Video Grand Slam
Pitching power and an Ultra HD over IP system drives the new fan experience at the Great American Ball Park
- By Taft Stricklin
- Jun 01, 2018
The Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati is the
hallmark of America’s greatest pastime and home to
baseball’s oldest franchise, the Cincinnati Reds. The
organization has made its mission to keep the team’s
greatness alive through continuous upgrades that further
boost and enhance the fan experience. In addition to new food
and entertainment options, providing high-end visual technology was
a large priority—delivering a bevy of video walls, projectors, interactive
screens, and flat screens that would entertain fans in and out of
their seats for the ultimate game day.
Technology solutions integrator Nor-Com has worked with the
stadium since 2014, and was tasked by the ball park to design and
implement a visual system that would put the stadium on the cuttingedge.
For the 2017 season, the Cincinnati Reds added a new exclusive
Champions Club, the Scouts Club and the view level bar that all
needed a state-of-the art video distribution system to allow the ball
park to distribute HD video to a range of sources within each space.
Play Ball!
Because the stadium was continuing to add and refurbish spaces over
a course of a few years, it was imperative that Nor-Com select and
install a video distribution system that would work with today’s and
tomorrow’s video formats as well as a range of sources. The company
decided that the old switching system that had been installed in other
areas of the stadium didn’t meet the needs of the organization. It was
cumbersome to install, required pulling a lot of cabling, and was difficult
for users to operate.
“We had to do repeated error checks to ensure it was all routed
and connected properly,” said Gary Snyder, technology resource
manager for Nor-Com. “Then it required users to follow six different
steps to send a source to a single display. And in this stadium, where
the Reds have really put a lot of emphasis on visual entertainment
with displays literally everywhere and a dozen or more sources in
each space, it was too complex for them to easily manage.”
They needed a platform that would support any source—including
HD tuners, Blu-ray players, video game consoles, presentation
inputs, digital signage and dynamic video wall graphics, live broadcast
feeds, and more—and distribute it to any screen with ease. It
also needed to be scalable and modular, allowing the organization
to add new screens as needed in each space. The system would also
need to support the upgrade from VGA to 1080p and be capable of
transitioning to 4K in the future without ripping and replacing the
infrastructure in place. Finally, the solution needed to be easy to control,
allowing users to push a button to operate all the displays in one space or selectively distribute sources throughout the room.
Full Count
With the stadium implementing a centralized IT infrastructure, Nor-
Com didn’t hesitate to specify Just Add Power (J+P)’s Ultra HD Over
IP products. Designed to scale to the format and size of any installation,
J+P’s modular approach to video distribution provided the
flexibility needed in such a large, complex project. Using the platform,
integrators can optimize the current IP infrastructure to create
a limitless 1080p up to 4K HDMI matrix using a 1Gb network
and Cat-5e/6 cabling. Video can be routed anywhere with ease, even
a thousand feet apart.
In addition, it offers any combination of inputs and outputs
to meet the wide variety of sources and screen requirements often
found in a large commercial installation. Additional screens can be
accommodated with another receiver while only another transmitter
is needed to distribute each additional new video source. In addition,
when screens are upgraded to 4K, only the receiver needs to be
switched out, providing the organization with an economical way to
transition to emerging formats.
This is a cost-effective solution compared to deploying a large,
fixed-format HDBaseT matrix that may not meet future needs. It can
also be used in centralized and decentralized designs, or a mixture of
both. Built-in scalers mean every display plays the highest resolution
video possible with ultra-low latency that is undetectable and sources
are instantly switched from one to the next. Other features include
HDCP protection, full PoE commercial-grade hardware backed by a
three-year warranty, multi-channel support including high-resolution
digital audio formats, RS-232 or IR control of sources, and instant
video wall modes for dynamic presentations.
Evolution as Revolution
Just Add Power’s intelligent, robust, and cost-effective Ultra HD
over IP platform has kept pace with the Cincinnati Reds’ ongoing
upgrades and video distribution requirements. When Nor-Com began
implementing J+P’s highly modular and scalable IP-based system
five years ago, it quickly became the platform of choice as they
progressed through the extensive upgrades around the stadium. As a
result, new spaces continue to be brought online with the new system
and others updated for a seamless video experience that can be commanded
with ease.
