Tulalip Resort Casino secures its digital future with a move
to AV over IP

Background

Opened in 2004, the Tulalip Resort Casino is the largest of its kind in Washington state. Operated by the local Tulalip Tribes, it houses a 192,000 sqft (17,837 sqm) casino, seven restaurants, extensive meeting facilities, an amphitheater, and an impressive award-winning 12-story hotel with 370 rooms and suites.

Goals

Digital signage is prominent throughout the Tulalip Resort Casino, with monitors used to direct guests to events, display sports broadcasts, and keep casino players informed of the latest promotions.

Tulalip has been steadily feeding a growing network of monitors using a cloud-based Kramer Control system. Built with drag-and-drop functionality, remote-control capabilities, and built-in system analytics, Kramer Control has made life easy for Aaron Jackson, who leads AV technical and integration support for Tulalip.

 “Setup is straightforward with Kramer Control,” says Aaron, an AV pro with extensive programming experience. “That’s why we gravitated towards this system. Kramer has the ‘full-stack’ more than anyone else on the market, especially when it comes to the drivers being pre-written for Kramer Control. The Tulalip’s in-house IT staff also find Kramer Control simple to use. It’s easy to scale up when needed.”

However, the current level of digital signage at this dynamic casino is beyond what many hardwired, switched matrix AV systems can easily handle. As such, the AV signals needed to be moved over to IP.

The Solution

To move AV signals over IP, approximately 60 Kramer KDS-EN6 video encoders were installed inside Tulalip’s network operations center. These send signals to hundreds of Kramer KDS-DEC6  decoders that are connected to monitors throughout the casino.

This vastly increases the scalability, capacity, and flexibility of Tulalip’s digital signage network, both in terms of the number of playout channels being supported at any one time, and in terms of the groupings of monitors to which these signals can be sent.

Even though the casino’s network capacity is 10 Gbps, the Kramer KDS-EN6 / KDS-DEC6 AV over IP distribution system is capable of supporting 4K60 4:2:0 (10.2 Gbps), ensuring that its digital signage system remains futureproof and won’t become overloaded.

What’s more, using Kramer Control and Kramer Network – a software-based AV over IP enterprise management solution – IT teams are provided with extensive levels of device monitoring and management, including flexible AV signal distribution, room automation, and video wall management. All functions can be performed remotely using a secure, password-protected web portal 24/7.

Value

Moving to an AVoIP signal delivery system has given the Tulalip Resort Casino the leeway it needs to add extra monitors, expand its range of playout channels, and migrate to 4K content when the time seems right. The strategy adds value now and in the long term.

This is a level of flexibility that just wasn’t possible with Tulalip’s former hardwired, matrix-based AV distribution system.

“The fact that the Kramer encoders and decoders are 4K gives us some room to grow, especially since there isn’t much 4K content available today,” Aaron explains. “Right now, the cameras within the Tulalip are HD, as is most of the playout content, including a marketing video loop that runs when the digital signs are not showing dedicated content. But times are changing and 4K is coming. Meanwhile, the fact that this is an AVoIP system means our IT staff can easily change up the playout order and switch in new content as they see fit.”

Having worked closely on the project with the customer, Chris Kopin, Executive Vice President of Technology at Kramer, adds: “When the Tulalip Resort Casino wanted to extend digital signage throughout its property, Kramer AV over IP was the only realistic solution. Today, the Tulalip has a high-performance AVoIP network that meets all of its digital signage needs-and then some.”