The year was 1996 and Richard Stockton College of New Jersey needed a solution. The staff of the Center For Instructional Media and Technology was running ragged delivering media devices, videotapes, cables, etc. to college professors prior to their lectures. Equipment was getting damaged and scheduling conflicts were occurring. Stockton College needed to automate the distribution of their media content throughout the campus and they needed this capability immediately.

The Head End at Stockton College.

The solution to the needs at Stockton College was Synergy, a Media Retrieval application developed by AMX Corp. Synergy was installed and the media devices were consolidated into one Head End and automated via Synergy. Instead of delivering VCRs and videos to rooms all throughout the campus, the staff within the Center For Instructional Media and Technology scheduled events to those rooms, or the professors scheduled the events themselves via the Client32 interface. Control of the sources was managed via the AXcess control system. The college had an elegant solution to a complex need and all was well for several years.

Time passed and technology evolved. Consequently, Synergy became obsolete. The AXcess control system that drove the media devices left little room for expansion. During periods of high use, the 3 MIP (million instructions per second) processor bogged down. DVD Players became a popular new media device and Synergy could control nothing more than basic transports; DVD menu and navigation capabilities were non-existent. Bill Shackleton, the Technical Coordinator for the Center For Instructional Media and Technology, began the search for an upgrade solution.

By this time, AMX Corp. was known as Panja, Inc. In keeping with the new direction of the company, the Synergy Dept. had been dissolved and the source code released to the Open Source community. Bill encountered difficulty as he sought an upgrade for their existing system because Synergy was no longer supported.

As Bill researched possible solutions for their current Media Retrieval needs, he discovered Realm Control Corp. (then known as Xolutionz) had developed the successor to Synergy. The new application, known as Phoenix32, communicated via TCP/IP with the latest control system hardware line, NetLinx, which operates at 260 MIPs. The Windows Server application had been improved and the NetLinx code had been written from scratch. Several new features had been built that were useful to Stockton College. Therefore, Bill and the staff at Stockton College decided to utilize Realm Control Corp. to perform a site-wide upgrade.

(View Stockton College press release.)

The Upgrade

On 28 May 2003, Shane Burke arrived at Stockton College. By the end of the next day, the upgrade was complete and several “wish list” features had been implemented as well. The majority of the labor that went into the upgrade process was in tweaks to suit the specialized needs of Stockton College. Following the upgrade, Stockton College was able to take advantage of the new DVD control capabilities, the new Web Client, and the improved processing speed of the NetLinx master. Also, a new building was brought online using the Remote IP capabilities that are available only via Phoenix. No longer was there a need to pull RS-232 cable from the Head End to the remote building. Instead, one need only place a NetLinx master in the remote building and enter its IP address in the Phoenix Server software.

The 2nd Upgrade: Add Digital Content to the Public Access Channel via the AMX MAX

In addition to content distribution to the central campus, Stockton College also uses Phoenix to schedule and control media that is sent out on The Stockton Channel, a public access channel serving the Atlantic City area. Using Phoenix in conjunction with the AMX MAX digital file server, analog and digital content can be easily broadcast for the community. 

The Starboard / AMX TPI-4 interface.

The User Interface

As Stockton College continues to improve the value that Phoenix offers to the campus faculty, they have started phasing in touch panel interfaces in many of the classrooms.  Those classrooms that do not include touch panels are served by the XGen web client interface, or the handheld remote controls.  The panels themselves include small AMX Modero panels and Hitachi Starboard panels working in conjunction with an AMX TPI/4.

Statistics

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey utilizes an RF distribution network to broadcast content to all rooms throughout the campus. 92 rooms are automated via Phoenix. 90 of the rooms are on the local campus and two of them are in a separate building, controlled by a remote master. There are three primary hardware configurations within the rooms. At the Head End are located 27 standard IR VCRs, 10 RS-232 VCRs, and 2 DVD Players. Stockton will bring additional DVD Players online in the near future, and will add additional rooms as well. Phoenix will serve approximately 30,000 events per year, and this number is likely to increase as the campus automation continues to grow.

Conclusion

Realm Control Corp. would like to thank Bill Shackleton for his tenacity regarding the Synergy product, and especially for this willingness to utilize the services of Realm Control Corp. Bill has been a supporter of the software for many years and his willingness to replace Synergy with Phoenix has validated the stability and long-term viability of the application.