Scale A/V User Manual

SCALE is held Thursday through Sunday. However, volunteers are needed for setup on Wednesday as well as sometimes on Tuesday. Tuesday (afternoon): Retrieving equipment from the off-site storage facility, unpacking and setting up the A/V NOC, and potential room setups. Wednesday (all day): Deployment, setup, and testing of all conference room equipment. Thursday-Sunday (8am-6pm): Volunteers work in shifts as monitors or field techs. For evening events we will need one volunteer with audio mixer experience to help run the board. Sunday Evening: Teardown.

There are two microphone channels and one audio feed that need to be tested. Each of these three channels should be tested in-order.

For each channel, follow this procedure:

Testing video requires ensuing that the projector in the room and the recorded feed are both receiving video. To test, follow this procedure:

Corngradulations, the testing is now done. Please move to the next room as directed by AV-NOC.

Communicating with a radio is an art. Both procedure (what you say), and technique (how you say it) is important so that all appropriate parties can communicate efficiently and effectively. In order to promote good communication, please observe the following techniques and procedures.

Under most circumstances, presenters are capable of wiring themselves to the microphones and turning them on and off, as well as connecting their laptops to the projector system. But should an issue arise or should a special request be made, a member of the A/V team will be dispatched to the room to attempt to assess the situation, report any complications to the A/V NOC, and with the advisement of the NOC, carry out the appropriate solution in a manner that minimizes the disruption to both the presenter and the attendees. Generally, unless there is some technical issue that is preventing the talk from continuing, we do not go on stage and interrupt a speaker. Team members will be assigned a walkie-talkie for their shift so that they can stay in contact with the NOC while in the field. Certain special events such as panels, keynotes or specially configured rooms will require trained volunteers to be present in the conference room for the duration of the talk and operate an audio mixing board, adjusting audio levels to ensure quality of sound for the audience in the room.

Team members who volunteer to monitor the video feeds will work with a partner to watch the video streaming from all of the rooms that are broadcasting and use their surveillance capability to detect issues with the video stream, detect issues that may be occurring in the room such a projector malfunction, and to adjust the camera’s framing so as to ensure that the camera is pointed toward the front of the room and has the presenter visible within the frame. To see a detailed description of what Video Feed Monitors do, read the Video Monitoring Procedure.

The table for the radios should be sufficiently far away from the door to prevent people from running into it.

Hum (also called buzz) is a continuous sound that occur in a specific set of lower frequencies (often around 60Hz) and usually are caused by electrical interference by either bad audio connections or a ground loop condition. This is a video sample with a 60Hz tone.

Hiss is a continuous broadband sound that occurs over a wider set of frequencies than hum and may be caused by fans, air conditioners, or analog sound equipment like tape cassettes.

Clicks and pops are short bursts of high level sound across the spectrum and can be caused by mechanical issues in analog systems like vinyl record players or signal processing errors in digital systems such as insufficient buffer sizes or latency.

Distortion is any kind of alteration to the shape of a sound wave and is usually unwanted. There are different types of distortion, but the most common type is amplitude distortion (also called clipping).

Clipping occurs when the peaks and troughs of an audio signal gets “clipped” off due to the amplitude of the wave being higher in threshold than the audio device can handle. (Think of those unintelligible fast food drive-thru speakers.) Here is a video sample of clipping.

You can prevent distortion by reducing the sound levels on a device so that signals have enough “headroom” and do not trip the peak or clip indicators.

Audio feedback is the loud unpleasant squeal that occurs when a loop occurs between an audio input and output, such as a microphone pointed at a loudspeaker. The signal gets continually amplified any may overdrive the speakers and cause potential damage, so immediate attention is required such as lowering the volume of the sound channel in question and pointing the microphone away from the amplification source. Here is a video sample of audio feedback.

If not then pan/tilt the camera so that the Speaker is centered in the frame. If a speaker keeps leaving the frame (like pacing around), then you may want to zoom out.

Note when making camera adjustments: Camera movement is sensitive. There is a small delay between you pressing a button and the result showing up on screen. Wait for this lag as you make adjustments.

Use the camera movement controls to position the Camera to show the speaker in the middle of the frame. Use the Set Home button along the way, so that if you mess up and move the camera too far or the camera gets moved accidentally you can automatically move back to the last known good position by pressing the Home button. If you’ve moved the camera to an unknown location, press Home to move back to the last known position.

Once the speaker is properly framed, press Set Home again to lock in the new position.

