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Come and say hello and see our latest Video wall - push to release – landscape/portrait, wall mounted, free standing trolley/plinth, bolt down, ceiling suspended. Major installations include 24 x 55” screen curved wall, 100 x 46” screen frame mounted, 56 x 55” ceiling suspended. Our Special Products Division designs and produces custom made prototypes for some of the most prestigious retail signage installations in the UK and Europe. So come along and see a selection of our mounting systems but more importantly talk to us and find out more about the magic!
We look forward to seeing you.
THE THAMES CABLE CAR - LONDON
Boris Johnson, Lord Mayor of London, opened Britain's first urban cable car at the end of July, which is now ferrying passengers across the Thames.
The £60m system was paid for with £36m from the Dubai-owned airline Emirates, giving it naming rights for 10 years, including placing its brand name on the London Underground map. A further £8m came from the European Regeneration and Development Fund.
The system is called the Emirates Air Line and travels from the Greenwich peninsula close to the O2 arena on the south side of the river to the Royal docks close to the Excel exhibition centre on the north bank, both are Olympic venues. It takes five minutes each way and costs £3.60 on an Oyster card or £16 for 10 journeys. Each of the 34 cabin’s, rises 90 metres over the Thames between giant pylons designed by the architects Wilkinson Eyre. The cable car has the capacity to carry up to 2,500 people an hour in each direction, the equivalent of 30 buses.
"It is a staggeringly beautiful view of London," the mayor said. "It is a panorama of the most opportunity-rich area of the city and people are already showing a real interest in buying into it. People are coming from all over the world for the Olympics and I want them to see the areas they can invest in."
Two Samsung 3×3 landscape UD55 screens at the terminal entrances, two Samsung 3×2 portrait 46 screens at the gate lines and two 8×3 Portrait UD55 screens at platform level make up the video walls at both terminals.
UNICOL provided the mounts for the Samsung screens used in the Station Video Walls. The AV installation was managed and will be maintained by Pioneer Digital Solutions and their director, Paul Childerhouse, commented: "This was a technically challenging video wall to build because the stainless steel and glass cladding reduced the screen to wall depth. The mounts had to be no more than 50mm, therefore
UNICOL PZX and Screentrac mounts were used. Robert Seward, Marketing Director of
UNICOL commented "The 8 x 3 video walls, with portrait screens set in a curve produced some scratching of heads but our Special Products Division soon came up with a solution". All the video walls are fed by Magenta Voyager fibre kits.
GIANT 56 SCREEN VIDEO WALL - GERMANY
Installed in early May to coincide with the European Football Championships, probably the world’s largest ceiling suspended video wall was commissioned in Ahaus, Nord Rhein Westfalia, Germany. The video wall was hung at one end of a 1,200 sqm hall built for public events with an audience capacity of 2,000.
The giant video wall designed by
UNICOL consisted of 56 Samsung UD55A Large Format Displays (LFD) in a 8 high x 7 across landscape configuration. The Hall ceiling beam had to be reinforced and the
UNICOL fully adjustable Adapta-wall system supporting the screens was hung on 28 Unicol 9m long chrome columns.
UNICOL Marketing Director said: “As usual we rose to the challenge and our Special Products Division provided the necessary expertise, whilst our sister company Unicol-de GmbH won the contract and organised shipping and support – a very impressive outcome.”
Software specialists Tobit GmbH supplied their latest technology to make the most of such a large format array. The project was planned and managed by Adversign Media GmbH a leading Digital signage provider based in Dusseldorf. Project Manager Albert Roelen commented: “We have worked closely with Unicol and know of their reputation – their motto ‘supporting you’ – yes it suits, especially in a complex installation like this.”
Best Brackets & Mounts Brand
Unicol has been awarded Best Brackets & Mounts Brand 2012 in the AV News Awards. The Channel Awards are given to the best current brands in selected areas of AV technology, as assessed by channel professionals. The selection process is based on criteria including the quality of communication from the brand to the channel and the nature of any marketing support, as well as the quality and reliability the products supplied. Unicol marketing director, Robert Seward commented "It is gratifying to know that British manufacturing can still win against strong US and European competition".
