Exclusive resort case study
The Challenge
The Watermark Hotel & Spa, a luxury hotel located in the central Gold Coast area, minutes from world famous beaches and shopping, prides itself on its ability to pamper guests with a “complete entertainment and relaxation experience”. With the rapid change in TV technology over the past couple of years and the impending move towards digital only television, an upgrade of the TV distribution was called for in order to keep the Watermark Hotel & Spa at the leading edge.
The local integration company, Data and Voice, were engaged to implement the upgrade and their partnership with Hills Antenna & TV Systems meant that they were well placed to offer a state of the art TV distribution system that would replace the ageing analogue system that was in place.
Hills Antenna & TV Systems were allocated the task of designing and supplying an MATV system that would distribute TV to all 388 rooms and suites, plus many other areas of the premises. As not all TVs were capable of displaying digital TV at the time the system was upgraded, eight local analogue plus eight digital channels from the local transmitter needed to be distributed, as well as almost a dozen in-house audio and video channels. The upgrade had to be done without disruptions to the local in-house movie system and without inconveniencing guests any more than absolutely necessary.
Technical Solution
By proposing an RF distribution system, Hills were able to retain much of the cabling, thus ensuring costs were minimised and the system would be compatible with existing TV equipment at the resort. Hills replaced the TV antenna with a UMX36 UHF phased array and supplied a Polytron SPM-TDTQ analogue and digital processor to ensure all off-air signals were clear and equalised. Polytron modulators were also employed to modulate the in-house video and audio programs, prior to distribution of the complete suite of channels around the premises.
The radio channels were distributed via the TV system, so a local camera and text generator was set-up to display some of the spectacular scenery around the resort and also a caption providing details of the radio source, which greatly adds to the guests’ listening experience.
The TV distribution network was re-designed to ensure adequate signal on all channels was received at every TV point. This meant that, whilst the cabling could be retained, the distribution amplifiers, splitters and taps spread throughout the hotel also needed to be replaced.
The Outcome
The partnership between Hills Antenna & TV Systems and Data & Voice continues to provide businesses and organisations on the Gold Coast with quality video and data distribution solutions that will future-proof their local networks for the ever-changing developments in these technologies.
