Page 9 - Campus Technology, August/September 2017

AV SMARTS
Shure’s Intellimix P300 AudioConferencing Processor
wayfinding and menu board signage. Pay attention to creative content creation and you’ll have a very unique digital signage scenario on your campus.
6) Equipment and Cable Management
I’m always on the lookout for parts and pieces that can clean up my AV system designs and installations. It seems that everyone wants AV systems packed with features, but flexible furniture and room aesthetics requirements dictate that we need to find creative ways to hide our equipment without sacrificing serviceability. I took notice of three companies offering new creative solutions to equipment and cable management: Middle Atlantic, Chief and FSR. Middle Atlantic’s Proximity Series offers some solutions to hiding equipment behind flat panel displays. The company’s in-wall
boxes behind displays offer a landing place for power/data connections as well as cable path, but they also contain a flexible mounting plate/bracket system for stashing all of those extenders, small boxes and media players. Middle Atlantic also was showing a flat plate that mounts to the wall behind a display on sliding rails, allowing small equipment to be secured to this plate and easily slide out from behind the display in servicing situations. Chief debuted its PAC527 in-wall box behind displays, expanding on the company’s existing PAC line with an increased size and a flexible and configurable number of mounting brackets for small AV boxes. Hopefully we will see this flexible bracket mounting solution in a future redesign of Chief’s PAC525 and 526 boxes. FSR was showing the PWB-320, which is a similar flat-panel display in-wall box at a reasonable price point. FSR also
highlighted its PWB-HVBX in-wall box that mounts behind a flat panel display. A finished portion of the box is exposed below the display, and contains a couple cable retractors plus space for storage of small AV boxes, power/data and cable path. If you’re installing small huddle space displays in a flexible furniture situation where you can’t rely on a table always existing below the display, look to this box to clean up your cable management. If you need to mount a couple RUs of equipment under a conference table, both Middle Atlantic and FSR have some creative under-table and table-leg (pedestal) options.
I’ll end this InfoComm 2017 wrap-up with a plea to the show’s organizers: Please open the trade show floor for a fourth day, and possibly move more of the education opportunities to Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It’s very hard to see all the booths in just three days, especially with education opportunities being offered on those same days. I know there are plenty of backend logistics that may make that hard, but I just never leave the show feeling like I saw all the booths I wanted to see, or attended all the classes/seminars that I hoped to. With another record-setting year of attendance, it seems like the time to expand the show.
Mike Tomei is an AV design and management consultant based out of Central New York, and the owner of Tomei AV Consulting.
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | August/September 2017
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Photo: Shure Incorporated