From enormous scale and tricky integration challenges, the Inavate APAC Award winning installation at Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Centre has it all. Hurrairah bin Sohail reports.
Calling the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Centre 'massive' is an understatement. From North to South,
it spans a distance of 1.75km.
The convention centre comprises
21 buildings that include various
halls or venues such as divisible
multi-function conference halls,
lecture halls, ballrooms and
much more. It even boasts a
banquet hall the size of a stadium
which can accommodate 20,000
people.
From this set of facts alone, our
reasoning in selecting this project
as the winner of the Leisure &
Entertainment Project category
at the inaugural Inavate APAC
Awards becomes clear. But if the
scale of the project is not enough to
convince you, the exceptional work
done by the integrator, Shenzhen
Sonar Integrated System, lends
further weight to the judgement.
The integrator was responsible for
outfitting the Shenzhen World
Exhibition & Convention Centre
with AV that is fitting for the
present and also future-proof.
Unsurprisingly, Dongsheng
Sun, technical director at
Shenzhen Sonar Integrated
System, identifies the scale of
the project as the first major
challenge faced by the integrator:
“You cannot imagine the size of
the Shenzhen World Exhibition
& Convention Centre and how
big it actually is. The size was our
biggest challenge because moving
from location A to location B
could take up to two hours. So, on
our part, we really had to make
sure that we planned out all the
works perfectly and we even had
to come up with some creative
ways to ensure that we had the
mobility to move around on site.”
The scale of the installation
impacted every facet of the
project, especially the technology.
Complicating the job of the
AV professionals were the
requirements of the end user.
Sun says: “The end user’s
intention was not to just have
surveillance for the signal. They
didn’t want to just watch the
streams, they wanted to be able to
record them and store them and
take that file away if necessary.
They wanted the highest quality
of not just cameras for video
capture, but they wanted to
connect computers and other
redundant resources to the
system. Eventually, they wanted
to be able to send these signals
over fibre and reach the
destination with the highest
resolution and quality.” These
two factors combined led the
AV professionals down the road
of AV over IP.
Before the AV component of AV
over IP could be addressed, the IP
portion needed to be handled. Sun
details: “Once again, the size of the
convention centre was a challenge
when establishing the network. We
were using Huawei switches and
we worked very closely with
Huawei to figure out all the details
such as the network topology and
what ports will be used for what
purpose and how big the data
paths will be for sending signals
back and forth.”
Shenzhen World Exhibition &
Convention Centre is divided into
two main areas, the North part and
the South part, each with its own
command centre that is able to
transmit real-time 40 x 40 10
Gigabit HD lossless audio and
video streams.
As the cores of the venue, the
North and South entrance hall
command centres are responsible
for the management of all the
meeting rooms scattered around
different zones in the two main
areas. These are linked via a 400
Gigabit fibre connection which
serves as the trunk. The North acts
as the higher command core over
the South, and acts as the highest
level of control for all AV systems
and equipment around the whole
Shenzhen World Exhibition &
Convention Centre. There are
many sub-command points for
further sub-divided groups of
different spaces such as meeting
rooms. All in all, there are 363 end
points on the network for AV.
SDVoE encoders and decoders
are used to transmit AV signals
over the IP network. Sun says:
“There are some challenges with
AV over IP and SDVoE and the first
is how do you get them to work?
The second is how do you control
them? We had some small
challenges at the start and
Shenzhen Sonar Integrated System
played a supporting role in the
deployment of the AV-over-IP
system and configuring it. It did
not take much time to resolve the
initial issues. However, we spent
much more time on resolving the
issues with regards to control over
the system.”
Sun continues: “Control was one
of the hardest parts of this project.
Essentially, there were two sets
of control systems done by two
different parties working on
the project. It was difficult to
synchronise the two together
and basically we had to ensure a
reliable way to send feedback to
the two systems to make sure
they could control the system
individually without negatively
impacting each other.”
Interestingly, traditional
Extron switchers are employed
for video signal distribution and
management when it comes to
spaces such as meeting rooms and
seminar rooms. Sun provides
further details: “Each room has
its own traditional video switcher
to handle the variety of inputs
and outputs, such as cameras or
displays or local inputs. SDVoE is
used for communication over long
distance. As I mentioned, we have
363 endpoints on the network. If
we were to have all the endpoints
in the meeting rooms and other
spaces on the network as well this
number would have gotten more
than 1,000 and that kind of IP
network is not cheap.”
Sun explains the transition
from AV over IP to traditional AV
switching: “One of the reasons
we chose SDVoE was because we
wanted to be able to transmit 4K
or 1080p resolution in the highest
quality possible. The traditional
switchers in the spaces also
support 4K. But at present, the
inputs are 1080p and the 4K
resources to capture content in 4K
have not been deployed. But the
system is ready to transmit and
receive 4K resolution ensuring
that the convention centre is
future-ready. And of course,
SDVoE and the traditional
switcher are compatible with
lower resolutions and there are
no performance issues.”
Floor boxes in the rooms to
serve as input sources, allowing
users to connect a range of
devices. For short distances
signals travel over copper and fibre
on the back end connects these AV
systems in the meeting rooms to
the overall AV system at the venue.
Moving to the ballroom, we find
that there is another shift in the
approach to AV systems dictated
by the requirements of the space.
Conspicuous by its absence is
any form of display. Sun says:
“For the ballroom, we have just
prepared the connections for
output devices. The end user
wanted the space to be ready to
receive any display output, be
it projector or LED as per the
requirements of the patrons.”
Audio is managed by Allen &
Heath mixers in these larger
spaces which include the ballroom
and banquet hall.
EAW Radius loudspeakers are
used across the Shenzhen World
Exhibition & Convention Centre
for audio output.
Regarding the audio systems
deployed, Sun says: “The whole
audio system adopts Dante
for transmission. In order to
reduce signal losses caused by
transmission degradation or A/D
conversion, Shure’s AD series
microphones and Allen & Heath
dLive mixer are utilised to ensure
consistency of the overall system
transmission. We use EAW
Radius series line arrays which
are Dante-enabled and with
native DSP processing built in,
which can bring users a good
sound experience. Thanks to
EAW’s advanced technology,
uniform coverage, EQ and other
adjustments can be achieved
through easy touch of the iPad.
Together with intuitive and
concise user interface, these
easy-to-use loudspeakers are
absolutely best for the sound
reinforcement for the 1,000-seat
hall.”
ETC lighting systems are also
employed in the 1,800-seat lecture
hall to provide the best lighting
experience.
Sun details: “We have a range of
lights deployed from fixed lights
in the meeting rooms to a more
extensive lighting system that
can be used in more flexible ways
in the ballroom. When it comes
to lights, we use a mixture of
fluorescent lights and LED lights
to provide the best lighting
experience.”
When asked if there is any room
for improvement for this already
impressive project, Sun says:
“AV professionals are usually
engaged late in the project and
from our perspective, there is
room the improve the audio
experience and the room
acoustics. Unfortunately,
acoustics are something that
need to be fixed from the ground
up. You have to consider at the
very beginning of construction
whether you need acoustic
materials and treatment for the
walls to absorb energy and how
many hard surfaces there will be
in the space and what this will
mean for room acoustics with
regards to reflections.”