Press Release BMI Completes Vision Center Installation for Cerner Corporation Business Media, Inc. (BMI) of Lincoln, Nebraska recently completed a high tech, control systems intensive AV installation for Cerner Corporation at its world headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. As the leading supplier of healthcare information technology, Cerner Corporation services over 1,500 healthcare clients. Founded in 1979, the company’s 2003 revenues were $839.6 million. BMI designed and installed the AV system in Cerner’s Vision Center, a group of seven presentation rooms with a large theater and a central control room. “The project represented a unique design aspect of combining both shared and dedicated AV resources,” said Matt Hodges, lead systems designer at BMI. Cerner, whose clients include doctors’ offices and hospitals, produces customized medical management software packages. The company uses its rooms for sales presentations and meetings. BMI has provided AV services to Cerner for several years. Due to that positive existing relationship and a solid design team, Cerner chose BMI for this integration. “BMI was very flexible with client input and worked hand-in-hand on the AV integration. There were no surprises,” said Dan Cowan, formerly the technical project manager for Cerner, who oversaw the project from start to finish. “The idea for the Vision Center is to impress our clients. All the AV technologies are not only useful, but impressive in their function.” The Vision Center expansion consists of three Forums that include circular conference tables, a rear projection system and communications controls; three Suites that each seat up to ten people with plasma displays and integrated audio; and one Experience Theater with a nine-cube video wall, full surround sound and theater seating for eighteen to twenty people. The Vision Center was both new construction as well as an add-on to an existing building. While working closely with the architect, BMI’s installation team including Hodges, Mark Voutas and Todd Corriveau was able to overcome the architectural challenges commonly seen in the industry. FORUMS Each of the three Forum rooms is equipped with Christy Digital projectors on a Da-Lite rear projection unit and Da-Lite acrylic screens. The Forums feature JBL speakers and Audio-Technica microphones embedded in the ceiling. Each Forum also has an ELO touch-panel connected to an AMX TPI-4 interface. Laptop video connectivity in each room is accomplished via an Extron computer interface. Network access ports located in custom through-table assemblies were designed by the architect. Depending on the intended use, each Forum has up to three Canon pan/tilt/zoom cameras. In each Forum room, the dedicated rear projection room is hidden in a back room. White boards were installed and designed so that they are a matching acoustical panel to the rest of the room when closed and not in use. BMI also designed and installed video and audio-conferencing with room for four Tandberg codecs that are shared across six rooms. SUITES All three of Cerner’s Suites carry identical AV, although the physical layouts differ. Each Suite features a wall-mounted Fujitsu 50-inch plasma display with integrated speakers. Similar to the Forum rooms, each Suite’s audio system includes Audio-Technica microphones and JBL loudspeakers are embedded in the ceiling. Wireless 802.11b AMX touch panels with table top docking stations control all aspects of the room’s AV. The control system is also tied back to the central control room, where an operator can route audio and video signals to or from another room. Each Suite also has a dedicated PC, DVD player and VCR located in the central control room that can be accessed via the AMX touch panel. EXPERIENCE THEATER The most striking portion of the Experience Theater is its nine-cube Clarity Tigress 52-inch DLP video wall. The cube wall occupies about 80% of the front wall. The wall is capable of acting as independent screens or as one big screen for client presentations. “The client did not want front projection and there was no space to do rear projection. The video wall is space-saving and has a visual impact,” explained Hodges. BMI also designed a full surround-sound audio system using custom-built JBL loudspeaker enclosures that are THX certified. The main loudspeaker cluster consists of left, center and right cabinets and two subwoofers, all hidden behind grill cloth. The loudspeakers and subwoofers are hung above the cube wall, with additional left and right speakers at the front, sides and at the rear of the theater. Surround-sound processing is handled by a Lexicon MC12 processor. In the control room, a Biamp AudiaFLEX unit runs the ceiling speakers while a Crown amplifier powers the program and surrounds. The Biamp AudiaFLEX unit also handles system DSP. CENTRAL CONTROL Cerner’s central control room is split into three rooms – one with user access, a server room and a rack room with administrator access. The control center is completely touch panel-based control. From the control room, the operator can listen, monitor and talk back to any of the Vision Center rooms. Using the AMX control system, central control can route all video signals, all personal computers in the facility, and switch sources for any display. For maximum flexibility, the rooms can also run independently without an operator in the control room. “The biggest challenge was to create a system with maximum functionality and a reasonable budget,” said Hodges. “The solution lies in creative switching and signal routing using Pesa and Extron switching and Cobranet, with DSP dedicated to each room. Additionally, BMI could not have done the audio routing without the Biamp AudiaFlex open architecture.” Creating a solution with one Audia Flex unit in each room, BMI used creative bundling of Cobranet signals for distribution. BMI built custom control blocks to handle logic and simplify control system programming within the control room. Using the logic and Cobranet with Audia, Hodges could provide many value-added features without raising costs. “The external wow factor is the architecture points whereas the unseen wow factor is the AV, which is transparent and high tech,” said Cowan. “Overall I am most happy with the quality of the work and the quality of the design and implementation. There have been no problems to date.” View Pictures