NSW rural fire service builds big digital wall

NSW’s Rural Fire Service has taken the wraps off what it claims is the largest digital video wall in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Conducted in partnership with NEC Australia and design company Eo Design, the seven-week long project took three weeks to install at a cost of $800,000 and involved the creation of an audio visual information hub to assist firefighting and emergency response in New South Wales. 

NEC won the deal out from fellow bidders Electroboard and CAV in a competitive tender process. RFS spokesperson Ben Shepherd said the decision came down to the resolution and brightness of NEC’s screens.

“We needed something that would suit our needs now and in the future. We were quite specific in that we didn’t want to encroach too much on the room,” Shepherd said. “The screen was one aspect, and we also wanted a solution that would allow us the control and flexibility to put whatever we wanted to on the screen, to change the sizing and where it sat.”

The digital video wall is supported by 14 computer systems, 4 dedicated servers and 32 digital video inputs including Digital Television, Sky News and a helicopter mounted camera system, enabling the RFS to access and share incident information, and monitor weather data and bushfire movement in real time.

It includes 100 NEC 46 Inch LCD energy saving screens and is driven by a custom PixelNet digital networked modular video matrix solution, AMX control system and Tannoy digitally steerable line array loudspeakers.

The solution replaces a “slow” and “restrictive” system previously involving the use of a projector stack. Shepherd said the RFS was limited at any one time to eight single images, and it was keen to avoid using projectors again.

“We had the potential to run into the same issues. Because we are a very open plan building we also looked at rear projection, but again came back to the real estate within the room: we didn’t want to encroach on the space,” he said. “That settled us on going for the LED or LCD. We didn’t want to look at a plasma wall, we wanted the flexibility of having long term frozen images and information, so when you do throw up maps of fire or the grounds, you’re not losing the detail.”

The new audio visual information centre will work in with the Fire Service’s other tools in social and traditional media to assist the organisation and communication of firefighting operations, as well as monitoring media coverage during fire response times to determine what public information the RFS needs to further provide.

The NSW Rural Fire Service numbers over 2,100 volunteer rural fire brigades with a total membership of just over 70,000, across more than 1200 towns and villages in NSW.