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 AV components become the missing link for multi-screen entertainment at a Chicago Starbucks.
by Wendy Ellis, Pro AV Magazine Most fireflies glow in the dark. This one pings. At 2 AM every morning, the Focus Enhancements Firefly Media player
at the Starbucks Coffee store located at the intersection of Rush
and Oak in Chicago reaches out through the dark to a Hewlett Packard
server. It's looking for any changes that may have been made to
a trio of video presentations playing daily to audiences on a nine
screen video wall at the Chicago coffee shop. This new videowall
concept may soon branch out to other Starbucks flagship stores across
the country, but for now, Chicago is its proving ground. That nightly request from the Firefly MC media player became part of the presentation process only after AV systems integration firm Media Resources Inc., of Lisle, Illinois, joined the team attempting to link the artistic and technical elements of the project. "They had the production and the display, but they had no idea how to make the show play," says Brian Maksa, vice president of sales and rentals for MRI. "Basically, we became the missing link." The idea behind the wall came from Starbucks' desire to provide its employees a venue for displaying their artistic talents. Many of the company's employees are also musicians, painters, photographers, sculptors, and even film makers. The new "Partner Projection Wall" is their window to the world.
Timing is everything Because there are three video signals going to three sets of monitors, MRI channelled two of the video signals to a component dual-channel Extron MDA 3V Dual video distribution amplifier. The third signal goes to an Extron MDA 3AV audio-video distribution amp, and also carries the single audio track. All three signals are fed to Extron MTP CV Cat5 transmitters and corresponding Extron MTP R CV Cat5 receivers at each of the display devices. The cigarette pack-sized transmitters and receivers are mounted on the back of each monitor, and all cabling is hidden in the wall. Maksa then integrated an AMX NI 700 digital controller to add seamless automation to the whole presentation. The entire series of videos loops every 40 minutes, unless a customer pushes the button on the wall and start a vignette. That button is located within easy reach of a small counter where customers can sit and enjoy their coffee. If the wall is in "attract mode" when the button is pushed, the next vignette will begin. But if a vignette is playing, it will finish before the next presentation begins. The control system records each time the button is pushed and when, in case Starbucks execs are curious about how often customers interact with the videos. For audio, MRI wired
four Sony MDR V150 headphones to the wall below the counter allowing
continuous audio from the monitors by way of a Fostex PH-50 distribution
amp. For use on special occasions, Maksa also provided a QSC ISA280
2-channel amplifier to carry the audio signal to two JBL Control
25 speakers mounted on the top of the videowall at each end. While
the headphones carry the audio at all times, customers standing
in line can't hear the audio unless the store manager chooses to
flip a toggle switch to pipe the audio throughout the store. "
To avoid disrupting the daily operations of the store, the majority
of the installation and construction work was completed after the
midnight closing and before the store opened at 6 am. Plainfield,
IL-based Hagge Construction finished most of the structural work
and cabling before MRI joined the project. The decision to use Cat5
cable made things easier for MRI. "You can put most any signal over
Cat5," Maksa says. "It gives us the complete flexibility for whatever
resolution we want to display." MRI did not stop at connectivity alone, however. New or updated
video presentations are emailed to MRI, and are then loaded onto
the HP Workstation XW4200 computer where the Firefly comes searching
in the wee hours of every morning. If a change is detected, the
update is downloaded and a new presentation begins the next morning
without requiring any interaction from store employees. Maksa says he would have liked to have also made it possible to
remotely monitor the videowall from the MRI offices, so he would
immediately know if something in the system wasn't working correctly.
Budget restraints, however, made that impractical at the time of
installation, although it could be considered in the future. To
save power, the AMX Control enables the videowall system to turn
itself off every night just after closing, and restart just before
the store opens each morning. Maksa says the AV portion of the project was completed in five
days at a cost of about $35,000, not including the monitors and
vignettes that were already in place. The end result is exactly
what Starbucks ordered- a successfully synchronized display of seamless,
unobtrusive and entertaining videos that show daily at the Chicago
Starbucks.
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