Mobile Information Display System 
What happens when you want to inform your customers of the current situation in a crisis? This MIDS trolley has been designed and rolled out by Touchstone Electronics at Heathrow for such an event with 4 x 40” screens in portrait displaying information and one 40” screen in landscape displaying news or entertainment. Surveillance cameras and WiFi mounting points have also been added along with a large cabinet to house 2 x 10-way PDU’s, Network Switch and associated cables for deployment. The unit can be electrically lowered from its deployed height of 2.4m down to 1.9m (top of screen) for storage.
AV in the Oldest Classroom in the World! 
Local AV Installation company Profile Video were asked by King's School, Gloucester to provide an updated AV solution for their classrooms. The school is one of the seven famous Cathedral Schools established by Henry VIII in 1541. However, prior to that date, there was a school on the grounds of Gloucester Cathedral ever since it was first built as the Abbey of St. Peter around the year 1100. This makes King's one of the longest certifiable running schools in the world. Whilst initially a Choir School, it has grown considerably over the years into the leading co-educational independent school in the area, with around five hundred pupils, aged three to eighteen. Even though the school is old it has always been progressive in terms of technology but needed an upgrade and because many of the buildings are listed, equipment could not just be sited anywhere. However, Profile Video and the Schools IT Department collaborated to provide a fully functioning and efficient AV system that will provide the school's pupils with the technology to prepare them for the modern world. One classroom reputed to be the oldest in the world could not be altered in any way so Profile Video used one of their "Travel Trolleys", designed especially for them by Unicol.
Digital Window Display System 
Traditional printed material and Mannequins are relatively easy to move around a window display but moving your dynamic signage on a 60” screen fixed to the ceiling along with the cabling offers a daunting challenge – until now. Not only did the screen have to move along the window from side to side but it also had to rotate from landscape to portrait. Unicol Special Products Division set to work and produced a roller track system that would support a variety of different sized screens with the ability to be moved across the window. The design included the desired rotation and also added swivel so that the screen could be angled for the best viewing position.
Rolling 175” Giant Touch Screen 
The Unicol Adapta-Wall system was chosen to create a 4 x 3 video wall using 12 x 46” screens. A custom built U-Touch panel was then fixed to the front to turn it into a giant touch screen. The client wanted the whole video wall to have the facility to be pushed backwards for cleaning and maintenance so a roller system was designed to take the place of the normal bolt down bases. This allowed the 4m wide and 2m high unit to be rolled back a distance of 770mm.
5x5 Video Wall for Proctor & Gamble 
Ten AV erected a giant set of pillars to hang the Unicol Adapta-Wall system to. The 25 screen video wall brings to life the cavernous atrium of Proctor & Gamble UK Headquarters but like many atriums there was nothing to fix the video wall structure to. In collaboration with Ten AV a design was agreed to erect 2 pillars in the form of a giant goal post on which the Unicol system could be fastened.
AV Awards Grand Prix Winner - The Dr Who Experience
Featured in our last Newsletter, 'The Doctor Who Experience' conceived and constructed by leading International creative design and AV installation company, Sarner, is this year's AV Awards Grand Prix winner. Congratulations to them and a big thank you for choosing Unicol.
Video walls - your flexible friend
There are many ways a video wall can give you the wow factor you are looking for. The majority of video walls are mounted to existing walls but what happens when your video wall needs to be placed in an atrium without a surface to fix to? What happens when the client wants to put a touch screen against the video wall screens but wants the structure to roll backwards in order to clean the screens? What happens when there is only a ceiling to fix to? Well you have already guessed that Unicol have the solution because the above are examples of installations that have already been designed and rolled out. A 25 screen wall supported on large columns either side, a 4 x 3 wall where each 4 stack of screens rolls back individually, a 3 x 3 wall suspended from the underside of a balcony. Our system is very versatile and can tackle most installation headaches as GV Multi-media (another AV Award nominee) have proven in the above pictures - just give us a call.
