The Back Room

This is the second part of my article about the pros and cons of the use of a control room for exhibit hardware vs. having hardware on the exhibit floor in cabinets at each exhibit. Read part I first if you haven’t yet. This portion focuses on the distributed hardware option, where each exhibit runs from hardware in a cabinet in close proximity to the exhibits they control, without a central control room.

Strengths
There are some strengths to this approach. It can be much more cost effective in both installation, and the amount of physical equipment actually required. You don’t need any sort of cable extensions to get a signal over a long distance, you don’t need a keyboard/video/mouse switch (KVM) and you don’t need any sort of remote monitors to be able to see what exhibits are doing when you’re not near them. You also don’t need the manpower to install long cable runs and test them. Often, this solution is more easily managed by the institution’s staff, since all the equipment is pretty familiar, since it doesn’t have a lot of specialty gear that would be used in a control-room scenario.

Adding a new exhibit is simplified, since you don’t have to integrate into an existing system. A new cabinet can be built and the hardware placed inside it without having to disturb the current hardware setup that may already be running in another room. It’s easier for other vendors, since they can just focus on installing their one exhibit and not breaking the whole system by what they do.

The maintenance can be easier at times, since if you’re working on any aspect that involves needing to be able to interact with the hardware to test, you don’t need two people. If you need to check a touch screen, pull a lever, or whatever, you can quickly do that while also having access to the computer itself. If you had to run back and forth from a control room, it could take four times as long if you don’t have another person there.

Distributing the power to hardware across the entire institution can be a good idea. It means that if there are any power problems with one of the exhibits, all the AV does not go down together. Similarly, from a security perspective, not all exhibits can be accessed in one place, so any vandal or mischief maker can’t affect the whole institution at once.

Weaknesses
A big weakness to having the hardware spread out across the whole institution is that it is very difficult to install any sort of control system, like AMX, or networking. If you do have those things, then you’re creating a hybrid of the two systems, with some sort of control area, with cables running out to the floor for control and networking. This combines some of the weakest parts of each solution. So, if you want to implement any sort of control system to turn things on and off, vary volume universally, or anything like that, distributing the systems on the floor is a very bad idea.

Updating is a bit more difficult as you have to open each cabinet up and manually install new programs, whether on a computer or a hardware playback device. What might be done in two minutes with a networked group of computers will now take much longer and involve traveling around the museum floor with a thumb drive and potentially a keyboard and mouse to plug into each CPU to get the job done.

Another big issue with this approach is that often, you need to have a cabinet door open and be in plain view of the visitors in order to work on anything. Just adjusting the volume of a computer would involve opening the cabinet. This is unsightly and can be a safety issue if you have wires hanging out or small spaces where children could crawl into. It’s an area that needs to be supervised all the time. If you’re working on an exhibit from a control room during business hours, a small “out of order” sign is all that is needed.

Each exhibit would also need its own dedicated hardware to run. There isn’t an opportunity to use playback devices for multiple exhibits with any ease. So, each video program would need its own player. This may have to be the case anyway, but using this method will almost demand it. Again, you could start to run cabling from one area to another, but you’re going to need conduit, and some clean entries into other exhibit areas.  This drives some costs up, which might have been the ones you were trying to save by going this route in the first place.

So, those are my thoughts on these strategies. There are many institutions that use each way, and some use a combination to do what they do. I prefer the control room, but that may not work for all buildings and costs. Each establishment needs to consider what works for them. Perhaps the extra money that would go into a control room would be better spent making an additional piece or media, or a large facility will have a limited IT staff, so having a central area is important. Either way, try to consider all the aspects of your project before you make a choice. Anyone have any horror stories of either solution? We’d love to hear about it.

Something we’ve experienced both sides of recently is the decision to either create a “Control Room” for your museum AV hardware, or to place each piece of hardware on the floor and hidden in a cabinet or behind walls. People may not be familiar with the different strategies, so I’ll try to explain each as much as I can. Each has its benefits and weaknesses, so I thought it would be helpful to talk about the effects of each approach. Realistically, I could probably write 10 pages on the pros and cons, but this will just be a more concise overview. Part one is about the Control Room.

Strengths
There are some main strengths to having a central control room for AV hardware. The first is that it centralizes the systems so that the installation, maintenance, and basic troubleshooting can be done in one place. If you plan on having some sort of control system for the museum like AMX that will turn systems on and off, it needs to live somewhere, and access is much easier if it’s in one place. Centralizing the hardware also allows you to go to one location and learn the status of all the different systems in your institution. You can look at videos playing, interactive computers, and see or hear audio programs. If all the building’s amplifiers are there, then they are easily adjusted at once, although you’ll need someone on the floor with a walkie-talkie to report back to you.

If there are problems with exhibit hardware, it can be remedied without having to open up a cabinet or door upstairs, rather by working through it in a private area. Although a video might not be playing, visitors would not see an open cabinet, wires, and you poking and testing hardware. This is especially important when dealing with computer interactives. Having a central Keyboard/Video/Mouse switch (KVM) allows you to access all the computers from one terminal with a single keyboard and mouse. If each were in its own cabinet, it would need a keyboard and mouse at each station. If there was a problem, a technician would have to open up that cabinet, pull out the keyboard and mouse, and use the exhibit monitor to troubleshoot. With a control room, the KVM can do that out of visitor’s sight, and be much more efficient for troubleshooting, updating, etc., the computer systems. Having them all networked will also dramatically decrease the time it takes to load new software, transfer files, and monitor the systems.

With all the hardware in one place, there are things that can be consolidated that might otherwise need separate components. This could be especially important when it comes to temperature control, as it’s easy to have one room with good AC. It might be more difficult if you have to install cooling mechanisms in every cabinet that has a computer generating heat. If you’re using some sort of hardware video playback device, like an Alcorn McBride Binloop, you could have one unit with several channels in it that might run 7 different exhibits. If each exhibit were an island, then it would require 7 separate players, costing more. There could be lower maintenance costs as well, since equipment is easily accessed and quickly troubleshot.

Weaknesses
One of the larger strikes against a central control room is the upfront cost in time and money. It requires more equipment like signal extenders for video and touch screens, racks, additional cables, additional video monitors to mirror the ones in the exhibit, and a KVM. Also, it requires more labor to install, since all that cable needs to be pulled, terminated, and checked. This takes more time and man hours, so will cost more up front. Also, the long cable runs have many more failure points that take longer to troubleshoot during installation. But, what’s lost up front is made back in the ease of maintenance of a control room. It might be hard to put a dollar figure on it, but being able to assess the state of the hardware in your institution quickly and solve problems from a central location can save a lot of time and aggravation in the end.

Expandability is hampered a bit, since adding new exhibits would involve running new cable through conduit, the extra hardware to extend it, and making sure there is available rack space. It’s possible to have later exhibits not use the room, but that creates confusion about what equipment is where, and makes the maintenance that much more difficult. Having all the equipment in one place also makes a problem more likely to affect the entire system, rather than just one exhibit. If there’s a power problem in that room, then it could cause all the AV systems in the institution to go down. Local problems in this one area cause systemwide issues.

Perhaps this is something that most places don’t have to deal with, but there is a danger to having all the hardware accessible at once. If someone were to get into this room, he or she could easily bring down the whole place by unplugging stuff, pulling cables, etc. That’s why it’s especially important to keep this room secure and monitored.

I’ll post the rest of my thoughts on this, as well as the pros and cons of putting the museum exhibit hardware on the floor in their own cabinets and areas, in the next week or so.