To Hear Audio in the various rooms, click room’s window. If the video in the Operations Control window disappears or is not shown, then refresh the page. If the Operations Control window is not open or crashes, open Firefox and use the address bar to open it again. The web address is: + http://<room-letter/number>.scaleav.us/html-frontend/operate.html

Listen for audio problems in the room. If you suspect there are audio problems, you may want to check other rooms first to get a feel for the baseline of what other rooms sound like. If you determine there is an issue, then log the issue and ask Michael Proctor-Smith for help. Examples of potential issues are,

When we hear on the radio that there is an audio problem in a room, confirm whether the issue is with the camera audio or with the room’s ambient sound by selecting audio track 2 (camera audio) in VLC. If there is a problem, let the person on the radio know if the problem is with the camera audio or the room ambient audio. If the video is also cutting out, let them know about that too.

Observe the video feed and confirm that both the PTZ Camera video and the Slides video is displaying properly. If Video is not working then log the issue and ask Michael Proctor-Smith. Examples of problems that could happen are:

If there are reports of the SCALE Signs web browser crashing, press “Restart Signs”

If a VLC window goes completely black, you can reload the room feed in VLC by closing the window by pressing the X in the window title bar. A new VLC window will open in its place.

If the monitoring station computers are acting up, inform Michael Starch or Matthew Campbell

If there is noise, distortion, or imbalancing in any room, an audio-visual expert should be called in for assistance. An audio-visual expert is someone who has volunteered for SCALE for many years, and has experience setting audio-levels for both the room and the monitor feeds. The following procedure is for the experts.

Volunteers for the A/V team will receive a free badge. SCALE Registration for volunteers was handled by the team lead. We submit a list of names to registration a few weeks before the conference. You should have received an email confirming your registration for SCALE, if not, please contact Lan.

You will not be able to pick up your expo badge until the registration area has been set up late Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The registration area is near the entrance to the Expo Hall, on the convention center side.

It is the same process for staff or attendees to pick up a badge. You go to Registration, check-in via the bank of self-service kiosks. If you received an email from registration, there is an express check-in code. If you didn’t get the email or misplaced it, just enter your first and last name and the email address you used to sign up as a volunteer. The printer will print your badge and you can then pick up your shirt and swag.

After you’ve picked up your badge, you can check in with Lan at the A/V NOC in room 204. We’ll get you oriented. We also have staff tshirts for the A/V team. Please wear them when you’re working. Depending on availability, we will hand out multiple shirts so you can wear them multiple days.

SCALE attendees are primarily staying at on-site Sheraton hotel or the offsite Hilton hotel 5 minutes away.

SCALE provides a small number of hotel rooms for volunteers who are working for most of the conference. This is a privilege offered to volunteers who have done good work for us before, because we work long hours, and staying onsite is safer than a long commute.

You should have already received a confirmation email directly from the hotel, as well as an email from Ilan telling you to please contact him and not the hotel if you want to change anything about your registration.

SCALE will only cover the room and the parking. The hotel will require a credit card on file to cover any extra charges. Be sure to let them know if you need a parking pass. If you don’t need a car, you should consider taking Uber/Lyft to the hotel if it is under $25/each way; that may be reimbursable with the receipt. You should also ask about whether the room includes free internet access, and if so, what the code is.

Here is the general information regarding parking at the venue or around Pasadena. You may also consider carpooling or other modes of transportation.

SCALE will handle parking reimbursement after the conference, within reason. Please be frugal as SCALE has a lot of expenses with the new venue.

Shuttles from nearby hotels to the convention may be available. Ask your hotel front desk for information.

Boxed lunches will be provided for on-site volunteers in the volunteer break room, which is Room 208. Pastries are sometimes available in the morning. Dinners are provided via prepaid debit-cards that reload nightly. Outside food and beverages are not permitted in the venue.

There are many restaurants and shops around the venue, so there should be plenty of options if you want to find your own food.

Shifts

The bulk of volunteers are needed from 8am to 6pm. We are aiming for 5-hour shifts in the morning and afternoon, which overlap around noon.This should enable you to enjoy the conference and prevent you from having too long of a day.

We will need at least one volunteer with audio mixer experience to support the evening events. Hopefully, this duty will rotate to a different volunteer each night.

Please fill out the doodle poll to list your availability. It is extremely easy to update your availability.

Training will be provided onsite. There are many veteran volunteers who can answer basic questions. This book was created to also provide documentation of all of the procedures and equipment used by the team.

Lan Dang is the volunteer coordinator for the SCALE A/V Team. Her goal is to make sure SCALE A/V is well-supported and that you have a good experience and want to come back to help out again next year. Address all questions, concerns, and complaints to her.