Medical Video Conferencing
The applications for Video Conferencing seem to be limitless as MVC have shown with their range of units specially intended for the medical profession and specifically for clinicians. Unicol has modified one of their standard media cabinets and MDC have done the rest to provide an extremely versatile, robust, wheeled HD VC system. This includes a variable position camera, adjustable screen and multiple input connections. This allows interface with the full range of medical imaging modalities. Specifically developed to work in theatre, treatment area and outpatient environments, the unit can be wipe-down cleaned. The unit is designed as a multiple environment VC station for hospital use and ideal for sharing between departments for educational and procedure presentation. It can also be used as a low cost MDT room solution in conjunction with wall mounted displays, as well as being suitable as the home unit for remote outpatient consultations and mentoring.
Vitrx - Virgin Active
Following the securement of a nationwide deal to supply Virgin Active Health Club café areas with interactive HP TouchSmarts, Vitrx co-founder Vince O’Hanlon approached Unicol to bespoke a bracket solution that would provide the right look, feel and functionality suited to the Virgin Active members. With an expected 355 units due to be deployed within an initial 69 Virgin Active clubs, IT Solutions Provider Vitrx and Unicol are already looking ahead to the phase 2 rollout.
New College Swindon - Prize Winner
Winner in Wedgwood IT Group's highly successful Teaching Technology magazine, Issue 2, Prize Draw is New College, Swindon. Edd Simmons of Unicol presented the Unicol PowaLift to support a 78" Promethean White Board to Graham Taylor, Principal of the College on 29 Sept. The PowaLift trolley will be used in the brand new business section of the College, to provide a cost effective platform for teaching, which embraces new technology.
New 2011 Catalogue Available
The 48th Edition of our Catalogue is now printed and available to our customers. We will be sending these out shortly and inserting them in a range of magazines. An e-catalogue version and pdf is immediately available on our website and linked to this newsletter. If for any reason you do not receive your copy in the post in the next few weeks or would like more copies then please send your request to
marketing@unicol.com.
Micro-P Chooses Unicol Mount Range
Micro-P has chosen Unicol to supply products from its vast range of mounts including bespoke equipment from Unicol's Special Projects Division. Adam Gay AV Business Manager for Micro-P said "we are delighted to be with the 'industry standard' of mounting solutions, bringing together ease of use and ease of supply. To partner with such a strong 'made in England' brand as Unicol is a positive move especially with the Education projects we are supporting through our resellers this summer and of course the 2012 Olympics approaching and the upsurge in supporting resellers for their AV installs that this is likely to bring". David Johnson managing director of Unicol commented "We are very pleased with this partnership, especially with the breadth of resellers and value-add offering in the AV market that Micro-P brings to our business model".
Micro-Peripherals Ltd, established in 1980, is one of the oldest and largest Distributors of IT and Technology products in the UK Reseller market.
Micro-P has grown its Business significantly based upon professional customer service, consistency of execution and integrity. It services an enormous, UK-wide customer base from state of the art facilities in Altham and Basingstoke. Excellent logistics systems ensure same-day or next-day delivery services and the Customer Service team pride themselves on resolving rare issues that arise.
Doctor Who Experience
he Doctor Who Experience, a ground-breaking BBC Worldwide visitor attraction at London's Olympia, was conceived and constructed by leading International creative design and AV installation company, Sarner, and features powerful production sequences and spectacular set design, combined with the latest AV technology and special effects. Of course it uses mounts from another great British institution - Unicol!
Hilary Lloyd - Turner Prize Short List
The nominations are in for this years Turner Prize short list and we are extremely pleased that Hilary Lloyd, a stalwart Unicol user has been chosen.
Hilary Lloyd was born in Halifax 1964 and graduated from Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic in 1987. Major exhibitions of her work have been held at Raven Row, London (2010), Tramway, Glasgow, and Le Consortium, Dijon (both 2009), Munich Kunstverein (2006), Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, Venice Biennale, Venice, (2003), Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (2000) and Chisenhale Gallery, London (1999). She has also had solo presentations at Galerie Neu, Berlin (2007 and 2010) and Sadie Coles HQ, London (2008).
Hilary Lloyd makes work which engages in various ways with the moving image, encompassing video projections, films on monitors, and slide projections. She foregrounds technical equipment as a sculptural medium, prominently displaying the AV equipment on which her work is installed.
