# Theater Video Distribution (Lobby, Dressing Rooms, etc.)



## Eric K (Mar 19, 2020)

In light of coronavirus wiping out our spring season, we are spending some quality time on maintenance projects. We are currently looking to upgrade the way video is distributed to (1) Dressing rooms, (2) Lobby monitors, and (3) Overflow spaces. Currently, we have a crestron system that pushes to the lobby monitors and is somewhat unreliable. The dressing rooms are fed by haivision makito boxes that are run through our building's network. They are low-latency, fairly reliable, but they are quite expensive.

We want to move all our monitors to a single network based system for all our video monitoring instead of this half haivision, half crestron system that we currently have (there is already network in the building, so this makes more sense for the overflow spaces than trying to pull 500' of SDI through a mess of conduit across the building). The goal is low-latency, hd video with audio over cat 6 that will play nice on a network with other traffic (unlike digital lighting or sound). We would ideally have multiple source inputs for FoH cameras at each of the different theaters and a way to "tune" the monitors at different locations into the correct source (even better would be a web interface, but running around the building with a remote control is not the end of the world for the ops team).

The haivison makito system (we have an older one than the newer x series) appears to do this well, and my inclination is to just put these boxes all over the venue: https://www.haivision.com/products/makito-series/makito-x-decoder/, but this is an expensive system, so I want advice before actually going ahead and placing the order.

(1) What system do you have for this in your venue and how would you rate its reliability and quality over 5+ years
(2) If you were in my position, what system would you recommend? the overflow feeds are sort of show-critical so we don't want something unreliable, but we also don't need to spend a crazy amount of money if there is something fairly reliable in a cheaper price range
(3) Is there anything else I should be considering?


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## jtweigandt (Mar 19, 2020)

look at motioneye and motioneyeos.. can monitor web cams.. free linux based..
Takes a little legwork to track down the access string to plug in for your particular camera type.
I run 9 cams off a raspberry pi, at a veterinary clinic. You could have a pi or low end linux box customized at a given "view station" to view
one or multiple cameras. Or you can log in to an individual camera via the motioneye machine in any browser, as it will forward stream

for instance.. 192.168.1.7:8042/camera1

Can double as security system.. add disk storage, and you can do motion triggered recordings.

Can consolidate various brands of cameras that way, and have a uniform way of viewing them via a browser station. or open multiple windows
customized to what you want to view at the moment.

Once you go through the process with one camera, it becomes pretty simple to set up others. I would search online to make sure your brand's access string is
public knowlege

I use a mix of old and new dlink, amcrest, and a generic chinese outdoor camera. Hard wired web cams will be more reliable, but you can use wifi if you have power for the camera and no cableing

You might need something else for the low latency mission critical stuff.. but you can put a heck of a lot of eyes in the sky with this for not much money


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## jtweigandt (Mar 19, 2020)

For higher end stuff, call these guys https://www.provideoinstruments.com
I use one of their hdmi to digital cable signal over coax to distribute our stage monitor camera through the facility
They have multi channel options over coax, and I am pretty sure they have digital streaming options as well

Very knowlegeable.. I called them, and told them exactly what I was trying to do, and they found me the lowest cost highest quality option.

We only run 1 camera at the Theater, but they took the time.. I didn't purchase right away, and they followed up when I was ready with the bucks approved.


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## avkid (Mar 19, 2020)

There is absolutely no reason your Crestron should be unreliable.
Get the integrator in ASAP.


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## mbrown3039 (Mar 25, 2020)

Eric K said:


> In light of coronavirus wiping out our spring season, we are spending some quality time on maintenance projects. We are currently looking to upgrade the way video is distributed to (1) Dressing rooms, (2) Lobby monitors, and (3) Overflow spaces. Currently, we have a crestron system that pushes to the lobby monitors and is somewhat unreliable. The dressing rooms are fed by haivision makito boxes that are run through our building's network. They are low-latency, fairly reliable, but they are quite expensive.
> 
> We want to move all our monitors to a single network based system for all our video monitoring instead of this half haivision, half crestron system that we currently have (there is already network in the building, so this makes more sense for the overflow spaces than trying to pull 500' of SDI through a mess of conduit across the building). The goal is low-latency, hd video with audio over cat 6 that will play nice on a network with other traffic (unlike digital lighting or sound). We would ideally have multiple source inputs for FoH cameras at each of the different theaters and a way to "tune" the monitors at different locations into the correct source (even better would be a web interface, but running around the building with a remote control is not the end of the world for the ops team).
> 
> ...



A few questions:

1. To be clear, when you say you're running through the building's network, are you saying that the video content goes through the network switches or simply that it uses Cat cable for distribution?
2. If through the network switches, are you confident that the appropriate VLANs have been properly set up (i.e., UDP, multicast, snooping, ports, etc.)?
3. Which Crestron system do you have - QM? DM? NVX? (if you don't know the name, how old is it?)
4. What kind of control are you looking for? Ron Popeil ("set it and forget it")? Preset "scenes"? By authorized personnel only or could end users in each space make changes?
5. Are all destinations *always* going to get the exact same content? What's the head end?
6. Does everything *have to* run through a network switch, or could some of the end points be shorter, direct point-to-point runs? I ask because a hybrid system may make more sense...

