Leisure / Fitness

Who

Shoeless Joe’s Welland

Location

North Welland, ON

Completed

March 2008

Products

3x3 Infinite Plasma, Crestron control including touch panels, Extron HD component matrix switchers, LG and now NEC plasmas (42”, 20” and 15”) on Peerless mounts, Channel Plus RF modulators and RF distribution amps, TOA ceiling speakers and weather proof wall mounted speakers and also Crown and now BiAmp amplifiers.

About Shoeless Joe's

Shoeless Joe's is one of the largest Sport Theme Casual Dining Restaurant chains in Ontario with more than 30 locations across the province.

Established in 1985, the chain of restaurants wanted to change the look of its new establishments, creating a more pleasant environment for their customers. The opening of Shoeless Joe's Welland was an ideal opportunity to implement this new design, an AV evolution to their chain of restaurants.

Project Details

Owning a restaurant or bar is a very competitive business. The atmosphere and visual dynamics of the place sets one place from another, and creating a pleasant environment for their customers is a priority.

Shoeless Joe's wanted to change the restaurant business by implementing an "AV facelift" in its new establishments. The goal is to re-invent the face of sports bar - to excite old clients as well as bring in new ones. Advanced Products Group was up for the challenge.

The Advanced Solution

Infinite Plasma walls have been adopted by various companies and restaurants to create that "WOW" factor among their customers. Last year, Shoeless opened their newly revamped restaurant in Niagara Falls Canada. Advanced installed 37 flat panel TVs throughout the restaurant covering all areas such as the bar, upstairs/downstairs dining rooms, aisles and stairways which included TVs in every booth for private viewing of the game. Wanting to outdo the Niagara restaurant, Sir Corp contracted Advanced to install the Infinite Plasma in its Welland location.

According to General Manager Jordan Fois, the popular Welland eatery boasts of having the "biggest plasma TV in the region". The 3x3 Infinite Plasma is accompanied by several other screens which surround the restaurant, and all the booths have built-in TVs providing the ultimate dining/viewing experience.

As summer is quickly approaching, they are even preparing to equip their patio with the AQUiVO LCDs so that sports fans will be able to soak up some sun or enjoy the warm evening weather, while still keeping tabs on their favourite sport teams. "We're the only restaurant/bar in Niagara with outdoor plasma TVs", says Fois.

With the success of this installation, Sir Corp decided to contract APG to install on 3 additional locations - Milton, Orangeville and Oakville, with future plans to install in Ottawa

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Who

Shoeless Joe's Niagara

What

Flat screen and sound system installation across the restaurant

Location

Fallsview Casino, Niagara Falls, ON

Completed

2007

Role

Consultation, Design and Installation

About Shoeless Joe's

Shoeless Joe's is one of the largest Sport Theme Casual Dining Restaurant chains in Ontario with more than 30 locations across the province.

The chain of restaurants wanted to change the look of its new establishments, creating a more pleasant environment for their customers. The opening of Shoeless Joe's Niagara Falls was an ideal opportunity to implement this new design, an AV evolution to their chain of restaurants.

The Installation

Advanced conducted the installation of 37 x flat panel TVs throughout the restaurant covering all areas such as the bar, upstairs/downstairs dining rooms, aisles and stairways which included TVs in every booth for private viewing of the game.

Incredible (JBL) audio was installed throughout the first and second floor bar and dining area and outdoor patio. In addition, attenuators were set to control sound to allow for intimate conversations to take place.

The main installation was completed in under a month, just in time for the Stanley Cup finals!

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Who

Columbia Lake Health Club

What

Flat screen and audio system in workout rooms

Location

Research & Technology Park, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Completed

2007

Design Co.

Advanced Presentation Solutions

General Contractor

Maple Reinders

Products - Toshiba LCD displays, Extron transmitter / receivers, JBL speakers, Crown amplifiers, Shure mics

About Columbia Lake

Columbia Lake Health Club is a state-of-the-art full-service fitness facility that is independently owned and operated in Waterloo, Ontario. Columbia Lake Health Club was created in order to meet the needs identified by some of the top employers in Waterloo. RIM, Open Text, Sybase, Miller Thomson, University of Waterloo and Communitech all contributed their ideas to the planning of Columbia Lake Health Club and the TechTown facility.

The Installation

Opening in early 2007 and in the middle of the Research & Technology Park, the founders of Columbia Lake Health Club wanted a state-of-the-art facility that would stand out from the typical recreational facilities. Audio visual systems were designed into all areas of the club including the main entrance and atrium, cardio mezzanine, women's only area, spin room, aerobics Room, palates room as well as the change rooms.

The solutions specified ranged from room to room based on the focus of the respective area. A facility wide paging system and complete AV rack was installed at the head end for central control. The main entrance features multiple Toshiba LCD displays and Extron VGA transmitter / receivers. The larger cardio mezzanine features 7 ceiling mounted Toshiba LCD displays and Broadcast Vision FM transmitters while the women's only area features another 3 Toshiba displays. The spin, aerobics and palates rooms all include independent audio systems built around the use of JBL speakers, Crown amplification and Shure wireless mics.

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Who

Loose Moose Tap & Grill

Location

Toronto, ON

Completed

September 2007

Design Co.

Advanced Presentation Solutions

General Contractor

Maple Reinders

Products

Infinite Plasma, Crestron control system (CP2E control unit and a TPS-4000L rack mounted touch panel), Kramer Scan Converters and Video Distribution Amplifiers (VP-502xl, 103YCB & PT-102S),an Altinex 16x32 component video with stereo audio Matrix Switcher, Channel Plus modulator and RF distribution amplifiers, Audio Authority video to HD scalers and Middle Atlantic Equipment racks.

