Challenge
SIMCOM needed help on multiple fronts with their new training facility for jet pilots. They have conference rooms, a large auditorium and upwards of 50 classrooms, briefing rooms and debriefing rooms that all needed A/V systems.
Their auditorium has multiple cameras along with 10 mics for presentations and for teams meetings with other facilities. They also have a setup with multiple edge blended projectors to fill a large projector screen at the front of the auditorium. Behind that screen are 2 98” commercial displays. They needed a way to send multiple sources of audio and video to either the projector screen or to each individual display as well as control the levels of the audio of all sources including the mics.
Each classroom has either 2 or 3 commercial displays that they needed to pull in the output from multiple flavors of VSIMS (virtual simulators) as well as a dedicated room PC hosted from 2 large server rooms. They needed to walk into the room and hit a button to turn on the room and route whatever VSIM needed to the outside screens and the room PC to the center screen.
Their briefing rooms and debriefing rooms needed a similar setup. The debriefing rooms specifically need to route the data from any one actual simulator into the room so the instructors could go over the latest simulator experience with the pilot to critique the pilot’s performance with the pilot.
Their conference rooms had a very simple conference room setup with wireless screen sharing and camera/mic/speaker setup for remote meetings.
They also have a 5 screen video wall in the grand entrance they were trying to drive with another manufacturer’s product and were having no luck.
How Aurora's Solutions Enhances the Project Scope
Aurora was able to help engineer a system to run the entire building using our VLX line of products for transceivers as well as a combination of RXT-8’s and RXT-4’s for the classrooms based on the size of the rooms. Each server room (one for each side of the building) houses racks of VLX’s as encoders connected to room NUC style room PC’s as well as VSIM computers. We used the encoders to route the audio and video from the computers as well as passing through the mouse and keyboard functions from the decoders in the classes to the room PC’s in the server rooms. This allows the instructors to use one wireless keyboard and mouse to toggle between the VSIM and the room PC. The RXT-4/8 gives the instructor the ability to toggle between the 2 devices for KVM control as well as power the displays on and off and control the volume of the audio.
The auditorium is a stand alone system with everything rack mounted in the auditorium. We ere able to use VLX’s as encoders in the rack as well as a couple decoders running to a Datapath Video Wall controller that controls and edge blends the projectors. They have a combination of ROKU, Rack PC and Barco Clickshare that they can send to the screens (either the projector or the displays). We also used an LXC-1 to provide control over raising and lowering the screen. For audio control, we set them up with a DTX 1616D for managing all the audio levels in the room as well as acting as a soundcard for the room pc to route audio into the PC for Teams calls in the room.
Aurora jumped in to solve their dilemma they were having with their entrance video wall. We added 5 VLX’s as decoders behind the screen and routed 1 BrightSign HD225 from an encoder in the server room to them to make up the video wall. The solution took 1 day to setup for them and solve an issue they were battling for a month with the other solution they had tried.
The last project we undertook was to tie the two identical sides of the building together so they could route VSIMS from one server room to any room on either side of the building. We used aurora 10GB SFP’s to tie the two sides together with fiber through a series of A/V Pro line of Netgear switches. A big shout out to Netgear for their amazing support in building the LAG setup of switches to give the building the best possible speed in their A/V network.
Results
In the end, the Aurora Mutimedia setup that was engineered for them along with some pretty amazing programming from the Aurora team (combination of the Aurora engineers and CityMind Technology Group (feet on the ground in the facility)), we were able to put together a winning combination of the gear and programming to accomplish every goal SIMCOM put before us. The classrooms are all functioning as planned and SIMCOM is now able to spread out their classrooms across the entire building as they continue to expand their offering of jets they train on the amount of people they can train in their building.
