3 Keys to Any Integrated Video Control Room

Building an integrated video control room is the first step to establishing a central monitoring hub for your operations. It’s about more than productivity or efficiency; a fully integrated video control room allows operators to focus on their mission and not on the technology. That means no time should be wasted comparing hardware or software versions, looking for the right cables, or troubleshooting errors.

The challenge lies in being able to display relevant information quickly, whether on a video wall, operator desktops, in a crisis room or a director’s office. A well-designed video control room with integrated systems mitigates that challenge and enables response teams to act quickly to any situation.

Considerations for Choosing an Integrated Video Control Room

• Seamless Visualization: Operators need a clear, organized view of all relevant information. This includes a high-resolution video wall displaying critical data alongside individual workstations offering detailed views.
• Unified Platform: Eliminate silos! Integrating systems and applications under one platform gives your team effortless control and the freedom to share information quickly.
• Reliable Technology: Downtime is unacceptable. Choose a provider capable of offering a secure, high-performance, and dependable video wall display, control system, KVM switch, and software.

Building the Ideal Integrated Video Control Room

The primary purpose of an integrated video control room is to provide a central space that can effectively monitor and control complex systems, whether it’s a large industrial process control application, a complex transport network or a command centre for emergency services.

For the most effective operations, control room operators must have up-to-date information that is accurate and complete. That data must be presented to them in a clear and logical way, in a layout that can be changed quickly as needed so that they can respond rapidly to changing situations and emergencies.

Integrated video control rooms generally include a large video wall for common access, data visualization, and group analysis coupled with individual workstations. These workstations typically have the same data as the large screen along with additional information, allowing specialist operators to extract the additional information required for their specific roles.

The first step is to choose technology that allows a single system to manage both a video wall and operator workstation content.

Select the Right Video Wall and Control System

You can start by selecting a high performance, large screen video wall and control system. Prioritize a screen capable of displaying high quality images and data with a thin-bezel or no bezel (LED) design. You want something modular for scalability that delivers a great viewing experience in various lighting conditions.

One great example is Samsung’s The Wall, a proven next-generation MicroLED display that is redefining the industry with a one-of-a-kind visual experience. The Wall brings superior colour purity with innovative colour enhancing Ultra Chroma Technology, a perfect black presentation with Black Seal Technology LED HDR and HDR 10+ support for optimum peak brightness and accurate grayscale expression. It is a real game changer for control rooms.

Meet with Samsung experts about a VuWall solution.

Key considerations:

• • High-Performance Displays: Invest in a video wall with excellent image quality, thin bezels (or bezel-less LED), and modularity for future scalability.
  • Video Wall Control System: Prioritize reliability, scalability, and ease of use. Opt for a system with built-in redundancy and a user-friendly interface. Consider solutions like VuWall’s PAK video wall control nodes for their simplicity, performance, and drag-and-drop configuration.
  • Video Wall Management Software: Interoperability is key! Choose software that routes any source type to any display and integrates with third-party devices. User-friendliness is crucial; prioritize drag-and-drop features for configuration and operation. Explore VuWall’s TRx platform – a centralized management platform offering an intuitive interface and control panel designer.

Video Wall Processing (a.k.a. Video Wall Controller or Video Wall Node)

It’s equally important to select the right processing system to maximize the usage of your integrated video control room’s screens. The right solution enables your operators to see what they need to see, when they need to see it.

VuWall’s PAK video wall control nodes offer a simple, scalable and reliable solution for mission-critical operations. PAK delivers high-performance video processing and can easily control and manage any source to any display, offering the utmost flexibility and scalability with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface with a full-featured video wall management software.

Key considerations:

• Reliability: A video wall control system is expected to be operational 24/7, while the quality of the control system is important, verifying with what level of built-in redundancy this system comes will ensure the highest availability of your video wall.
• Scalability: An integrated video control room is a major investment and a place where requirements and technology evolve constantly. Look for a video wall control system that will be able to scale as the needs of the integrated video control room evolve (increased number of sources, new source formats, additional displays, interoperability with adjacent crisis room, etc…)
• Ease of use: The purpose of a video wall is to be able to bring together the relevant visual information from a multitude of sources and help decision-makers make informed moves in crisis situations. A complex software to manage the video wall will definitely defeat this purpose. But the ease of use does not stop at the software level the simplicity to configure and maintain the system is also important as it will help supervisors to easily configure and adjust scenarios as often as they need to, without having to call a programming specialist.