Lloyd’s recent exhibition at Raven Row, London, for which she was nominated for the Turner Prize, comprised five works across three spacious floors, each work minimally installed in a separate gallery. The works ranged from free-standing, split-screen monitor works to more elaborate grids of multiple images projected directly on the walls.
Image: Copyright the artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London.
Video-Walls
The new Adapta-Wall range of Video-Wall components has been well received with installs into Academies, Canary Wharf, Mercedes Benz and Portsmouth Ferry Terminal to name but a few. The system is of unitary construction allowing stand alone, trolley, wall, ceiling, floor to wall and floor to ceiling options. Based on our standard Unicol columns a frame is built that supports the mounts. This solves the problem of walls not being straight and makes sure there is an air gap behind the screens, essential for prolonged screen operation. Screens can be adjusted in all planes and are removed by tilting them back and undoing 2 screws. For more details see our new catalogue or just call us. U-Touch exhibited our 3x3 mobile Adaptawall at Screenmedia Expo at Earls Court in May 2011.
BETT SHOW 2011 - REPORT
At this years BETT Show we launched a number of new products:
For
U-Touch we mounted 4 x NEC 46" screens onto one of our Axia Titan PowaLift trolleys to produce a mobile 92" touch screen. In addition we designed and manufactured a table with inlayed 46" touch screen which in true Unicol fashion can be adapted to be mobile or static be used at variable heights - coffee table to bar table. Also on the booth was our new standard Powalift trolley capable of lifting 110Kg, operated either by hand held remote, manual switch or from a laptop. Accessories include equipment shelf, extendable laptop arm & shelf and screen height adapter. These products will be shown again on our stand at ISE.
For
Reachout Interactives, 3D Specialists, we produced a modified Axia Lo-level trolley to support a 3D Projector rig aimed specifically at schools. This product is to compliment the Axia Lo-level trolley with 3D screen, already used by Reachout both in schools and hospitals.
RETAIL CHAIN INSTALLS 7x3 UNICOL VIDEO WALL
American retail chain Forever 21 wanted to make an impact at its new flagship store at the Bull Ring Centre, Birmingham. The brief was to replicate the iphone's function of swiping the content horizontally across the screen but on a giant scale, in fact on a screen 8m high. AV specialists
Decorum Technology asked us to provide the structure to support the 21 NEC 46" portrait screens. The task was made difficult as there was nothing to fix to other than the floor, so the structure had to be bolted into the floor and fixed in the middle and top on specially placed girders. From site survey to drawings being signed off and orders being placed it took only 4 days, with delivery and the start of installation 9 days later. Installers were
Decorum Technology
MILLENNIUM STADIUM REFURBISHMENT
IT and AV specialists
CAE were chosen to install the 450 screen refurbishment programme at the home of Welsh rugby in Cardiff. This was also the UK roll out of CISCO's new digital signage package including a mixture of 42" and 52" screens and media player. The installation required screens to be placed indoors and outdoors and bespoke mounts were made with a new breed of outdoor housings and weather resistant paint finishes. Unicol's vast range of parts and experience in this field enabled a mounting system to be designed that allowed screens and players to be hung in all the particular configurations within the stadium from a single design principle leading to a cost effective and efficient install. Installers were
CAE
PADDINGTON - HEATHROW EXPRESS FIDS HOUSING
BAA chose Unicol to build an environmental housing to support 4 Samsung 32" screens in portrait to display flight information on the Heathrow Express platform at Paddington Rail Station. The bespoke housing had to be mounted to an existing structure and was clad in stainless steel. Installers were
Touchstone Electronics
UNICOL AV / IT CONVERGENCE
Much has been said how the IT world is eating into traditional AV installation territory. Well here at Unicol we have turned the tables somewhat by developing a database system worthy of an award.
Ricky Clark, IT Manager, started at Unicol as a welder and tool maker but soon found his forte with IT systems and has built the Unicol database, using Filemaker, from a basic system to its present highly sophisticated state. With over a quarter of a million product codes to access in a full relation data base with ease of use, security, scalable, future proof, multi-lingual, driving the internal manufacturing process, CMS …. the list goes on and my eyes start to glaze over. Suffice it to say that the new system will be a huge step forward and allow Unicol to easily share data with, for instance, our carriers and will not be technically restrained for future updates.
