Bill Fletcher got the call he was hoping for: The job was his, but only if he could meet a less than friendly deadline. The owner of Sound Stage Inc. in Winter Park, Florida had less than a week to prepare his client’s new party space for the biggest party of the year: The Super Bowl.

Big celebrations are obviously important to Fletcher’s client. The family had recently converted their family barn into a multi-purpose “escape” space where they could enjoy everything from “just hanging out” to entertaining large gatherings of family and friends. What was once a barn now housed a living area, a full kitchen, den, and dining space with room for a 20-person table. And that’s not including a second room that doubled as an additional entertainment space and the garage for their RV.

The only thing missing was the entertainment system. And while one would think that installing AV equipment in a barn wouldn’t be any different than in a home, Fletcher and his team were presented with an unusual challenge: The exterior walls of the barn were essentially just a steel shell with no
sheetrock on the inside of the exterior walls, and the owners didn’t want the wiring to be visible.

Fletcher and his team designed and installed an entertainment system that included both video and
distributed audio that would create the family space the client dreamed of.

The homeowner provided an 80” Vizio TV as the main display, as well as a 50” Vizio TV for the
secondary/RV space. Fletcher’s team was tasked with installing a video/home theater system,
incorporating a Bright House cable box, Apple TV, an Xbox console, and a Blu-ray player as sources. To
switch between the different sources, Fletcher chose Atlona’s UHD-CLSO-612 multi-format switcher. The
CLSO-612 offers six inputs, mirrored HDMI and HDBaseT outputs, auto-switching, and Atlona’s EDID
management,

“The CLSO-612 has become our go-to choice as a multi-format switcher. Its EDID management software
ensures that switching between sources is not only fast, but also error-free, so the content always
displays correctly. We’ve also found that setup is about as easy as it gets, and that was vital given our
deadline.”
Complementing the video system is a two-zone Bose audio system, which serves three speakers in the
main entertaining area and two speakers in the secondary/RV space.
To control all of the systems and sources, the team installed a Crestron touch panel. The Crestron
system regulates cable TV, the Blu-ray player, a PC laptop, Apple TV, and also has inputs for iPods and
mp3 players. Fletcher added, “A display in the RV barn mirrors the main display; however, audio can
‘breakaway’ from the video being shown.”

Of course, Fletcher and his team still had to determine how to meet the client’s deadline and
requirements for hiding the wiring. The solution: Run the CAT6 cables on the outside of the building in
conduit. Said Fletcher, “That’s not something we do very often, but in this case it worked to our
advantage by actually speeding up the process and helping us meet the deadline. It ended up working
out perfectly.”

While he has heard from the client that the system has worked flawlessly and they are thrilled with the
results, there was one question Fletcher decided not to ask: Did the team they were rooting for win the
big game? “When your client is happy with your work, why risk injecting anything negative into the
situation.”