By its very nature, AV is a global proposition. Our world class expertise and multinational resources deliver audio visual projects and support services everyday, everywhere.
Find out about our Global Reach Program
We've listed some of the questions that we're most frequently asked here.
If you have a query about an audio visual product, technology, piece of equipment or process, click on the link below and ask us.
There are many ways to connect to a remote worker who's located at a different site or at home. Using a standard broadband connection with a desktop client solution, you'll avoid corporate firewall issues, be able to share data in either direction and join a multipoint call.
The key difference is that a consumer display is designed to run for 4-6 hours a day not 16-24, which is the expectation for most commercial display screens. These screens are designed to dissipate heat and use higher grade components that act more reliably during more intense usage. Consumer displays will fail if they run for too long and overheat. If you opt for a cheaper consumer display and use it in a commercial environment you're also likely to invalidate your warranty so, if you're looking for a long-lasting product with a comprehensive warranty and onsite service, take the commercial option.
Projection screens have special reflective surface that produce a variety of reflectance factors, or gains for accurate display quality. If images are projected onto a wall, the white areas on the image will appear as the same colour as the wall. Even if the wall is painted white, the light won't be reflected back efficiently or in a high quality.
The easiest way to differentiate is to think of a light switch. Digital is represented as an on/off switch; in the world of signals, the digital signal is either on or off while analogue can be thought of as a dimmer switch. The analogue signal is infinitely variable and not as prcise as the digital on/off. Digital is usually represented as ones and zeros while analogue is represented as a wave.
A switcher is a device with the ability to choose between two or more sources and send information from that source to a particular destination. For example, you can connect an AM-FM tuner, a CD player, a cassette deck and a computer output (or MP3 player) to a switcher, then you can connect the output of the switcher to a single input amplifier. Choosing which player you want to listen to is as easy as selecting that source on the switcher. Switchers are "either/or" devices, as opposed to mixers, which can send several sources to a destination simultaneously - a switcher selects which source will go to a single destination.
Our vision is oriented horizontally and we usually see more in the length of our horizon than we do in the height of the objects on it. It's a natural tendency to want to frame a scene horizontally and this perceptual quality is translated into a mathematical equivalent known as aspect ratio - the ratio of image width to image height. Different presentation media will have different aspect ratios, remember that the first number in the ratio is always the width.
Pixels are physical attributes and the number of pixels depends on the display's resolution. If a display has 800 pixels horizontally and 600 pixels vertically, it has a native resolution of 800 by 600. Because the number of available pixels is unchanging, these displays are commonly referred to as fixed-resolution or fixed-matrix.
Telepresence is the term given to the highest quality video conferencing experience you can enjoy today and is often better known as an immersive meeting where you make realistic eye-to-eye to contact with your fellow participants. It's designed to be the closest thing to a real meeting that you can have without actually being in the same room.
No. Skype is a proprietary video protocol which operates on a very low bandwidth and therefore produces very low quality video which is insufficient to link into the world of video conferencing.
Video signals were originally intended for CRT displays using raster scanning. Therefore, most electronic devices display images were generated by some variation of scanning. Scanning refers to the process in a CRT where an electron beam moves sequentially, charging phosphors as it goes. The path is controlled by the vertical and horizontal synchronisation pulses which are part of the original signal sent to the CRT. These pulses are sent to the deflection coils which precisely guide the beam. The electron beam charges the phosphors in a line from left to right and the beam then drops down and scans another line. At the end of each line, the horizontal sync pulse tells the beam to turn off; this is called horizontal blanking. The beam then returns to the beginning of the next line; this is called retrace. This process continues from the top to the bottom of the display, where the vertical sync pulse tells the beam to turn off while it goes back up to the top to start over; this is called vertical blanking.
Video routing switchers move signals around much like audio switchers. Simple switchers can select one signal from multiple sources and send it to a specific destination whilst more sophisticated routers can send several signals to several different places - they can even separate audio signals from video signals to process them separately. Switchers route signals by the simple press of a button, automatically or by remote control. Switchers are defined by their types, ins and outs, and control level.
In data display applications, there is a need to display the computer image on a large screen or on multiple monitors. Particular attention is paid to the signal from the computer and how it gets to the display - computer signal outputs don't conform to established international standards like video. Therefore, a switching system is needed; it's a way of matching the output of a computer to the input of a display device. This is the role of the computer-video interface. The computer-video interface receives information from a computer at the proper level and then directs it to the right place. The signal is often split to go to both a local monitor and to a display device. An interface performs one or more of four primary functions, including: to isolate and buffer the computer and display; to provide a signal for the local monitor; to provide signal processing to improve the displayed image and to provide the user with control over the displayed image, such as shift. In order for an interface to perform with a computer, it must be compatible in terms of the type of signals being sent, processed and received.
Acoustics is the science concerned with the behaviour of sound in airspace; it’s the study of sound wave motion and sound behaviour, both within an enclosure and outdoors. Generally, acoustics also refers to the overall qualities of a space with respect to the generation, transmission, and reception of sound. Acoustical quality considerations include the dimensions and shape of the room and the materials within and the construction of the room.
Sound is a physical occurrence; when an object vibrates, molecules around it move closer together then apart. The action of molecules pressing closer together is called compression and molecules moving apart is referred to as rarefaction. The changes in pressure among these molecules create invisible waves of sound.
Using measurement equipment, sound waves can be depicted graphically. When the waveform is above a midline, vibrating molecules are compressing an when the waveform is below a midline the molecules are rarefying. Characteristics of a sound wave include wavelength, frequency, and amplitude. Wavelength is the distance in meters between two corresponding points of two consecutive cycles; some are several metres long, while others are just a few millimetres.
A wireless mic is like a little radio station. The microphone is attached to a transmitter, which is worn by the talker. The audio signal is transmitted to a receiver by radio frequency (RF) and the receiver is wired into the audio system. Like a radio station, a wireless microphone must have a specific frequency to transmit on and the receiver must be tuned to that frequency. Some wirelesses are fixed frequency, and others allow you to tune them; for fixed-frequency microphones, select mics that are using frequencies set aside for this use in your geographical area. We can provide you with a chart of these frequencies for your area.
Simple, talk to proAV about our tailored maintenance support for the Education sector. You only pay for equipment cover during term time, which will ensure you stay within your budgets and enjoy uninterrupted teaching time with your AV systems. This cover includes classroom lamp discounts, education training workshops and emergency locum cover.
Conventional chalkboards have long been a tool for conveying ideas to a group. The traditional classroom had numerous blackboards on which exercises could be illustrated. The whiteboard has, for the most part, replaced the blackboard due to its ease of use; they are practically dust free and multi-coloured writing pens make communication more descriptive. Today, the whiteboard can be connected to a computer. Each pen stroke can be recorded for later playback or entire documents can be stored as a single image. Electronic whiteboards can operate on several different principles; lasers may scan the surface of the board looking for any pen/eraser movement, another device may be pressure sensitive, detecting where a pen (or finger) is touching the surface and recording that as a pen stroke. In either case, the data is logged for display or archived for future use.
