Professional Lighting & Production - Winter 2019 | Page 24

THE NOVA CENTRE
The system now occupying Rogers
Square is comprised of two types of dis-
play surfaces: six large, horizontally-orient-
ed screens with the common 16:9 aspect
ratio installed in three back-to-back pairs
running up the centre of the strip and 44
smaller vertically-oriented, back-to-back
displays scattered – albeit not randomly –
around their horizontal counterparts from
22 points. All are fed via a complement of
13 NovaStar MCTRL660 processors.
The larger displays with the familiar
aspect ratio are intended to display the
more “typical” content – live TV, IMAG from
performances, etc. – while the horizontal
screens are intended for support content,
advertising, or more abstract and artistic
pieces.
Of course, the system’s maximum
visual impact is achieved when they’re
all working in concert, and in fact, there
are certain vantage points from which
content mapped across all of the screens
comes together as a singular 1920 x
1200-pixel canvas – “so you can actually
have things move from screen to screen,
and standing in the right place, it looks
like it’s all one piece of video,” offers Van-
Veldhuisen.
All of the screens are comprised of
Absen’s XD6 outdoor-rated, 640 x 960 mm
video panels with a 6 mm pixel pitch – 10
24 | Winter 2019
SIDE VIEW OF BACK-TO-BACK HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL SCREENS
each for the six horizontal screens and two
each for the 44 vertical screens.
Explaining what informed the choice
of that particular product, VanVeldhuisen
says direct-view LED was the ideal solu-
tion for what they were trying to do in this
particular environment, and that Absen’s
reputation is well-earned in his and his
company’s experience. There was also the
benefit of overall energy efficiency, which
was an important consideration for every
technical component as the Nova Centre
aims to be LEED Gold-certified.
The package is driven via a Crestron
control, switching, and routing system – a
go-to platform for Westbury in a myriad
of applications – anchored by a CP3N
networked automation processor. A TSW-
1060-B-S 10.4-in. touch panel resides in a
rack room in one of the office towers to
easily configure and preview a show, and
then a Microsoft Surface Go loaded with
Crestron’s XPanel software offers remote
control from anywhere in the vicinity. West-
bury’s Senior Field Engineer, Tyler Gardiner,
headed up system programming.
As for inputs, the system is usually
fed custom content via Brightsign digital
signage players, with other options being
a basic Rogers cable box and a Crestron 4K
HDMI-over-HDBaseT extender that accepts
video sources from the street level.
Similarly, the audio system welcomes
inputs from a myriad of sources, and zoning
and switching is as integral to its effective-
ness. The system includes 12 JBL all-weather
speakers suspended from the ceiling and
boasts street-level inputs so that, as was the
case with the Raptors viewing parties, an
onsite DJ can take over the system during
downtime from the live feed.
“A big advantage of the Brightsign
units is that they’re not just digital signage
players, but also powerful video engines
where content can be manipulated in real-
time,” VanVeldhuisen says – “and we got
to put that to good use. When you see the
content up on a monitor before it goes to
the wall, it’s really clear how everything is
laid out and will be displayed, and then
you can get really creative with it.”
Case in point, VanVeldhuisen recalls
meeting with Argyle’s appointed content
creator and showing her around the
platform. “From there, she was able to
manipulate everything to produce some
really cool video effects within the spatial
aspects of the screens,” he recalls. “It shows
that when you’ve got someone on the
content side that gets it, it just opens up
so many possibilities.”
He recalls another creative use during
Halifax Burger Week in late March/early
April when a local food truck set up in the