and faster, adding savings to the overall remodeling project. DM also is future proof because software upgrades allow for up to 4K video resolution over twisted pair. It will also accommodate any video format, allow for DM switch on the existing network and can be controlled with integrated control panels.
A product add-on called Crestron Fusion allows all of the equipment to be monitored on-line, including projection lamp status, projection screen, shades, lighting and much more. Fusion allows a central MIS or AV tech to provide on-line assistance without the need to be in the space where the room AV user is experiencing a problem.
