Text:/ Christopher Holder
Photos:/ HDR Rice Daubney Architects

VIDEO: MANY TO MANY

Ashmore used the X-Lab as the basis of the LEES Superlab design, which at its core is about allowing multiple video sources to be shown at once from multiple presenters.

He explains the video setup: “Each teaching station has an Extron DXP88 8×8 matrix that feeds 3x AMX SVSI N3132 encoders. They stream out to the computers at student desks which are a 1 to 1 ratio – 144 in the PC1 labs and 96 in the PC2 lab.”

The video sources include: a Wolfvision EYE14 visualiser/demo camera on a yellowtec arm, and a resident PC, as well as an HDMI laptop input at each teaching station. There is a Panasonic AW-HE2 ‘face’ camera and a Mersive Solstice Pod2 for wireless and wired network sharing. A microscope input is also routed into the matrix, with an auxiliary feed directed into the Resident PC via a Magewell USB Capture 2, allowing the use of a mouse for highlighting particular aspects of a specimen, as well as control of the microscope’s camera settings. A further development on the streaming-only approach was the deployment of five 70-inch displays, dynamically selectable throughout the lab using SVSi N1000 codecs.

Ashmore: “With the combination of low-latency (sub 50ms) video transport and large screens we can display lip sync’ed content from a live camera, generally via the Panasonic face camera. Many presenters are a bit shy about the face camera, but it can be useful if you’re lecturing to a full room in the first few weeks of semester — students can become familiar with your face. Academics can broadcast their face on the big screens, and then send other pieces of content to the student desktops via the H.264 streams.

“Having the large screens gave us a relatively real-time visual syc reference, addressing a limitation inherent in strictly H.264 streaming designs. If you want to show content to the students – and because we could only stream content in the X-Lab – there was a 250ms delay (variable, depending on the processor load on each individual PC) which meant you either had to delay the program audio to try and be in line with the network streams or you had to stream the audio over the network to each person’s computer and have them use headphones.”

Ashmore describes this hybrid approach of combining minimally compressed network video along with baseband video as one often favoured by the University of Sydney: “We could have achieved the same result entirely using baseband video with a giant matrix but that’s very costly and whenever we’re dealing with a dynamic switching requirement we will augment baseband video switching with network-based video.

“Equally, we don’t generally do fully network-based video as it often isn’t the right solution – we’re happy to take the hybrid approach where it makes sense. Using SVSI N1000 encoders means we don’t have discernible latency. And then with anything that’s less critical – a demonstration camera or showing slides, for example – we find that will be fine to put through the H.264 streams. That said, the system gives the users flexibility to use it as they see fit.”

USING SOLSTICE

Rounding out the video sources is the Mersive Solstice collaboration platform, which performs a number of pivotal content sharing roles, as Ashmore explains: “Perhaps our most conventional use of Solstice is as a network presentation gateway. We’ve imaged all the student PCs to include a link on the desktop to connect to the Solstice device for screen sharing. The system allows the academic to invite the student to share their work, as opposed to surreptitiously reviewing what they’re doing and then sharing it – a very significant cost saving and arguably the right thing to do by the students!

“Each lab includes two 80-inch Sharp interactive touchscreen displays. They’re provide a focus of huddle zones for up to 18 people and they’re generally used with the Sharp Pen Tools app for whiteboarding. As far as Solstice is concerned, it’s just another student computer, but it provides the ability to share whiteboarding to the entire lab session – it can be routed like any other source at the teaching desk, and the user experience of connecting to the client device to the system is relatively consistent across use-cases.

“The third potential use of Solstice is a little more advanced. We had a request to put a camera in the fume hood — after all, it’s impractical for 144 students to crowd around a fume hood. Our solution is to use Solstice to mirror the academic’s phone camera. It’s quite low latency, especially when you broadcast it to the large displays, and it allows you the sort of flexibility a fixed camera simply couldn’t provide. It’s also a very cost effective solution, in that we were already spec’ing Solstice in the room. The lower resolution of screen mirroring is a welcome compromise for the flexibility offered, and it is rock solid once connected, thanks to the excellent wi-fi coverage within the space.”

DIRECTIONAL AUDIO

Central to the audio setup, both in the LEES Superlabs and the original X-Lab, is the Panphonics N20 (flat panel, narrow dispersion ‘Audio Elements’) loudspeaker. “We settled on the technology after a lot of testing in the pilot phase of the Charles Perkins Centre X-Lab,” reports Ashmore.

“The original brief was for highly directional audio to specific seats without using headphones – the feeling was that headphones are an OH&S risk, and staff wanted the ability to get students’ attention regardless of whether they’re wearing headphones or not.

“We needed an electro-acoustic solution, which was certainly challenging. We did some testing of the Panphonics solution and found what we could achieve in the voice frequencies was far superior to all the other proposed solutions. Due to our initial success we’ve not seen any reason to change our approach for these Superlabs. The only difference was to increase the density of speakers, something recommended to us by Programmed Audio Design Manager, Tim Dogao.

“We also increased the number of Panphonics speakers to include one per teaching bench, which we didn’t have previously – for a bit of program fold back (the downside of having highly directional speakers is the presenter doesn’t get a clear idea of the program audio going through to the student zones).

“At the front end we did inform the University that this isn’t a rock ’n’ roll PA, it’s primarily for voice lift, and the settings are optimised for regular speaking voices to ensure minimum interference to other cohorts sharing the room.”

HONING THE ZONING

“Setting up the audio zones is simple thanks to the intuitive floorplan interface developed by AT Controls,” explains Ashmore. “At system startup, a setup page appears which allows the presenter to select the audio zones they wish to include in their session. We’ve further enhanced our previous designs by including selection of the large displays, further expanding upon the dynamic nature of our laboratory learning envirinonments. The zones are split into Banks, which are a row of eight student seats. So that’s a lot of granularity.”

“Once the session is set up, the touch panel presents as identical to every other in the University. It has the exact same UI, providing familiarity and consistency, which is crucial to ensuring the technology is a seamless as possible, allowing academics to focus on their subject matter expertise, rather than learning multiple systems. We felt this was important even in the most complex designs.

“There are two Shure ULX-D1 packs with Countryman EC2 headsets per teaching bench – not the cheapest mic but they provide excellent gain before feedback and very high speech transmission, which is the name of the game for the audio system.”

Rounding out the audio system there’s a four-channel infrared distributed Williams AV TX9 system – a student can simply tune into the channel their presenter is broadcasting on.

In a central AV/Comms room a QSC Core 110f provides routing and DSP, with one Panphonics amp channel per Bank of Panphonics speakers.

WINNING OVER THE SCEPTICS

A big part of Ashmore’s job in the delivering of the new spaces was to ensure the move was as smooth as possible for the staff. An extensive schedule of training helped considerably, and staff were strongly encouraged to attend the deep dives into the tech — which paid off.

“Initially, there was a lot of apprehension about the technology,” reflects Ashmore. “Thankfully, some of the most vocal opponents are now some of our best power users.”