Well before the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia the Main Operations Center was installed inside the International Olympic Committee (IOC) building to run the day-to-day operations of various elements of the Olympic Village and venues, including transportation systems. Russia-based Live Sound Ltd. and its head of broadcast technologies, Andrei Mazurov, designed and installed central switching for the Center's large videowall using a Lightware 65x65 MX-FR65R multifunctional matrix router. The company's California-based arm, BBRS, Inc. handled procurement and part of the design work, including vendor communication. Lightware USA is the US distributor for Budapest-based Lightware Visual Engineering products.
The Main Operations Center was a powerful complex consisting of dozens of computers, monitors, a large multiscreen videowall, numerous management systems and many kilometers of wire. The big videowall, which displayed one continuous image or multiple views, showed operations personnel feeds of the sports competitions and the press room where Russian President Vladimir Putin, IOC members, heads of state and other VIPs held press conferences.
Lightware scored points for many of its features, which met the demanding applications of the Main Operations Center. "The most important requirements for all internal systems were superior reliability and intuitive, easy management despite the complexity of the systems. Operators did not have time to study all the details of the systems," Mazurov recalls. "Based on these parameters the best solution for switching the videowall was the Lightware 65x matrix router."
He notes that the modular design of the matrix allowed the technical team to configure the system to meet the objectives of the application. "The router offers more than 30 different modular I/O cards, which allowed us to interconnect many devices with different interfaces," Mazurov explains. "The high quality of the both the main unit and each module, as well as the dual hot-swappable power supplies, raised the reliability of the device to the highest level."
The router's simplicity and ease of use meant "there were no problems even for users unfamiliar with the system and without prior experience with Lightware," he adds.
Also scoring points for ease of use was High Resolution Systems' UDC Raptor, which controlled the Lightware matrix. Raptor is a Linux-embedded server that significantly lowers costs to users compared to full-blown Windows servers; it supports the same user-friendly interfaces as popular UDC (Universal Device Control) software.
Mazurov says that the IOC "praised the work of all the organizational services working during the games and chief among them was the great job performed by the Main Operations Center where the multifunctional and extremely reliable Lightware matrix router was at the heart of the system."
About Lightware USA
Lightware USA is the US distributor of professional AV products manufactured by Lightware Visual Engineering in Budapest, Hungary. With the flexibility of the Lightware product line, the Lightware USA team is able to assist with the design for some of the highest performance systems in the world. Router sizes ranging from the robust UMX4x4-Pro up to the impressive 160x160 25G Hybrid give Lightware USA the edge over the competition when it comes to routing multiple video sources to the ever changing variety of displays in the industry. Their array of solutions for extending the highest resolution video formats including 4K and 3D over Cat or Fiber put Lightware USA on the forefront of cutting edge technology.
For more information on these products, visit www.LightwareUSA.com.