Thanks, m


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## Dan Fischer (Mar 25, 2020)

I'd take a look at something like http://justaddpower.com/ . It's completely scale-able, is POE where needed and works with virtually any third party IP based control system including Crestron. Just need send baluns for all of your sources (cams) and receive baluns for all of your displays and a reliable POE switch and you're good to go as long as your Crestron system has IP based control. If its an older system you can get RS232 interfaces and such. If the JAP solution is too pricey there are quite a few other companies now making similar products.


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## mbrown3039 (Mar 25, 2020)

Dan Fischer said:


> I'd take a look at something like http://justaddpower.com/ . It's completely scale-able, is POE where needed....



There are quite a few audio/video-over-IP solutions, which brings up another question (to the OP): are you looking to have something installed for you or DIY?

Either way, if you go AVoIP, check out the SDVOE alliance at www.SDVOE.org . m


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## Eric K (Mar 25, 2020)

mbrown3039 said:


> A few questions:
> 
> 1. To be clear, when you say you're running through the building's network, are you saying that the video content goes through the network switches or simply that it uses Cat cable for distribution?
> 2. If through the network switches, are you confident that the appropriate VLANs have been properly set up (i.e., UDP, multicast, snooping, ports, etc.)?
> ...



Here's my best take at replying to your questions:

1. We are running through network switches and would like to keep it that way. That said, we could with some difficulty re-purpose some of the cat runs.
2. I am fairly confident the switches have been correctly configured. Currently we are only using them for our existing limited haivision makito boxes: we have fully separate networks for each audio and lighting, but because video has to distribute through the entire building rather than just through a single venue, it is on a VLAN of the main network that also provides internet access to the building.
3. I don't know the model number of the crestron system, but it is fairly new: the back of it has a bunch of fiber optic cables that currently run to various lobby monitors and venue cameras. The part we have found unreliable are the boxes at the end of the line that spit out HDMI to the monitors and have a fiber optic link to the base station. For whatever reason, we find ourselves having to replace them more often than desirable. Additionally, there are not crestron fiber optic lines pulled to some parts of the building like the dressing rooms and the secondary venues that we use as overflow. Pulling fiber through existing conduit is theoretically possible but unreasonably costly if we can find a reliable network based solution.
4. We are looking for something where authorized personnel could make video routing decisions. We don't need end users in each space making changes.
5. All desinations don't always have the same content. An example: one of our lobbies is used for two venues, sometimes the monitors should show the live camera from one venue, sometimes they should show it from the other. This switch can be made at the appropriate time by an authorized technician with access to some routing software (either dedicated hardware like crestron or some sort of a web portal)
6. Some of the end points can be shorter point to point runs, but many of the runs are much easier through a network switch since the network infrastructure is there and there aren't existing SDI lines or Crestron fiber lines

In response to the just add power suggestion, this might be something we will look into. Seems like it could be a good solution. With respect to DIY vs professionally installed. We have an existing video integrator, but we would like to have a system where we wouldn't have to call them out when making simple modifications in the future like adding a camera or a location where we want to output a video feed.


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## MRW Lights (Mar 25, 2020)

The commercial version of your solution if you have the budget is an SDI Router, SDI IP encoder/decoder and Multiview Matrix Server. We're currently at 288 video lines and somewhere around 200ish video screens.... Assuming that's not the system you're looking to build in your downtime I'll at least introduce to the folks over at Thorbroadcast. If you want to take a video signal from one type to another, they can do it. They especially excel at Fiber/IP. Keep us updated on the project!


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## mbrown3039 (Mar 25, 2020)

Eric K said:


> Here's my best take at replying to your questions:
> 
> 1. We are running through network switches and would like to keep it that way. That said, we could with some difficulty re-purpose some of the cat runs.
> 2. I am fairly confident the switches have been correctly configured. Currently we are only using them for our existing limited haivision makito boxes: we have fully separate networks for each audio and lighting, but because video has to distribute through the entire building rather than just through a single venue, it is on a VLAN of the main network that also provides internet access to the building.
> ...



Ok, then...

A) you definitely need to get Crestron involved, assuming nothing has improved in your system since installed and you began generating service calls. I am not a Crestron fan, but will admit that -- if installed and configured correctly -- their stuff works 99% of the time.
B) As a reminder, point-to-point over Cat5e will only work at 100M for the Amazon-grade stuff and maybe 130 - 150M for name brand stuff. Cat6 will get you around 200M with pro level gear.
C) Since you need a matrixing solution and your Crestron gear isn't very old, I would stick with it for at least the head end and control/routing.
D) If you choose to go AVoIP, I always recommend a physically-dedicated network (not just virtual).
E) Whether you elect for a dedicated network or not, my recommendation for hardware is either SVSi (a division of AMX, part of the Harman family) or my favorite, Aurora Multimedia -- they have several grades of gear which vary due to video quality (up to 4:4:4, if you want that), audio/no audio, resolution, etc. Tech support is really good and they're based right here in the USA (Jersey, actually). m


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