Leading visitor experiences company Merlin Entertainments has revealed that it is
making extensive use of Audinate’s Dante audio networking technology at a variety
of its London attractions. These include a number of popular sites on the city’s
South Bank, including the Coca-Cola London Eye, SEA LIFE London Aquarium and
Shrek’s Adventure! London.
The installation at Shrek’s Adventure! London – which opened in July 2015 – is
particularly notable given that it is “one of the “heaviest’ attractions that Merlin has
created in terms of AV,’ says Simon Casey, who is Senior Show Services Manager
at the Coca-Cola London Eye and has also been involved in many other Merlin AV
system projects. For Shrek’s Adventure! London, Dante facilitates audio processing
and playout as part of a set-up that also features Medialon show controllers,
7thSense media servers, BSS DSP, Crown amplifiers and VUE Audiotechnik
loudspeaker systems.
“The 7thSense media servers have all got built-in Dante Virtual Soundcards and are
outputting audio across the attraction site to the Crown amplifiers,’ confirms Casey.
“Dante gives us the flexibility and ease of use that we require to send audio over
large distances and an existing network infrastructure. We can also send audio to
other areas of the site – for example, messages for the ticket hall can be relayed to
those waiting in the ride queue area at the Coca-Cola London Eye.’
In the case of Shrek’s Adventure! London this need for simplicity was even more
acute given the complexity of an installation requiring intensive interaction between
performers and projections, as well as close synchronisation of audio and video. “So
with Dante what we needed was rock-solid reliability – and that’s what we got,’
says Casey.
Meanwhile, at the Coca-Cola London Eye, background audio of various kinds is being
processed via Dante Virtual Soundcards as part of a system that also includes
Focusrite RedNet Ethernet-networked audio interfaces, Symetrix Prism DSPs and
Attero Tech break-out boxes. “We chose to use Dante because of the significant
distances between different areas in which we wanted the same sources to playout;
it simply couldn’t have been done with analogue copper cables. Once again, Dante
has saved us a lot of headaches,’ notes Casey.
Dante audio networking uses standard IP networks to transmit high-quality,
uncompressed audio with near-zero latency. It’s the most flexible, reliable, and
easy-to-manage audio networking solution available, and provides the lowest cost
of ownership by dramatically reducing cabling and labour costs. Dante is the audio
networking choice of nearly all professional audio manufacturers, making it the
industry standard for digital audio networking.
