It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore!

Fiber Optics and the coming revolution in Live Events signal distribution.

 

When
you mention the word fiber to most event staging folks it is likely that the
reaction will be a commiserating hand on the shoulder and a comment that their
doctor said the same thing to them followed by an invitation to compare
medications prescribed as well.  
In truth for most of us employed in the collection
of industries I like to call the Live Life any practical experience with fiber
optics is usually limited to having one of those color changing tubes shaped
like a Christmas tree.  Oooooh pretty! There is a good reason the industry
has paid very little mind to the coming revolution in topology- we need to be
confident in the pathways and conduit which we send video and audio down.
 We cannot ask of a do-over when things go amiss, its live People!

Because
of the nature of these live events the staging industry is resistant to and
even 
suspicious of changes to the main backbones infrastructure.  One only
has to take a look at how long it took DMX to truly take hold and the rather
limp implementation of the ACN protocol, which has many called for applications
and improvements yet still is relatively unknown.  One only has to look at
how few shops implement Ethernet control on their devices to understand the
situation. Don’t get me started in how bumpy the early days of wireless mics
were!  Beyond the confidence factor and mantra that you are only as good
as your last show - heck these days you are only as good as your last CUE!-
there is often a good deal of information and skills ramp up required.

I spent
ten years away from the event staging world earning my living in the cushy
upholstered rooms of an AV manufacturer- helping folks get their residential
and corporate boardrooms systems designed and tech supported.  These types
of projects always involved some cutting edge product, technique or interface
but alas, fiber was almost never used - unless it was as a run to the pool
house from the main living area to prevent damage from a lighting strike. When
I reentered the world of live events the first few months were like looking at
the fishbowl from within. So much had remained the same with the switchers,   miles and miles of Copper and DVI connectors!  A DVI connector would have
caused a near riot if spotted being installed to a home or boardroom - how
quaint! But the changes were almost too daunting to consider with full blown
media servers which have built in tools for projection geometry/ image masking,
HD-SD everywhere and Fiber by the reel stacked on tall shelving units with bins
of SC and LC connectors.  I would be lying if I did not feel just a bit
intimidated by it. 

Fiber
is just too much to learn and the terminations are so finicky as to require
special epoxies and clean suits in special rooms like those you see in Intel
commercials, certainly not a field termination system! I mean, really the price
alone is prohibitive enough to restrict its use to esoteric shows or the ‘Big
Boys’ only.  Well Buck-O’ I am here to tell you in the simple words of
Col. Sherman T. Potter - Horse Hockey! Well, mostly. The Truth is that Fiber is
not nearly as delicate anymore and new termination tools make the job easily
mastered by anyone who has terminated BNC connections.  Tactical fiber and
connectors make the topology as rugged if not more than its copper compatriots
- Heck the military uses this stuff in the field nowadays. The issue of cost is
where the ‘Well, mostly” part comes in but it might not be on the scales of differential
you have pictured in your head.



On
Episode Seven of AVNation.TV’s Live Life Podcast we tackle this emerging and
growing use of Fiber on Live Shows.  We dig deep into the topic with
experts Barry Grossman of WorldStage Inc and Bill Brady of Alford Media. We
learn the basics of fiber, pitfalls to avoid and the practical knowledge to begin
your conversion from copper. Fiber has solutions for event companies of all sizes
and we ask- when will your shop be next? Join us for an entertaining and
informative hour of all things fiber - I promise it will wake you up!

Infocomm 12 - Rock Soup

Pardon the Bold format here folks... The post was written in MS Word when I did not have access to my online tools *sigh* .  For some reason the MS formatting is being read as bold and is STICKY as hell. 

Infocomm has wrapped up and if my facebook feed is to be believed even the largest booths have been packed away in crates and are well on the way home. The pictures of tired but obviously satisfied faces with a drink in hand tell you all you need to know.  This show went without a hitch and 34,268 -up 4%!-  found good food, lodging and business deals.

Now, thousands of products were exhibited on the show floor - .  You can find reports on nearly every one in nauseating detail from great industry news outlets like System Contractor, PLSN and many, many others.  rAVe Pubs also did a fine job video documenting nearly every booth on the floor and have them posted in a handy, searchable site.  

To save you time I am going to boil down the main elements for you in seven points

What was Infocomm 2012 all about?  

