Vista Systems' Spyder Takes Aim at The Ultimate Hunters Market in Las Vegas

	Vista Systems' Spyder X20 was deployed by PSAV for the Safari Club International's Ultimate Hunters Market event.

There was a Spyder in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas where Safari Club International held its 43rd annual Ultimate Hunters Market. A Vista Systems' Spyder X20 was deployed by event technology services company PSAV during nightly entertainment programs for guests and for a special awards dinner.

Safari Club International is dedicated to protecting hunters' rights and promoting wildlife conservation. The Ultimate Hunters Market is the world's largest hunting convention.

The AV system for the entertainment portion of the gathering consisted of 10 Christie Digital 18K projectors double stacked, which displayed content onto a 150' x 22' curved screen. The Spyder X20 was fed by seven inputs. Two Playback Pro systems ran motion graphics and still stock images; two Mac towers ran PIPs for the keynote address to the Spyder, which blended them. Cameras were also sub-switched.

An additional Spyder 344 acted as a "sidecar" system handling monitors throughout the audience and in breakout rooms.

"Projection was a five-screen blend, and one challenge was wondering if we would use native resolution or stretch," says Spyder programmer Mitchell Somers, who has been using Spyder for eight years. "We wound up using a new video card with four DisplayPort outputs, and they all stitched together perfectly and looked beautiful."

"The versatility of Spyder allowed us to create the wide-screen image and easily layer in looks at the client's request," says Nathan Box of PSAV. "At one point we needed to shift PIPs around, and Spyder made it really easy. Its routing and functionality are great. It's intuitive to use and easily handled the resolution of the graphics we threw at it."

Somers also praises the "intuitive" routing of Spyder and its GUI interface. "I love how you can design things before a show, do a lot of pre-production and collaboration. I can get together with PSAV in advance and prep material that we could never afford to do on site or on the fly," he points out.