How the University of Oklahoma Made Its Football Stadium Better Than the NFL

The University of Oklahoma (OU) went big when it decided to upgrade the audio and video distribution in Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Doug Engstrom, VP of Communications and Technical Services for Contemporary Research, says many colleges typically opt for Cisco IP T.V. systems for an upgrade.

However, IP T.V.s tend to be expensive and operate with up to an eight-second delay.

“When you’re looking at the game and the video in the sky boxes are eight seconds behind, it’s kind of unnerving,” Engstrom says.

However, instead of IP T.V., OU invested in a hybrid approach for its A/V upgrade, which included lots of tech by Contemporary Research:

• Replacement of the existing DSP with QSC Q-Sys system for the 52 stadium suites, and concession areas.

• Separate source selection and volume control for the stadium suites.

• Crestron seven-inch touchpanels that are mounted on the walls for individual or simultaneous audio, video and T.V. control; RS232 controls, which are used for the suites; Crestron ten-inch desktop touchpanels to control over the audio system and T.V.s. from five concierge desks.

• Blu-ray players on the east side of the stadium.

• A Contemporary Research ICCI-232 box for the suites, and ICCI-IR box for the common areas, which convert signals and send them to the T.V.s.

• Cat6 for gigabit uplinks, which were installed in between the network switches for interconnectivity to Cisco network switches on the east side of the suite system.

“It’s kind of a straightforward stadium system with some steroids added, and custom controls in the suites,” Engstrom says.

OU also had existing coax cable in its stadium system prior to the installation, which aided AVL Systems Design during the system integration.

“Because they already had a bunch of wire in place, they just needed to upgrade their signals,” says Danny Nix, Customer Relations & Marketing Manager, AVL Systems Design. “Because of what Contemporary Research offers, and their boxes, we were able to do an HD feed going down to the suites just doing a regular RGB cable.”