Alcorn McBride, the leading manufacturer of show control, audio and video equipment for the themed entertainment industry, has provided its A/V Binloop to deliver the multimedia content for Kent State University’s New May 4 Visitors Center.
The Visitors Center at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, commemorates the tragic events of May 4, 1970, when a confrontation between students and the National Guard during the Vietnam War left four students dead and nine wounded.
The university selected Alcorn McBride’s A/V Binloop to playback the audio and video in the exhibit. Alcorn McBride’s A/V Binloop is the ultimate frame-accurate synchronized audio and video player. With no moving parts, it provides up to 16 channels of ultra reliable playback that outlasts any other.
Bryan Molnar, electronics technician supervisor with Kent State who oversaw the integration of the technology for the May 4 Visitors Center, chose the A/V Binloop for Gallery 1: The Context. This space delivers background information on the Vietnam War: A Nation Divided; the Generation Gap between students and their elders; and the Struggle for Social Justice.
“There are three CRT TVs, ” Molnar explains, “each one playing a nine-minute video loop about the war, generation gap and social justice. Visitors can see all three TVs at once. But the audio changes to a different TV every three minutes, so the programs loop with two three-minute videos with audio and one three-minute video without audio.”
The A/V Binloop’s four video cards accommodate these requirements with the first three slots in the Binloop playing back the video feeds to the TVs and the fourth slot the audio. “Thinking about getting all that synched was crazy, ” Molnar says.
“That’s why the A/V Binloop was perfect – it’s designed to do exactly that. Most players don’t have this type of synchronization, but the Binloop could handle all the displays at once. And it can be adjusted any way I need.”
“Alcorn McBride was great working with us, ” says Molnar, to ensure the equipment delivered the functionality that Gallery 1 demanded. “The system is working beautifully. The A/V Binloop comes on every morning and goes to sleep every night. I’ve never had a problem with it.”
