In a city of wall-to-wall casinos with “sports books” equipped with rows of TV monitors and betting tote boards, the Sporting House had to offer something spectacular. It installed 14 DirectTV receivers and a Cable modem for Internet access in order to offer its customers a selection of 15 sporting events displayed on Plasma screens throughout the establishment.
Providing video without audio was not viewed as being enough incentive to draw customers away from the lavish casinos. The Sporting House elected to offer handheld wireless speakers with remote controls that can select and play the audio for any of the 15 channels being played on the HDTVs. Sporting House patrons can each hear the play calling and analysis for their favorite game from their table or at the bar. This is something unique that casinos do not offer.
This may sound complicated and expensive. It’s not. By using SmartAVI one person can monitor and manage the entire system from one personal computer. Installation is simple. Inexpensive standard CAT-5 cable can deliver audio and video to HDTVs up to 1,000 feet away. The SmartAVI system is plugged into the restaurant’s Windows computer and the HDTVs are connected to the SmartAVI unit with CAT-5 cables. On the computer screen, the operator can see what channel is playing on each HDTV and can switch any TV to any channel with the click of a mouse.
The Sporting House was impressed by SmartAVI’s large capacity and simplicity as Mike Brown-Cestero, Managing Director of AVL Nevada, a partner in The Sporting House project stated, “…SmartAVI’