About Loose Moose

SIR, which stands for Service Inspired Restaurants®, is a privately held Canadian corporation in the business of creating, owning and operating full service restaurants in Canada. SIR currently owns and operates a diverse portfolio of restaurants that have been characterized by SIR as Concept Restaurants and Signature Restaurants. Loose Moose is part of their Signature restaurants and are one-of-a-kind brands that range in offerings from fine dining with award winning menus to a very active sports bar in Toronto's entertainment district. Each of these restaurants is located in a prime downtown Toronto site. With its high-energy, carefree atmosphere and a perfect mix of current and classic rock, the Loose Moose is considered one of Toronto's hottest bars.

The Installation

The scope of work was to join and update the two previously separate restaurants - The Armadillo upstairs and the Loose Moose downstairs into the new Loose Moose. The upstairs is now the main bar/dining area with a live DJ, Plasma Video wall and stage area for weekend bands, while the downstairs is more focused on being the "Sports Bar" with multiple monitors and the plasma Video wall as the main attraction behind the bar.

SIR Corp hired contractors to install a new staircase which now joins the two levels and also houses a new DJ booth above the staircase landing. Our two equipment racks are located on this landing behind the DJ.

It was decided to re-use the two existing audio systems since they were still functioning. The audio equipment upstairs had to be removed from behind the bar and re-installed into the new equipment racks. This meant disconnecting and documenting the old install which consisted of equipment sitting on many shelves under the main bar.

We then had to re-route and extend all of the audio and video cables from the bar to the new rack location as well as pull new audio and video cables to any new equipment locations.

Other requirements included moving a video projector to the other side of the bar to project onto a brick wall upstairs, installing two client supplied speakers at the stage area and a new amplifier into the rack to feed these speakers. New outdoor speakers were also installed to replace two older faulty speakers. A 3x3 MPDP video wall was installed behind the bar on each level and both can display up to 9 different images as well as various magnifications of any source at any time. All of the existing monitors on both levels can now display any of the new sources as well. The sources are 9 new HD cable TV receivers, 2 DVD players and 2 channels of PC Music graphics.

Audio can be sent to both levels from the upstairs DJ mixer or from the downstairs DJ mixer if need be. All video and audio switching is controlled from the rack mounted touch panel at the upstairs DJ position.

HD video is sent through the main switcher. All sources are either HD to start with or they are up converted to HD before being sent to the switcher. The HD outputs are sent directly out to the MPDP video walls and to the HD ready plasmas but are down converted and sent as video or RF feeds to all other bar monitors.

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Who

Yarmouth and Acadian Shores Museums

Location

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Completed

2010 – within 1 week

Products

Epson projectors, Alcorn McBride Digital Video Machines, TTX Canada Touch panel with built-in PC, Dakota Audio Directional Audio array speaker, Alcorn McBride Digital Audio Machine

Project Details

Advanced was contacted by a museum design company in Halifax regarding a consortium of museums in and around the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia area. They wished to upgrade their exhibits with audiovisual equipment, allowing for a better customer experience in the museums. Three locations were chosen for the AV installation project: The Yarmouth County Museum and Archive, the Cape Forchu Lighthouse and Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos. Each location had multiple photographs, artifacts and exhibits relating to the history of each venue and they were looking for unique ways to enhance the exhibit of some of these.

The Installation

Partnering with Advanced in the project, the design company envisioned the upgraded sets for each location. The designs were created to allow for audiovisual interactivity, enabling better experience for the visitors of each museum.

At the Cape Forchu Lighthouse, a landmark in Nova Scotia, an interactive touchscreen display that gives the user different views from and around the lighthouse was built to give the impression that it is just another simple picture on the wall. The touchscreen provided was frameless, which enabled Advanced to install it into a set piece enclosure that makes it resemble the other pictures hanging there.

In the Yarmouth County Museum (a converted church), the photographs that were once hidden inside boxes in the basement were transferred to video files and these were loaded onto two digital video players. Two projectors were mounted on beams, which enabled the staff to project a continuous slide show of photographs of the area and to also display general information to the visitors. The two digital video play-ers and both projectors can be controlled over the museum’s network. This set up also enables the staff to schedule the projectors to turn on and off at specific days and times.

At the Musee des Acadiens des Pubnicos, Advanced set up an area with audio running via a sensor. The sensor is motion controlled so that when people enter the exhibit area, the au-dio starts to play and will shut down when no motion has been detected for 15 minutes. A directional speaker array was installed in the ceiling at this exhibit to focus the audio on the person viewing it. This gives a more personalized experience to the visitors.

The installations at all 3 venues were finalized within 1 week. Each museum was completed within the scheduled 2 day time frame anticipated. Below is a testimonial from the company that designed the project complimenting Ron O’Neill, a senior installer with Advanced Presentation Solutions:

"I am extremely pleased to inform you of Mr. Ron O'Neill's outstanding professional contribution to the on-site installation and commissioning of this project! Ron was a calm and undaunted creative force throughout a week of sometimes down-right daunting field conditions! Three venues in this project - the Yarmouth County Museum and Archive, the Cape Forchu Lighthouse, and the Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos are now better places to visit and experience due in large part to your contribution as a company specializing in engineered audio-visual solutions and in Ron's exemplary and inspiring way of bringing everything together, within exacting architectural conformity criteria, and making it work!!!!! It was a pleasure to have the opportunity of working with someone as dedicated and committed to excellence as Mr. Ron O'Neill."

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