“Our first Just Add Power project was the War Room, where they
do baseball trades, watch college baseball, and do all their prospecting
for draft day. It features three 80-inch displays and a video wall
with 12 DirecTV set-top boxes that can be routed to anyone of those
displays at a touch of button,” Snyder said. “Using J+P, we not only
can do that but we can also window the different channels so people
can watch all the different games at once. They can pull or have them
even jumping around. That impressed them enough to want to do
this throughout the installation with the goal of having the entire
stadium unified so that a single source can literally be pushed to any
display in the venue.”
A year later, Nor-Com deployed J+P in the Super Suite, which
features 10 interactive displays along with 10 more displays throughout
with Barco ClickShare wireless presentations system, StarLeaf
videoconferencing, a Blu-ray player, digital signage, and HD tuners
all acting as sources. This unique space is a partnership between Nor-
Com and the Reds’, and a true testament of the relationship between
the integrator and organization.
At the Handlebar Club, which was in 2015, the organization also
added a new level. It boasts the second largest video wall in the stadium
with two columns featuring a three-by-five 15-monitor matrix
as well as 20 additional displays throughout the space. Inputs include
three laptop ports, a Blu-ray Player, and a Christie Brio to support
wireless video presentations from up to 16 users. That space also has
boasts digital signage boxes managing six different channels of digital
signage that can routed to the columns and to the video wall at
any given time. In the pregame mode, the boxes also run graphics
around the top and bottom of the video wall for additional branding.
Most recently, Nor-Com used J+P’s 2G and 3G transmitters and
receivers to get the newly redesigned Scouts Club ready for the 2017
opening day. The state-of-the-art space was installed with 42 displays
that includes a two, two-by-two video wall columns that feature interactive
displays. Guests can access the schedule and other information
such as the players and player stats. In addition, kids can play Xbox
videogames on the screens.
Each of the booths in the restaurant feature a touchscreen display
where customers can conveniently order their food, watch live
television, or pull up the game-day schedule. The space also includes
a massive three-projector blended video wall that runs special game
day video and graphics. Using the J+P Ultra HD over IP platform,
Nor-Com could distribute more than 13 sources throughout the club,
which also included four digital HD tuners to access the game feed
or different sports programs; a Blu-ray player; a scoreboard feed; a
laptop input; two PCs with one dedicated to presentation and the
other to digital signage; and two digital signage boxes.
In the private Champions Club, the organization has continued
to improve upon the exclusive fan experience offered in the space by
optimizing J+P’s incredible distribution performance. The club’s former
distribution system was costly, complex to install, and cumber some to use. J+P provided the building blocks for a simple system
that solved these challenges. The space features 54 displays, including
13 private outdoor booths each installed with a display and two large
projection systems that can be used for weddings and special events.
Distributed sources include seven laptop inputs between three
wall inputs, three floor boxes, and an iPad wall cradle; three HD tuners;
two dedicated PCs for presentations and digital signage; a Bluray
player; a scoreboard feed; and finally, a press feed. Because the
club offers one of the most spectacular views of the ballpark, it’s often
used for camera crews, so it was essential that the Reds be able to
intake live camera feeds and distribute it to all the displays in the club.
Another unique area that was recently updated was the social media
wall and press box area. The social media wall is 20-monitor video
wall installed within the Reds Connect Zone on the main concourse
in a four-by-five matrix. The wall is updated with the organization’s
live social media feeds from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as well
as other sports broadcast programming, using the J+P platform.
In each space, users can control and switch any source effortlessly
from an iPad. J+P’s platform can easily be programmed within the
organization’s control environments, which include Crestron and
RTI. Because of the simplicity of the system, training is minimal.
Using the iPad, it’s intuitive to put every display in pre-game mode or
send specific sources to one or all displays in the room. This capability
brings the technology to the forefront of the fan experience while
minimizing system management and issues.
“The sports industry is currently faced with the challenge of how
to affordably upgrade their technology to provide a seamless, costeffective,
and future-proof entertainment experience for the fans. J+P
helps easily solve modern distribution challenges by providing modular
system that can be scaled as needed,” Synder said. “For the Reds’, it’s
offered incredible versatility that was essential to
their vision. We were able to put in new bar or install
guest experience as their vision evolved, drop in
60 displays, and send protected HD content to any
one of those displays—with a snap of a finger.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2018 issue of Security Today.