OSA International Takes AV Networking at a Major Orange County Convention Center Event to a Whole new level

SUMMARY

Over the past couple of years, large production events have reached a new level: more wow factor! This translates to more cameras and other endpoints, media servers, data traffic, AV inputs, and outputs. Consequently, reliable, super-fast bandwidth is required on an unprecedented scale. However, with the right skills and technology, even the most challenging event can be simplified, as OSA International, Inc, recently demonstrated at Orange County Convention Center. This dynamic, interactive, and multi-faceted event was an engaging experience for thousands of people over four days. While many elements contributed to its success, reliable and high-performance AV-friendly network switches from NETGEAR played a critical role.

BACKGROUND

OSA International delivers world-class entertainment technology, event production, and systems integration. Across home automation, blockbuster events, remote meetings, and broadcasts, OSA has a proven track record. With locations including Las Vegas, Chicago, and Nashville, it serves customers all over the United States. As well as a fantastic team of in-house experts, OSA is also supported by some of the industry’s best technology brands, including NETGEAR. The two organizations have a long-standing partnership, particularly through NETGEAR’s focus on Pro AV and their shared involvement in SDVoE. OSA has even built two demonstration studios for its own purposes using NETGEAR network switches.

CHALLENGE

One of OSA’s existing customers holds a worldwide conference every two years. It is a very ‘family-style’ event involving franchisees from all over the globe to get together, find out about new products, and have some fun. However, due to the pandemic, 2022 was the first event in four years. When the customer brought in a new production company to run the event at the Orange County Convention Center, it requested that OSA’s extensive AV and network integration skills be part of the project.

The event featured multiple rooms, stages, and experience areas, ranging from live entertainment bands, corporate presentations, live cooking to games. Mark Yokota, Chief Visionary Officer and Head of Video/LED, OSA International Inc, explains: “The biggest difference was this event’s networking needs, to the point that we are creating different departments on site, and the solution to that is creating virtual local area networks (VLANs) on a scale we have never done before. PreCOVID, we might have had some unmanaged and fairly simple networks, mainly needing 1Gbps at the most. These days, we need to provide multiple virtual local area networks (VLANs) from just one switch. Until a few years ago, being able to do that would have been inconceivable. It’s a very different world today.”

Mark continues, “The streaming requirements between different halls in the venue was also at an unprecedented level, using Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) to access public internet, whereas, in the old days, we would have just relied on copper.”

Michael Solomon, Vice President, OSA International, Inc, provides some additional context around the networking requirements. “The ask was to create a network for a dozen media servers, providing content to a multitude of moving and stationary video walls in the convention center. There were multiple connections to each server, with each one having four separate networks: content, control, Dante, and KVM. Also, while the original request was for 10Gbps connection on each media server, it graduated to a 25Gbps and then 100Gbps to support network area storage (NAS).”

SOLUTION

Of course, this complex and highly-demanding environment depended on robust and flexible network switches, which is when OSA turned to NETGEAR for its M4500 series and other models. Says Michael, “For me, the support they provide is a big factor in choosing NETGEAR. I can have constant access to the AV experts at NETGEAR to help with configuration, throw design ideas at, even have real-time Zoom sessions with them www.netgear.com during installation.” While Michael has existing network IT experience with NETGEAR, he adds, “I had never dealt with the M4500 series before. Also, we needed 25Gbps and 100Gbps connections, which was new to us, so it was great to doublecheck my configurations.”

Other factors for choosing NETGEAR included availability of the product (beyond the M4500s, other network switches were installed), and value-for-money, thanks to the number of ports per unit. Says Michael, “We all know about global supply chain shortages for everyone, but NETGEAR will design around what is in stock, as opposed to waiting for a product. They understand we are working on a tight timeline and what we are trying to do: they speak our language. Plus, the chances that any challenges we encounter are ones that the NETGEAR support team has come across before, so they have that knowledge. It’s a tight-knit support team, rather than starting with a new person each time I call. We get consistency from NETGEAR.”

RESULTS

OSA started talking to the event’s production company back in October 2021, with the installation team on site before the event took place in early April 2022, spread across four convention center halls and four days. The event was a success and says Michael: “I had to leave the site for almost a week, and there were no real problems. There was one minor request I could handle remotely.”

Most importantly, the customer was happy, and the thousands of event attendees had an unforgettable experience. Mark concludes, “When everything works well, the technology is in the background, and you don’t hear complaints. I always tell customers that you want your on-site engineers sitting around being bored because all the work has been done, and everything is going to plan.”