The TSK Group has just completed its first implementation of Stardraw.com's new application, the aptly named Stardraw Control, at the Radisson Hotel in Birmingham. TSK’s specialist Communication Environments arm has installed a comprehensive and sophisticated background music and presentation source routing system across five floors of the hotel utilising an EtherSound network controlled by Stardraw Control. The cutting-edge system is part of a project that will see TSK breathe new life into the hotel’s presentation facilities.

The background music system is implemented across all five floors of the installation, which comprises two floors of bars and restaurants, two floors of meeting rooms and business facilities, and the eighteenth floor which plays host to the gym and the presidential suite.  The corridors and lifts to all floors concerned are also covered.  The presentation source routing system is concentrated on the two floors that form the Radisson Hotel business centre.  Level two offers five meeting rooms, three of which are combinable to make a larger space.  Level three provides a further five meeting rooms, four of which are also combinable into two groups of two.  A NetCIRA MS-8 8-channel EtherSound input device takes eight sources of background music (two feeds of DMX pre-programmed music, two 5-disc multi-CD changers, two FM radio tuners and two digital radio tuners) and distributes the signals across the EtherSound network.  A second MS-8 handles the presentation sources (three DVD players, three VCR machines and a microphone). Controlling the entire system is a standalone, customised control program generated by Stardraw Control.

According to Ric Burdge, TSK’s Technical Project Manager responsible for the Birmingham Radisson installation, not only did Stardraw Control offer a fast and simple solution, but there was nothing else available on the market that would do the job. "We needed a control solution that would interface between RS232 and the EtherSound network.  Stardraw Control was the only product available that could do it."

It was exceptionally quick and easy to create the control application and get it up and running," continued Burdge. "The entire program was written from scratch, tested, and commissioned on site in less than half a day.  Although it wasn’t a prerequisite for this particular application, we even created a custom graphical interface to help in the system testing process and monitor signal routing and volume levels across all zones. It was refreshingly simple.  What's more, it was very cost effective. To achieve the same result using the other solutions currently available on the market would run into many thousands of pounds, if not more for a complex system, assuming, of course, that they can actually do what we need them to do. Stardraw Control offers a simple, flexible and highly cost-effective alternative, and one that we shall be using a lot more in the future."

Stardraw.com CEO, David Snipp, is characteristically enthusiastic; “TSK’s implementation is a superb example of how integrators can exploit Stardraw Control to offer sophisticated system control at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.  It’s also a result that validates the whole approach of Stardraw Control, namely, an open-architecture system that supports multiple protocols and creates customised control programs without requiring the user to write any code. This is a winner at every level.”