AV, Presentation & Display

UC Riverside Rec Center Video Wall Stacks 49 LCD Displays

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/01/15

When a new 155,000 square foot student recreation center opened on the campus of the University of California, Riverside, it included a vast swimming pool and spa, indoor jogging track, indoor climbing and bouldering wall, tennis courts, a demonstration cooking kitchen and three times as many cardio machines and weight equipment as the previous structure. It also featured a 27-foot by 15-foot LCD video wall viewable by students as they work out on that cardio and weight equipment.

Design and deployment of the video wall was handed over to High-Tech Electric and Almo Professional A/V. The goal was to set up a display to broadcast national and school sporting events, digital signage and up to 16 CATV channels. The solution was a seven-by-seven array of 55-inch OverView KVD5521 displays from Barco, which hung on a massive frame.

High Tech's integrator James Gulke recommended the use of signal processing behind the scenes supplied by Gefen.

"UCR wanted an LCD videowall that encourages student participation," said Gulke in a prepared statement. "I knew that fiber-based signal extenders were an absolute necessity for the videowall to effectively stream content from multiple sources."

The videowall can run content from cable TV, DVDs, digital images and camera feeds from hundreds of feet away with the use of Gefen DisplayPort over Fiber Optic Extenders. This content can be arranged in various layouts and controlled remotely by tablets and smartphones through a Barco pre-configured TransForm ECU-110 video wall controller.

The displays are calibrated for color and brightness with Barco's Sense X software, which interfaces with sensors embedded in each monitor to allow users to adjust the wall without any external sensor or manual intervention.

"The customer is incredibly satisfied," said Gulke.