From the couch to the stadium and beyond, modern audiences demand visually compelling media experiences, which often require a significant technical backend invisible to the public eye. AVC Systems Switzerland specializes in this area, helping TV studios, stadiums, and other clients establish the technological infrastructure to seamlessly execute compelling media
experiences for audiences to consume at home, on-the-go, and in-venue. Each of its installs is bespoke but includes a core portfolio of solutions required to run a TV studio or venue AV. In the last few years, AJA’s line of openGear converter cards has become the digital glue that binds its designs.
“Many of our customers already have openGear frames in their facilities, so it’s nice to be able to place additional cards from vendors like AJA into a properly mounted frame to meet their unique conversion needs,” shares AVC Systems Switzerland Sales Manager Etienne Ritschard. “It prevents clients from having a bunch of standalone converters scattered across a facility. We also love that AJA has worked with openGear to support Ross Dashboard software, so our clients can control the AJA openGear cards and others through one interface.”
The AJA openGear solutions that AVC Systems Switzerland deploys vary on a project basis, but the OG-12GM12G-SDI/SDI muxing/demuxer is a staple. Etienne notes, “Most of our clients have a lot of legacy 3G-SDI gear already installed but also want to make use of the benefits of 12G-SDI, so we find ourselves incorporating AJA OG-12GMs into a number of our designs, as they make it easy to bring 3G-SDI technology into the 12G-SDI world and vice versa.”
Etienne deployed the cards earlier this year for an install in Swiss Life Arena, an ice hockey venue located in Zurich. When the client approached his team looking for a turnkey graphics and signal distribution solution to feed all their video signals to an in-venue LED cube and other displays, he had just the right vision mixer, graphics system, and AJA openGear conversion technology in mind. Etienne added, “We worked with the Swiss Life Arena AV team to plan the entire setup from diagrams to delivering and installing the technology, and OG-12GM was a core component of this work; it supplies the signal from the graphic system to the cube. We chose these cards because they’re so reliable, and we knew we could trust them.”
With four AJA OG-12GM cards integrated into the workflow, the venue AV team can bring in one UHD signal and separate it into four to supply a signal to each side of the cube. Etienne and team designed the pipeline to support static cameras and those brought into the venue from OB providers; all camera feeds are sent through a hybrid router. openGear distribution amplifiers and AJA OG-ROI-HDMI scan converters were also integrated, making it possible for the venue AV team to bring computer sources into the 3G-SDI world for display on the cube if needed. Many of the signals from the graphics system also go through the router to Hi5-4K-Plus Mini-Converters; this install included five of them for converting 3G-SDI back to HDMI for in-stadium digital signage needs.
Across projects, Etienne and team have also leveraged the AJA OG-DANTE-12GAM 12G-SDI/DANTE embedders/disembedders and AJA KUMO SDI routers. Many of its reseller partners also work with corporate entities and conferences that produce presentations, internal workshops, all-hand meetings, and more, so they’re also familiar with and use AJA digital video recorders like Ki Pro Ultra 12G and Ki Pro GO in select installs.
Looking ahead, many of Etienne’s clients are expressing interest in augmented and extended reality and investing in LED walls. According to Etienne, this translates to increased demand for signal conversion from graphics systems to the LED wall controller, for which it leverages AJA Hi5-4K-Plus and OG-Hi5-4K-Plus 3G-SDI to HDMI 2.0 Mini-Converters. He concluded, “LED walls provide an easier way to do multiple shows, each with a unique set and look, from one central environment; studios and venues only have to switch up the graphics and creative, versus dressing entire sets frequently. For these installs, the AJA openGear technology provides a perfect solution. We just wrapped up a project for a national TV studio with about 100 square meters of LED space, and we used quite a bit of both in the install and expect to install more in the coming months.”
