Vancouver General Hospital
Taylor Fidler Auditorium

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority asked McSquared for the design of a comprehensive user-operated lecture theatre, sound and video system, with an upgrade path to allow for future integration of video conferencing capability.

The Taylor Fidler Auditorium has been equipped with both the traditional sound & display system components of a lecture theatre. In addition, to suit the scale and scope of anticipated connectivity to outside Telehealth and distance education centres, the base infrastructure has been included to support future expansion of the system via videoconferencing based links to remote locations capability.

The audio system is split into two elements, an AV playback system for playback of multimedia material from various sources, as well as supporting the incoming audio from a videoconference; and a speech reinforcement system used for delivery of voice program to the seating area during lectures. The AV playback system uses a pair of loudspeakers flanking the projection screens on the front wall and the speech system uses ceiling mounted loudspeakers.

The AV playback system supports stereo playback from the computers, and VCR sources, as well as the future videoconference codec output. The loudspeakers have been wall mounted near the ceiling to provide the most uniform coverage possible. Input selection and level adjustment have been integrated on the control system touch panel.

The speech system provides one local wired lectern microphone and one wireless presenter microphone to accommodate a variety of presentation styles. The use of ceiling speakers minimizes feedback potential and allows more voice reinforcement.

The audio system makes use of a matrix audio mixer with echo cancelling per microphone input to handle the variations of audio signal sourcing and routing in a future videoconference application. The various mixer configurations is controlled through the touch panel control system.

The Auditorium presentation system is equipped with a fixed lectern, which is the primary source for local electronic presentations & A/V systems remote control. The lectern accommodates the electronic presentation sources, including the control system touch panel, VCR, microphone as well as a dual computer video & audio input/switcher interface with modular faceplate and a single input interface for the permanently installed computer. An additional computer interface is located in the A/V rack in the control room. The lectern also contains a 15? LCD preview monitor mounted on a swivel arm on the right hand side of the podium. The preview video signal displayed on this monitor is selected via the AV remote control system.

As part of the lecture theatre presentation system the video signal routing system has been designed to accommodate 8 x RGBH/V & composite video signals. The RGBH/V and the composite video signals are routed through an 8x4 RGBH/V matrix switcher, controlled via the AV remote control system. The video signals are routed through a video to RGB signal scaler and are switched via the RGB matrix switcher to the display devices with the switching being executed via the remote control system.

The lecture theatre is equipped with two motorized screens concealed in the ceilings. The video screens are 6'x8' with 4:3/5:4 video/computer format aspect ratios. 2 data/video projectors have been permanently installed in the AV control room mounted from the ceiling, projecting through the glass separating the control room from the lecture theatre.

The user friendly control system integrates the function of the many devices in the lecture theatre presentation system. All of the necessary controls are hooked to this central processor allowing them all to be controlled from one control panel. Presets are required including but not limited to, sound levels, screen positions, switching electronic equipment on or off, etc.

There is a main control position with the control panel permanently lectern mount, plus another control panel position in the AV control room for future use. From the control panel, it is possible to control microphone switching, control the video input source selection, the transport of the VCR, and other required functions as well as controlling the existing carousel slide projectors. The main control frame with the programming and all of the control interface hardware in it is mounted in the existing equipment rack.