David Johnson, Managing Director said “Unicol systems are so modular and flexible the permutations of product a customer can order is enormous. With the new system we will be combining a state of the art database with enhanced web back office facilities making the order process easier for both staff and customers”.
Ricky was presented with a commendation at the annual Cube Awards in London. Held at the Royal College of Physicians and with guest speaker Doctor Robert McNamee the 24 entrants were anxious to hear the results from the judges, Blue Kite Software, IT PRO, Virgin Media and Filemaker. “I honestly didn’t think I had a chance” commented Ricky.
When you consider that Ricky was up against companies whose job it is to design databases and that Unicol weld and bend metal for a living it is even more of an achievement to receive this accolade. There is an amount of debugging to do before the system goes live but all is on track for launch in January 2011.
NEW CANON 3D PROJECTOR RIG
Our Special Projects Division have just produced a bespoke 3D Projector Rig for 2 Canon XEED WUX10 LCOS HD projectors. This rig was built for 3D specialists, Inition in conjunction with Canon UK. The rig has all the necessary filter holders and adjustments to suit a variety of projector screen sizes from 60inch to 150inch.
3D or more accurately, stereoscopic imaging—comes in different forms (anaglyph, passive, active, autostereo) and the technology attempts to capture the depth cues that our eyes use in the real world and reproduce them on flat video screens.
When we look at objects around us, our left and right eyes see two slightly different views. As we fix on a specific object, both eyes focus on it. Then our brain combines the two offset views into one image (referred to as convergence) in order to process depth information. This two-step process is known as stereopsis and allows us to determine the relative shape, height, width, depth, and distance of objects within our field of view.
One way to create 3D images is to stack a pair of projectors (see above) and equip them with polarizers. The polarizers are either oriented at right angles to each other (linear polarization) or at opposite circular polarization angles (also known as Xpol). Each projector shows only the picture information for one eye and the projectors are aligned to create the correct parallax.
The viewer then wears a pair of glasses with matching polarizers for the left and right eye. In theory, the opposing polarization “twist” between each minimizes unwanted ghost images (or cross talk) from the other projector. In reality, there’s always some cross talk, but if the projectors are set up correctly and the eyewear is matched, we’ll see converged 3D images ... simple as that!
EVENTS - IBC Amsterdam 
Unicol supported JVC Professional Europe Ltd with all manner of screen stands at IBC. Amongst the new products being shown was a new version of the VideoWall trolley first used to support the World's largest 138" touch screen. This new version boasted a fine adjustment mechanism for aligning screens in all directions and an improved modular system for fast build up and break down. Whist only 6 screens were shown (2x3), the system has the capability of multiple stacks of screens being fixed together to make a large array. A new lightweight prototype of the Axia stand, Twin screen units and a screen tree made up of standard items was also on show. Gustav Emrich, European Product Manager for Presentation Systems at JVC, commented "The flexibility and strength of Unicol equipment enables us to build systems in a practical and efficient way". In an interview, Unicol Germany's Managing Director, John Knight, who was at the show with JVC, said he was gratified to see so much Unicol equipment around the show, "over 40 various locations around the RAI benefited from using our products".
OVERSEAS -VIDEO WALL TROLLEY AT INFOTECH, MAURITIUS 
After our first VideoWall trolley, developed with NEC and U-Touch, was shown at Screenmedia expo 2010 we did not think there would be many requests for this niche system so we were rather surprised to receive a number of orders including one to be shipped to Mauritius for INFOTECH 2010, the annual ICT event held at the Swami Vivekananda International Convention Centre (SVICC) in Pailles. Well 75,000 people visited the event and we think the pictures speak for themselves.
CHROME COLUMNS - Spaced out
The Unicol brand is synonymous with chrome columns either holding up screens on stands or supporting screens from ceilings. Our supplier of these columns informs us that we have bought enough to reach the Space Station, there and back - a typical Unicol twin column arrangement!
