Facilities
U of Charleston Outfits Innovation Center with LCD Video Walls
The University of Charleston in West Virginia has opened up a new a facility for students looking to enjoy live sporting events with peers.
The university’s Innovation Center, which opened earlier this month, aims to enhance the sports viewing experience with attention-grabbing, easy-to-use LCD displays from Advanced, an audiovisual and collaborative communications company based in Orlando, FL. Advanced installed two Planar LCD video walls, one of which hangs as a 6- by 1-panel welcome banner at the building’s entrance. The other serves as the 3- by 3-panel central display fixture in an “entertainment hub” space, according to a press release.
Additionally, the company installed a Crestron Control System that allows staff to easily control the displays from a 7-inch touchpanel located at the center’s reception area. In addition to its basic functions, the touchpanel can be used to control the format of displayed content (for example, showing a single image or splicing an image into two or three images).
“With these monitors, the power modules are offloaded into quad controllers, which allows us to install the displays directly against the wall,” explained Greg Priest, senior account manager at Advanced, in a prepared statement. “This makes them significantly lighter because they have no immediate backing components. They don’t need to be directly plugged in, thus eliminating the need for on-site outlets. With that being said, we were able to hook up both displays up to an equipment rack in a control room that’s located about 100 feet away.”
U Charleston began its $16.5 million construction upgrades for the sports and academics facility nearly two years ago. The building was born from a renovation of the university’s gym – the only building to not receive any upgrades during the $100 million overhaul of campus infrastructure over the last 10 years, according to reporting from the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Since the Innovation Center’s opening, the university has used the displays to relay school information and to broadcast live sporting events.
A video tour of the new Russell and Martha Wehrle Innovation Center can be viewed below. To learn more about the displays, visit the Advanced site.
About the Author
Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].
