NATO's NIAS 2019 Uses Analog Way Aquilon RS2 to Drive Plenary Session's Widescreen Projection

	Photo: NCI Agency

Analog Way's Aquilon RS2 4K/8K multiscreen presentation system and videowall processor drove the widescreen projection at NIAS 2019 in Mons, Belgium in October. The 15th annual NATO Information Assurance Symposium is the Alliance's largest cyber security conference.

The three-day gathering, organized by the NCI Agency, focused on "Digital Transformation: Smart Machines for Smarter Decisions." It brought together NATO members, national leaders, and cyber security specialists from across the Alliance, industry, and academia to discuss best practices, exchange views, and explore solutions.

The room for the NIAS plenary sessions featured a stage with a video projection screen measuring 15m x 5m with a two-projector soft-edge blend performed by 30K 3-chip DLP laser projectors.

Event engineering company Van der Veen, from Rijswijk, The Netherlands, produced and supplied all the AV, as well as the lighting, rigging, and camera registration of the event.

Analog Way's Aquilon RS2, with 16 inputs and 12 outputs, and the ergonomic and compact Control Box² controller were selected as the screen management system for the projection screen, stage monitors, and multiviewers. The multiviewers featured the normal screen output with PIPs for the showcaller at front of house, the speakers' prep room and backstage by the stage entrance.

Aquilon's inputs included 4K sources for widescreen videos and presentations and HD sources for 16:9 videos, presentations, and IMAG.

"The system needed to be powerful in terms of inputs, outputs, and layers," says Erik van der Knaap, project manager of Van der Veen Event Engineering in Rijswijk. "Low latency is always a must! Plus, we needed a reliable and stable system because it was the heart of the video/screen installation. Analog Way's Aquilon RS2 offered us flexibility and a large number of layers/PIPs in 4K and HD."

Van der Knaap notes that, "Aquilon's large number of inputs, outputs, and 4K and HD layers were perfect for all the screens that were used as multiviewers to show all the content including videos, presentations, and IMAG. Everybody, everywhere, was able to follow the event very well.

"We also found that Web RCS, the web-based user interface, was nice to use -- a joy for any operator -- and with two dedicated operator multiviewers with more than enough widgets on each was perfect. Aquilon worked very smoothly, without any failures -- it was a big success!"