EVENTS 
This month has seen our screen mounts, trolleys and stands at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the British Golf Open at St Andrews. I am sure there are many other events where our mounting products support AV equipment but we hardly ever hear of them, probably because our kit is so popular and common place that no one thinks to tell us – after all brackets are boring and content is King!
SINGLE COLUMN TROLLEY Unicol also provided a hospital with more than 250 specially coloured Single Column trolleys as mobile TV stands to go at the end of patients beds. This just goes to show that when you come up with a good design it will last for a very long time. The original single column trolley (pictured below left) was designed over 45 years ago as a versatile and modular unit, with jacking feet, to support 35mm slide projectors and a number of variants have been made since. In fact the name UNICOL was coined from this first design “Uni” meaning one and “col” for column.
OVERSEAS - KUWAIT Recently we were asked by
Micro Nav, leading specialists in simulation and training systems for civil and military ATC operations, airport design and fighter control, to build a bespoke gantry for mounting 10 Canon projectors in a circle. This ten channel visual system emulates the view from the airport control tower at Kuwait International Airport, as part of a 10 seat Air Traffic Control training simulator system. It has been installed in the Higher Institute Of Telecommunications & Navigation College, provided by the Kuwait PAAET - Public Authority for Applied Education and Training. This facility will be used to train students to become Air Traffic Controllers and due to the representation of the airport in the simulator, they will be familiar with the layout of the airfield when they progress to the control tower. Micro Nav, winners of the Queen’s award for Enterprise in the category for International Trade 2010, produce simulation systems that incorporate some of the most advanced image generation technology for rendering aircraft, airside infrastructure, airport buildings, time of day, weather and emergency special effects. The installation of our mounting gantry was straightforward and Micro Nav’s Richard Cass commented “The design and manufacture of the components was first class, and there were no major issues with it. Once finished, the overall projector assembly looked good”. Well from the photographs we also think it looks good.
DISCO CRAZY Birmingham based
Pebu has utilised our low level Parabella stand in a novel and unique way by turning it into a touchscreen Deck for Disc Jockeys . The “Tek-Dek” system uses a high definition Panasonic 42” screen with a U-Touch overlay to allow interactivity. Other touch applications for this arrangement are board games, casinos, public information points in dwell areas, where customers may be waiting or travel and estate agents. We are sure that with more and more touch screen applications coming onto the market more uses for this unit will become apparent.
Unicol shared Booth D1 with NEC and U-Touch at Screen Media Expo, Earls Court. On the stand was our Titan Powa-Lift supporting an NEC 82" integrated touch screen by U-Touch. This trolley had a brand new Rotating mount, moving the screen from landscape to portrait in one easy movement. However, it was the
138" Touch screen, largest in the World to date, that really caught the eye of visitors to the show. This huge display was made up of 9 NEC X461UN screens on a Unicol mobile video-wall trolley with a giant U-Touch touch screen covering all 9 screens. The wow factor was extraordinary and the unit was voted product of the month.
ISE saw our Unicol European Offices all come together on what turned out to be a very busy booth. Partners on the booth were Conrac - supplying the screens, 42 Media Group - supplying Signage software, ITWorks - supplying Signage software, Imago - supplying video conferencing equipment with a live link and U-Touch who provided a Panasonic 103" Touch screen using Windows 7 multi-touch. Of course Unicol provided all of the mounting systems to support the equipment from are partners. This included the Excalibur - thinnest mount in the world, Axia Titan Powa-Lift trolley lifting and lowering the 103", Axia stand with back-to-back screens with VC equipment, our latest PZX Universal mounts with adjustment to allign screens and a bespoke trolley with 3 x 57" NEC screens mounted in portrait. All in all a very busy and satisfying show.
