It was smooth flying for Honeywell Global Aviation Services when 3Stage Design selected High Resolution Systems' Universal Device Controller (UDC) to manage Honeywell's innovative video experience at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) 2011 trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Honeywell agency The Brand Experience contracted 3Stage Design, which has offices in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., to create the video system for Honeywell's featured booth near one of the main doors to the vast convention center. Configured like an airport runway, the booth had five Prysm Digital Mannequins spaced on the simulated tarmac with a large model plane, made of fabric, suspended above. A three- to four-minute attract video was displayed on the 5x2-foot Prysm Mannequins, or towers, and across the aircraft to draw visitors to the booth. Once inside, Honeywell sales associates could then call up an array of product videos on those same towers to tailor presentations to customers' needs.
High Resolution Systems' UDC is a software-based control platform for simple, cost-effective control of devices using IP (TCP/UDP) or serial (232/422/485) protocols.
"UDC tied together the towers and the aircraft and controlled all the media players feeding them," says Todd Hall, who is partnered with Emile Wolsky in 3Stage Design. "We needed a system that would enable us to use the Brightsign media servers we own and that would work with Android tablets used by the sales associates. Greg Byrnes and his team at High Resolution Systems preprogrammed UDC to allow us to utilize our existing equipment."
Each of the five towers had a holder containing an Android tablet preprogrammed with UDC control software, which acted as the touchscreen interface for some 20 different sales videos for products such as Honeywell's EGPWS warning system, Smart Runway and Smart Landing systems, and HTF 7000 engines.
"The sales associate could walk to a tower and use the tablet to call up the video on the product the customer was interested in," says Hall. "Another tablet permitted us to run the attract video and override anything on the towers."
A six-foot umbilical tied the tablets to the UDC server, which talked to the Brightsign media players. "We've learned by experience that wireless is not a good solution for the trade show floor," Hall notes. "When everybody's systems are fired up, everything crashes."
The ability of UDC to offer a customized GUI was also important, he says. "We designed the GUI and provided a lot of suggestions and input in terms of the layout and the buttons. Greg took our Photoshop files and refined them. His attention to detail regarding how the app would run was invaluable to us - things like having time outs on the tablets and password protection on different levels of the tablets."
Hall reports that the client was "very happy" with the booth's video components. For Hall's part, having seen what High Resolution Systems' UDC can do, he is already working on a new project with Greg Byrnes utilizing UDC control.
About High Resolution Systems
High Resolution Systems, a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers is a company with a strong systems engineering and applications background. Its founders have decades of experience in the audio visual rental and staging industry, broadcast applications, A/V installations and system design. This combined experience allows them to provide the highest possible quality solutions to its customers in the most efficient manner. For more information, visit www.hrscontrol.com.
