Its mission is to become the world's first multi-disciplinary centre, enabling leading digital experts to come together and deliver research, which can impact on all sectors of the economy. The Lab will initially focus on Digital Healthcare, Digital Manufacturing and Service, promoting innovation and boosting research opportunities between academics and user organisations.
The facility provides end-to-end hi-definition quality using native HD projectors from Christie, while site wide AV distribution through an access grid is central to the design of system integrators, Pure AV.
"The fact that we already had a good working relationship with WMG probably helped," said director and project manager Richard Lister. "As each faculty has its own priorities our initial task was to interpret the individual requirements and implement an integrated solution - cost was not the main driving factor."
The site has been built around a 100-seat main lecture theatre, which sits at the hub of the operation. Here, two ceiling-mounted Christie HD6K projectors are front-projected and edge-blended onto a 6m x1.8m widescreen using 1.4-1.8:1 HD zoom lens.
This is complemented by three further satellite teaching rooms (including a 'Usability Lab' and two teaching rooms) operating under AMX master control.
Installed with a Christie HD405 single-chip 4100 ANSI lumens device the Usability Lab has a separate control room divided by one way glass to show how people interact in a simulated home or office environment.
With 25 individual workstations, the teaching area is hands-on, and divisible into one or two spaces. The dual 16:9 smartboards are addressed by a further two networkable HD405's, to offer high-quality CAD visualisation, interacting through the white board.
"WMG wanted a cutting-edge infrastructure and every display needed to be able to screen in 1080p high definition - from the lecture theatre to the various meeting rooms," says Lister. "Site-wide HD video had been consistent from the outset."
The company's solution was to design an access grid to connect all the AV systems together - with the facility to display info on screen via a central high definition video server or digital signage system. Distribution is via a signal routing matrix over a Cat6 infrastructure, allowing any display - including the Christie projectors - to show a feed from the grid.
"With the two edge blended HD6K's we can display up to four sources at once in a variety of different formats, from two 1080p images or three standard definition images side by side," explains Lister. "Everything is under AMX control and there's even a cinema mode which fills the 6-metre wide screen with a single image from a Blu-Ray player."
(Jim Evans)
