Extron NAV Provides AVoIP to UNCW Faculty

For the new building of this university, an infrastructure has been designed based on the systems Extron NAV AVoIP.

Although the Allied Health Veterans Hall facilities included a wide variety of Extron products, like DTP systems, Flat Field speakers and Pro Series control systems, The core of this installation is found in the NAV AVoIP systems that allow the distribution of the AV signal throughout the new building.

La University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) It is a university well known for its high research activity.. As more classrooms and laboratories were needed, They decided to build a new building. 13.470 square meters, el Allied Health Veterans Hall.

New building includes UNCW's first educational spaces, Designed from the ground up as active learning classrooms, and also has cutting-edge laboratories for studies such as anatomy and kinesiology. In addition to classes, university classrooms and laboratories, The building has conference rooms, informal meeting spaces and learning rooms where communication and collaboration between students and faculty is encouraged.

To ensure that students had every opportunity to reach their full potential, each room required its own AV system. They had to be infrastructures that were easy to operate and could be connected to the distance education control room., so that centralized management could be carried out and allow the recording of classes.

UNCW had specific goals regarding the amount, quality and functionality of the new building's AV technology, but it also needed to stick to a set budget. Besides, They wanted a future-proof solution, that would be viable for many years.

UNCW hired consultant Affiliated Engineers (AEI) to design the installation, already System Context for integration.

Although the installations included a wide variety of Extron products, like the systems DTP, speakers Flat Field and control systems Pro series, The core of this installation is found in the systems NAV AVoIP from Extron that allow distribution of the AV signal throughout the building.

AV Switching

The building includes 16 university training rooms and an educational laboratory, five active learning classrooms, 29 spaces for collaboration and conferences, and more than 30 digital signage destinations.

Installation incorporates multiple AV switching systems, including PTZ cameras, ceiling microphones in student areas and multiple large format displays.

The classrooms, Conference rooms and collaboration spaces have wireless connectivity with display devices, with the purpose of adding flexibility in the distribution of the room and ease of use. Where has it been possible, AV components have been installed behind the displays to provide a clean look and avoid the use of AV carts.

UNCW identified several reasons why the Extron AVoIP NAV system was the ideal solution.

The NAV was installed in a variety of spaces that featured video walls and multiple flat screen displays., in addition to connecting all rooms to the distance education control room. Tests showed that NAV was stable, solid and delivered a signal without visual loss.

The system is easy to operate, so support staff can manage from the control room, and all its programming could be carried out internally. Besides, NAV provided the ability to control or limit bandwidth, if necessary.

The AVoIP active learning pilot room was installed by internal staff a year before the building's launch was announced. This space served as a 'proof of concept' and allowed several teams to be evaluated in a real scenario..

The installation included eight networked endpoints, that were connected to the control room. When the design was approved, The NAV system was scaled to connect in 200 destination points located throughout the building. It was also used to develop the perfect configuration of the network servers. The pilot room thus served as a training space so that teachers could develop the content in the new active learning environment..

To begin training, the teacher starts their own Zoom session and conducts the class while a control room operator captures the content to stream and archive.

Operators can monitor all classes and labs in progress and correct any problems when they occur, or even before the teacher knows there is a problem. Two of the many remote operation capabilities facilitated by the NAV system are audio mixing and control of PTZ cameras..

Encoders installed 1G NAV E 101 and scaling decoders 1G NAV DS 101 from Extron in every room, in addition to a system with 10G uplinks to the added switches Catalyst 9300 Series of Cisco. These 1G NAV models are compatible with 10G endpoints, eliminating the need for additional devices. The system takes full advantage of the sparse mode efficiency of protocol-independent multicast, o PIM, thus facilitating relief between spaces.

Two systems manager devices AVoIP NAVigator They work together to control the entire NAV system, formed by 200 destination points. They provide a configuration, Easy monitoring and control of encoders and decoders from the Distance Education control room.

NAVigator uses the SSH protocol (Secure Shell) to encrypt your communication with each endpoint. Installation remains within UNCW standard practices of having control devices on a separate network, with IPv4 that routes to the NAV network for control.

In the distance education control room, NAV components provide an unexpected major space-saving advantage. The subtle design of NAV technology and the compact size of its components allowed the number of AV racks to be reduced, from the planned three completely full racks to a single partially occupied rack.