This season, the Golden State Warriors opened the doors to their new home: the Chase Center in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood. As no professional sports venue would be complete without a team shop, a highlight of Thrive City—the area surrounding the state-of-the-art arena—is the new flagship Warriors Shop. Operated by Fanatics, the 10,000-square-foot multi-level store offers fans the largest selection of officially licensed Warriors merchandise available.
In the tech mecca of San Francisco, however, simply offering jerseys and hats isn’t enough. Fanatics wanted to provide store visitors with a stunning experience, including a multitude of displays playing a variety of content, in addition to a booth for a live DJ. To provide this unique retail experience, the company called on Las Vegas-based integrator AV Technology Systems.
In addition to over 20 independent displays equipped with digital signage players, AV Technology Systems outfitted the Warriors Shop with a network of screens capable of switching between multiple video sources. These include three 75-inch Samsung displays—two at the lower-level cash registers and one in the upper sales area—a Barco G60-W10 WUXGA 10,000-lumen DLP laser projector in the upper sales area, and 10 43-inch Samsung PM43H series commercial displays that form two 1x5 video walls, one on each side of the New Era hat wall. In addition, two 17-inch Marshall monitors are located in the store’s AV racks.
Sources for the display network include five standard BrightSign XD233/4 digital signage media players for content such as jersey personalization promotions; four extended BrightSign XT1144 expanded digital signage media players with live game feeds and other content from U-verse set-top boxes (STB); a Blu-ray player; and a PTZ camera. In addition, the DJ booth is equipped with a Just Add Power VBS-HDIP-717WP2 3G+WP2 wall plate transmitter. This provides an optional input for music videos and allows the store to connect a laptop for presentations.
When it came to video distribution, the Warriors Shop required a system that would allow managers to change each screen’s sources independently, send any source to any screen, show multiple sources on a single screen, and display video walls in any configuration required. Furthermore, the system had to be exceptionally intuitive, allowing someone without any training to easily perform any of these functions. To meet these needs, AV Technology Systems relied on Just Add Power’s (J+P) 3G Ultra HD Over IP platform with a Q-SYS plugin for simple, independent source control.
“We’ve utilized J+P solutions in a number of projects—including in other stores operated by Fanatics—and know that we can count on their products to work reliably, which is a key factor in a high-profile installation such as this,” said Brian Baron, owner of AV Technology Systems. “In addition, control over a J+P system can be delivered with little to no investment in extra equipment or programming. A full automation system can be incorporated, but isn’t necessary. As budgets are a concern in any project, this flexibility is critical.”
The Warriors Shop’s J+P system offers ultra-low 16ms of latency from source to screen and supports 4K Ultra HD resolutions and HDMI 2.0 devices with HDCP 2.2. The platform enables seamless switching between any resolution HDMI source as well as uncompressed lossless multichannel audio formats including Dolby Atmos support. Video wall functionality is built-in for displays installed in portrait and flipped configurations as well as image push, pull, and pop features. An integrated scaler on the receiver automatically adjusts the picture to fit the screen.
Each of the Warriors Shop’s video sources is equipped with J+P’s VBS-HDIP-707 PoE transmitters, while VBS-HDIP-508 PoE receivers are attached to the displays and projector. Two VBS-HDIP-759A 3G+4+ video tiling processors each allow up to four sources to be displayed on a single display. The Ultra HD Over IP platform is engineered to provide complete scalability, so expanding the store’s system with an additional screen or source is as simple as adding another receiver or transmitter.
AV Technology Systems used Luxul’s XMS-5248P 52-port Gigabit PoE+ L2/L3 managed switch to fully optimize the J+P system. Simple and intuitive control is delivered by a Q-SYS Core 110f processor. Managers interact with the system using an intuitive interface on a wall-mounted 8-inch Q-SYS touchscreen and an iPad they can carry throughout the store.
“Fanatics is very pleased with their J+P system, as are the store’s managers, who were able to start using it with very little in the way of training,” said Baron. “As expected, we haven’t experienced any problems with the video distribution system at all. It has been one hundred percent reliable in providing fans with a one-of-a-kind shopping experience they absolutely love.”
