AV Technology - May 2008 - (Page 58)

casestudy education PHOTO COURTESY OF WSDG. Hunter College’s dedicated conference room for Internet2-based collaboration is a reconfigurable and optimized for acoustics and sightlines. AV Enables Interactive Research RESOLVING ACOUSTICAL ISSUES AND INTERNET2 CAPABILITY HELPS HUNTER COLLEGE MAKE IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS. By Janice Brown new Internet2-driven distance research and learning facility at Hunter College’s Center for the Study of Gene Structure & Function in New York City offers students, professors, and research partners the ability to collaborate in real-time experiments with outside educational and research labs via high-performance videoconferencing. Dr. Robert Dottin, Ph.D., director of the Gene Center, has been the primary leader in securing funding and support to bring this new facility online, and in ensuring that the work done there will have lasting impact both inside and outside the Hunter community. Once the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) had funded the project, Dottin began assembling the design and technical team that could build the research facility he envisioned. “I wanted to create a facility in which we could share experimental observations in real time with research groups in other locations, as well as benefit from experiments elsewhere that use complex equipment that no one university can afford,” says Dottin. “Because Internet2 gives us the bandwidth to com- A municate and share data at such high speeds, these real-time experiments are now possible.” The project began back in early 2006, as Hunter’s president Jennifer Raab provided 1,100 square feet of available space at Hunter’s main campus, located at Park Avenue and 69th Street in Manhattan. Dottin and Hunter College’s Internet2 facility manager, Carlos Lijeron, met with designer/acousticians Walters Storyk Design Group (WSDG) to plan the transformation of the raw, gutted third-floor space. Positioned above a bustling city street, this facility would need sound proofing and acoustics treatment, design elements with which the WSDG team — led by architect/acoustician John Storyk — has extensive experience. “The Gene Center wanted the main room to work in multiple configurations,” recalls Storyk, “It needed to function as a traditional classroom, with tables facing forward and power at every location for laptops, as well as in a squared-off circle for a seminar or conference format. We designed it for the most advanced use, drawing from our experience in developing critical listening and viewing environments for professional broadcast, performance, and recording studios.” The acoustical issues in the room were twofold, Storyk explains. “First, to isolate the room from street noise,” he notes, “and second, to make it an ideal environment for speech intelligibility. We went with a floating room-withinroom design to achieve isolation from the street noise. We used a combination of absorptive and diffusive acoustical treatments to handle mid-frequency reverberation and some low-frequency issues. Not only does the speaker [talker] need to be heard accurately within this facility, but we also had to make sure the room wouldn’t sound like an echo chamber on the receiving end in a videoconference presentation.” The facility incorporates a main presentation room, a secondary, smaller meeting room, and central machine room, which can double as a control room for the most advanced applications. WSDG designed and wired the room for full-function computer, phone, Gigabit connectivity, ISDN, and audio and video connectivity, while North Haven, CT-based HB Communications handled the AV system design and installation. Lijeron, who was appointed facility manager, had no prior AV experience. “I am an IT specialist, but I had very little experience with AV connectivity,” he shares. “We relied on HB Communications to setup the equipment and hardware, and then over the following year, I became a Tandbergcertified technical associate.” At the heart of this AV installation is the Crestron AV2 system, controlled by a TPS-5000 touchpanel from the lectern, or by another operator on the web browser-based Crestron X-Panel. The AV2 controls the main room’s Mitsubishi XL25U LCD data projector, which projects onto a 60- by 80-inch Stewart Filmscreen screen, the 42inch Sony PFM-42X1/B plasma display in the back of the room, the Tandberg 3000 MXP videoconferencing codec, Tandberg Wave 2 camera and CameraMan 3e tracking camera, Extron MAV series and Crosspoint matrix switchers, which handle video and computer source switching, and ClearOne XAP audio matrixes with distributed echo and noise cancellation. According to Darren Clark of HB Communications, “The room has a series of floor boxes with connectivity for computers — laptop video with audio — or for a portable document camera that can capture a live image and project it. The floor boxes are connected to the custom-built tables that can be moved around the lectern, so the layout is reconfigurable.” The audio system consists of portable microphones www.avtechnologyonline.com 58 | AV TECHNOLOGY | may 2008 http://avtechnologyonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of AV Technology - May 2008

AV Technology - May 2008 Contents Precedent Corporate: How to Qualify an AV Supplier Education: Working Smarter AV Technology's Guide to Networked AV Government: IPv6 — Why You Should Care Calculating ROI on Your Digital Signage Investment Enhancing Audio in the Classroom Minimizing Equipment Theft Smart AV The Tribe Has Spoken AV Enables Interactive Research AV Image Enhancement Product Spotlight Tech Horizons Product Review New Products AV MO

AV Technology - May 2008

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