UNICOL attended the 2010 BETT show, which was highly successful and we would like to extend a big thank you to all of our customers who dropped in to say hello. Along with a number of new products we had a demonstration of how safe our products are in the form of a cage suspended under one of our standard Guardboxes. Passers by were asked to enter the cage and see how much weight the standard installation could take - 2 men totalling 46 stone had no effect and a group of lads pulled and tugged at the structure with no effect. The total weight applied was over 400Kg to a Guardbox holding a Panasonic PTDZ 6710 weighing 16Kg - so what, you might say - why would you want to do this? .... Read on:
PAS 122 Specification for the installation of audiovisual equipment in classrooms and general publicly accessible areas, sponsored by BECTA and published by the British Standards Institution states that the AV installation bracketry must take 5 times the load including peripherals and in addtion should take into account any miscreant behaviour. The HSE has said that this could be construed as hanging from the projector or screen and associated mounts. The customer has to carry out a risk assessment and if there is a possibility that hanging from AV equipment poses a risk then consultation with the AV installer should take place to mitigate the risk.
We at UNICOL have always taken safety very seriously and are in no doubt that our products will meet the most stringent safety regulations - the pictures speak for themselves!
Also at the show we had our Powa-Lift trolley with an Hitachi A1 and Smart Board fitted, the new heavy duty Titan Powa Lift, capable of lifting a 103" screen (below) and probably the thinnest mount in the world at only 7.5mm thick - the Excalibur wall mount (also below).
Next thing on the horizon is ISE - Feb 2 - 4 - so we will see you all there:
HALL 4 P72
AV installations in schools
We take a look at AV installations in schools from a mounting equipment view point - the challenges for teachers and installers in specifying the right equipment.
There is a new Public Accessible Specification (PAS) being written, sponsored by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) and published by the British Standards Institute (BSI). This is intended as a reference point for audio visual (AV) installers to ensure that the quality and standards of AV installations are raised to a sustainable level, where any customer can be aware that specific criteria are being met. The quality, reliability, suitability and integrity of AV equipment, fittings, fixings, together with proposed locations for the attachment and support of such equipment needs to be taken into account when planning such installations.
Unicol has been in the business of providing mounts for the AV industry for 45 years and has stuck to its conviction of providing strong and safe mounts for even the smallest of projectors and screens.Unicol has been in the business of providing mounts for the AV industry for 45 years and has stuck to its conviction of providing strong and safe mounts for even the smallest of projectors and screens.
Much of the responsibility for equipping schools has devolved from Local Authorities to the schools themselves, which whilst concentrating decision making where it is most needed, can lead to a dilution of the right equipment for the job in hand. The advice that AV Installers can give in this regard has underpinned the proliferation of AV equipment into the Education sector thus far.
Objective
Risk assessments for the safe installation of whiteboards, projectors and screens into schools and elsewhere is carried out at each install but where is the guidance given for this? The installation of suspended AV equipment, whether from a ceiling or wall, has the most potential risk attached to it. The following points should be seen as additions to the guidelines already set out by BECTA and accreditation bodies.
Implementation
Individual schools management should ensure that they nominate competent staff to undertake health and safety management for the procurement and installation of AV equipment.
The structural integrity of the AV equipment and supplied fittings must be established by installers and school responsible persons. Suppliers/manufacturers should provide specifications which detail load restrictions and other safety information. Installers must provide this information and demonstrate compliance to school procurement officers.
At the site survey stage a school responsible persons should:
• Provide risk assessments to installers based upon the consideration of the potential misuse of equipment by students and others who may be present. Imposed loads from persons hanging from AV equipment must be taken into account according to HSE guidelines.
The key issue is whether a person, and in particular a child, could gain access to the suspended AV equipment. If so, the installation should bear the weight of an average child within the age group having access. The Department of Health Survey shows children's weight by age, which can be used as a guide in order to carry out the risk assessment. A safety load factor of 5 times the load should be applied to the child’s weight in order to calculate the total load.
At the site survey stage the Installer should:
• Provide full written details of their proposals and supply Method Statements for the supply and installation of the AV equipment based upon any risk assessments given.
• Provide information on proposed fixings together with details of suitability and structural integrity. AV fixing locations must be carefully considered by installers especially ceiling structures (e.g. suspended ceilings) and the leverage forces acting upon walls (e.g. projector booms).
Standard
We have looked at the installation of mounts and safety issues. A standard by which to work to would be a huge benefit and we look forward to the publication of the new PAS from the BSI. This will uphold the professional way the AV Industry and Unicol goes about its business.