Hippotizer Makes a Show for WVU's Puskar Center

	The new Locker Room at WVU's Puskar Center, where a Hippotizer Tierra+ Media Server is providing content to multiple screens. Photo: © WVU

A Hippotizer Tierra+ Media Server from Green Hippo, the specialist creator of tools for the real-time manipulation of video for the AV industries, is driving the videowall content at the spectacular WVU Football facility at West Virginia University's new Puskar Center, in Morgantown, WV.

Providing state-of-the-art spaces for players, coaches, staff, and visitors, the WVU Puskar Center development is, with the help of Hippotizer, transforming the home of WVU Football, putting its facilities very visibly ahead of the competition.

The video playback solution was designed by BrightTree Studios and installed by its parent company, Synergy Media Group, preferred technology suppliers to WVU. It encompasses five large screens in the spacious, luxuriously modern Locker Room, including a main video wall and four "end-cap" screens located at the ends of the locker rows. The Tierra+ Media Server will also handle content feeds and mapping duties for screens in other areas in future phases of this major construction project.

"This was our first project using Hippotizer, and we've had a great experience with it," says David Vargo, principal of BrightTree Studios. "It allowed us to create the space using the Visualiser software so that we could plan and vision the spaces with the client before the actual construction. This allowed us to develop customized content with WVU's video producer, Austin Gaines, months before installation, which helped to keep the project on schedule."

Lead AV designer at Synergy Media Group, Cory Sarzotti, explains, "This 'show' realm, or 'theater space' is not really an area that corporate AV has had a lot to do with in the past, but we're starting to see more and more requirement for it from our clients. And for this type of work, Hippotizer is a new tool in our toolbelt."

Sarzotti worked closely with Green Hippo's Nick Spencer on the integration of the Hippotizer, programming a custom Crestron control system and mapping the content to the multiple screens, all of non-standard resolution. He found the Hippotizer features, along with the "incredibly supportive" backup, to be extremely helpful in achieving such great results.

"The VideoMapper was really useful in addressing content, especially to the end-cap screens in the Locker Room," he says. "It was also incredibly helpful that the Hippotizer is well known, and that other engineers we were working with on the project had used it before."

Sarzotti also praised the Hippotizer's Third Party Control API, commenting, "This allowed me to program an incredible level of detailed control for the customer, recalling complicated show presets with a single touch panel button."

Also of huge benefit was the accessibility of the Hippotizer interface. "We have some formal client training scheduled," says Sarzotti, "but because Nick has been training me, and I've been showing the client all through the project, they're already very familiar with it, and are able to manage content, make changes, create presets and add new content."

He concludes, "Really, the Hippotizer interface is accessible enough to anyone who is familiar with the creative software world, and that's been really helpful."