Video Wall Management Software

In addition to the performance and processing power of the video wall controller, it is often the software that resides on these controllers that makes all the difference. There are many comparable video wall controllers out there, but it’s their software that differentiates them the most.

The software is what determines the user experience and how productive video control room operators will be. The most critical consideration for selecting the right video wall management software is interoperability; a platform that can route virtually any source type to any display and is compatible with third-party devices so that a single interface can be used to manage all devices on the network.

Ease of use is another critical component; software that offers easy drag-and-drop operations both to configure and to operate the video wall.

TRx is VuWall’s centralized management platform – the only true interoperable platform that provides both AV-over-IP distribution and a fully-featured video wall management software. TRx even includes a control panel designer to create customized HTML-based control panels to facilitate day-to-day operations, all without any programming required.

 

Workstations and Video Switching Technology

With an increasing amount of data and visual information, an effective video control room demands a system that unifies and routes information effectively so that each operator can select the most relevant data and easily control remote computers to accomplish their tasks.

KVM Matrix Switching for a Flexible Connection 

One of the most efficient and flexible ways to achieve this is with a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switching system. KVM ensures operators can access and control any computer source, regardless of location. This empowers them to interact with remote computers as if they were on their desks.

Typically, the computers and source devices supplying the data that operators need to observe is located at a distance from the operators in a secure server room with a controlled environment.

Access to those computers is possible using KVM extenders, an integral element of the switching system.

At the centre of the KVM system is a matrix switch that routes individual computers to operator workstations.

Any operator can select any source computer and control it as though the computer was located only a few metres from their desktop; with no latency, interactive delay on the keyboard and mouse or misleading artefacts on the screen.

It is also possible for several operators to view and control the same computer simultaneously – under strict access control to maintain operational integrity.

More information on the capability and application of KVM switches within video control rooms can be found in VuWall’s KVM in Mission-Critical Control Room brochure.

Maintaining System Control and Integrity

System control and integrity is an important consideration when giving operators access to all computers. Operators can also select between sources using simple keyboard commands or through an additional device such as a push button panel or touch screen.

The IT system administrator is also able to control switching routes centrally and assign access permissions along with a series of other control parameters that suit just about every practical operational requirement.

Ease of Use

Many workstations are equipped with several screens which would normally require multiple keyboards and mice. A KVM system allows a single keyboard and mouse to control any computer, simply by hovering the mouse over the appropriate screen and interacting with the presented data.

Remote Access

Long distance transmission is achieved using extenders at each end of the links to transmit signals over the CAT or fibre cables. Distances of 140 meters with copper and 10km with fibre cables can be achieved.

Flowing Data Into an Integrated Video Wall Control Room

Presenting all the combined visual information on the large video wall at the front of a video control room and across all operator workstations is essential in ensuring that decision-makers are equipped with the information they need to minimize response times and increase operational efficiency. This can only be achieved with a centralized management platform that is integrated with all the information systems used to provide data to those decision makers.

Centralized Management Platform: A platform like VuWall TRx integrates with all information systems, ensuring seamless data flow to the video wall and operator workstations. This empowers timely decision-making.

TRx software provides an easy-to-use user interface to fully manage both the content on the video wall and the routing of source computers to the operator workstations.

It also provides an intuitive control panel designer tool to quickly and easily create an unlimited number of HTML-based control panels to select between various pre-set screen configurations for the most common operational scenarios and crisis situations.

VuWall and IHSE have developed a complete integration between TRx and the IHSE KVM matrix switches to ensure a seamless visualisation experience. Click here to learn more about this integration.

Conclusion

Having all systems and applications interoperable and controlled from a single unified platform is the key to creating a seamless visualization experience. Video control room operators must have instant and reliable access to accurate information at all times even though this information comes from a wide variety of sources delivered in various formats.

A proven and tested integrated video wall controller and KVM switch solution with a simple-to-use control interface, achieves just that; ensuring operational staff have constant access to information to make the correct decisions, especially at the most critical times.

Co-Authored by MARK HEMPEL
Head of Product Management, IHSE
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