In early 2014, the University of California Riverside was putting the finishing touches on its new Student Recreation Center, a building planned as the hub of recreational, intramural and club sports on campus.
From health classes to casual sports games to personal training and even a rock climbing wall, the 80,000-square-foot facility was packed with everything the campus would need to fulfill students’ needs.
However, the campus was still looking to find a way to showcase school events, share news, stream sporting events and more, in a visually appealing, high-tech format that was in line with the aesthetic of the new state-of-the-art rec center. Enter integrator High-Tech Electric, which presented a video wall solution to fit the bill.
The proposed system was an impressive 7 x 7 video wall consisting of 49 Barco 55-inch LCD displays seamlessly aligned and hung using Peerless-AV‘s DS-VW755S Full Service Thin Video Wall Mount with Quick Release display mount solution. On the content side, the wall would incorporate a variety of tuners from Contemporary Research to stream 16 channels and content from a Panasonic Blu-ray player, along with displaying large still images to share major campus news.
One of the installation challenges was the space designated to house equipment. Many components had to be assembled and prepped a far distance from the actual wall, using remote power supplies. To reduce weight and spatial constraints, the power supplies were also pulled out of the displays and rack-mounted along with media players in a separate, temperature-controlled room with low-voltage cabling to the displays.
Middle Atlantic Products provided the racks, and the setup resulted in less heat near the displays and less weight on the mounts. An Extron touchpanel created in the control room allowed the university to easily command the configuration of the screens, from one full screen to four mini screens and more.
With the video wall starting at 13 feet off the ground, with a peak height of 40 feet, the Peerless-AV component was a key component to the installation’s success. The mount allowed technicians to seamlessly align displays and negated tedious calculations and onsite guesswork through its reusable display-dedicated wall plate spacers.
Also, the DS-VW755S offers simple, tool-less micro adjustments at eight points, and the quick-release function allowed installers to gain easy access to the back of the displays. The mount can also extend into a negative tilt position for convenient cabling.
“This project consisted of so many industry firsts — it was scary to make it all happen, but that’s what you have to do to get the latest and greatest,” says High-Tech Electric’s James Gulke, who managed the project.
Contributor Peerless-AV is an Aurora, Ill.-based designer, manufacturer and distributor of audiovisual solutions in commercial and residential applications. Find Peerless-AV on Twitter: @PeerlessAV.
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