1). Simplification

 You have heard of multiplication or perhaps even anticipation (it’s making me waa -a-a-it) but Infocomm this year was all about making things “Simpler”, “Easy”, “little ramp up time to operation” and “With in House staff in mind”. These common catch phrases spun as revelatory exclamations seem to show that manufacturers and developers finally understand that interface matters.

There is a darker side to all this happy ‘we get you’ preoccupation with making set up, controls and configuration as easy as a three fingered salute.  I have to ask at what the root catalyst for this sudden interest in implementing the Wizards cry to Dorothy “Pay no attention to that man behind the screen!”.  Are we giving up on the need for basic understanding of the physics and simple mechanics because they are no longer needed for standard operation or because we can no longer find the  personnel  who can or are willing to dig deep?

Certainly the industry is ch-ch- changing but is it for the right reason?  We have a serious youth deficit in this industry, doubly so for the Event Staging world, is this the way to get them into the fold, by bypassing all the hard knowledge stuff ?

2. iPad

Apps  are still everywhere but no one is hysterically shouting about them from booth rigging. Yes they are a good thing. Yes they make things more flexible and, well let's admit it, sexy. Thankfully they appear to have become standard accessories not above or beyond actual equipment.

3. Speaking of hysterical nonsense

 Thank <enter deity name of choice here, or null> -  that 3D is only a footnoted specification now.  Last year in Orlando attempting to avoid the clamour of 3D from any booth was akin to trying to enter a vegas hotel without having to claw your way through the forest of slot machines, blue smoke one could cut with a bowie knife and over eager cocktail waitresses.  If you read my Twitter rants or listen to the AV NationTV podcasts with any regularity -you know just how enamoured with 3D I am.  Oh Muybridge! Up Yours (with apologies to Polystyrene)

4). HD over Structured Wiring

 AV over “Cat 5” was everywhere - or should I say HDBaseT was ubiquitous under various and sundry names throughout the show floor.  For Installations folks the era of UTP / STP as THE wire for everything is now nearly at hand. Another shake up in the wire biz is due soon as fewer and fewer cable types are used.  I wonder what pseudoscience babble Monster Cable will start using to market theirs.

5). IATSE Booth

Before anyone starts with me, I love the folks involved with IATSE- some of my best friends are IATSE members. Yet the large set aside space with a stage and chairs never seemed to have any activity in it. Perhaps I was on a  different schedule or something happened while I was recording AV Social or the Live Life. I spent a good deal of time in the ‘Lighting and Staging’ section and never saw anything beyond a few folks eating.

The eerie atmosphere reminded me of the a scene in the book  Travels with Charley  by John Steinbeck. The book is part travel journal, part memoir and part  literary extension of   Kerouac’s  On The Road, it is the story of his travels across the United States with his dog Charley. Steinbeck wrote the book while living in Sag Harbor Long Island, (My Home Town!) which is also where he wrote the Winter of Our Discontent - but that is another tale altogether. Early on in the book, while he is traveling through deep Vermont Steinbeck comes upon a fully lit and operating roadside cafe but it is empty of people. After waiting for half an hour he decides to get behind the counter and cook his own breakfast which he eat and cleans up after.  With still no one showing he leaves money for  his meal and moves on.   

I really wanted to have some folks on the Live Life podcast but since I could not find anyone in the “booth” the opportunity was lost.  If anyone from the organization is reading this, we would love to have you on a future show!

6). AV NationTV

Rocked with our first Live broadcasts of  The Daily Rave, AV Week, AV Social and The Live Life.  Our Broadcast table, in the front of the rAVe booth drew crowds of regular listeners and many new ones. We had a fantastic time chatting with integrators, press, Infocomm staff  and lots and lots of exhibitors.  When the recorded versions of the shows post I will update here with links.   

7). Finally

Speaking of AV NationTV, we want you for the AV Nation Army- Join us by suggesting topics, guests or even joining us on air as a panelist. We started the network but it is for and about our industry - it can only grow when we work together.

All in all it was a great show. I am unclear if anything really new came out of this show but I found it informative and a great networking opportunity. In the last hours of the exhibit I kept thinking about the story of Rock soup. It may not have started out as much but it was damn tasty in the end with all the help.   Hope to see you all in Orlando next year!