ONBOARD Magazine summer 2021

Entertainment
Central
ONBOARD chats with Jürgen Schepers, Technical
Sales Manager at Home & Marine about the
changing face of technology and the future of AV
and IT system integration onboard superyachts
Where do you
currently see the
biggest changes in
AV technology?
Surely the shift
to network-based
systems is the
biggest change. All
system backbones
are based on a network architecture today.
Every engineer needs a good understanding
of network topologies and that is where
we put a lot of effort into training. Also,
connectivity becomes more and more
important onboard yachts. Owners and
guests expect the same connection quality
and network speeds as they experience at
home or in their office. Going along with
that, we see a shift from onboard sources
to streaming content. Movie libraries such
as Kaleidescape are still a valid, reliable
source for entertainment, but the demand
for access to services like Netflix or Spotify
is increasing. Connectivity and network
performance will also become increasingly
important with the rise of the first 8k
content, that will probably be available via
gaming consoles or streaming services.
How does Home & Marine deal with these
changes in current refit requests?
For entertainment, a lot of boats are now
changing their Full-HD video systems and
analog audio distributions to fully networked
solutions. We usually base our entertainment
infrastructure on a Crestron NVX video
distribution and a DANTE audio distribution
based on the NextGenTec SDM (software
defined matrix). Our network is mostly an
enterprise-grade Cisco network, that is
designed in a non-blocking architecture, so
all uplinks have enough capacity to pass
through the streams. If possible, we survey
the boats in advance to make sure there are
no factors such as cabling that impact the
performance. Any existing documentation
can help to determine and eliminate possible
risks as early as possible.
We understand that these upgrades can
mean a huge change in the systems for
a lot of crews, and we help the crew to
understand the impact but also the benefits
– and they are huge! Instead of having long
signal chains, we create Point-to-Point IPbased
connections that are much faster,
reliable and of a higher quality. The owner
will instantly recognise the improvement
after the refit.
For communication systems, we try to
work a mix of options consisting out
of Shoreconnection-Box, WiFi Bridge,
Fleetbroadband, 4G/5G and VSAT for the
Owner. We ensure a sufficient amount is
available at all times.
The production facility features
a dedicated area to test and
commission event systems
We are also offering Wifi and GSM surveys
that help us identify the weak spots of
coverage onboard. Based on the resulting
heatmaps, we can make recommendations
to the crew about how to increase the
performance.
Watching a movie outside under the stars is a
wonderful experience. What is your approach
on outdoor cinemas?
Two key factors for the video part are the
brightness of the projector and the position
of the screen, since it determines the impact
of the wind. A flattering movie screen and
a low-contrast picture are worst cases if
you want to enjoy the latest blockbuster. An
integrated screen and projector are always
preferable to keep set-up and calibration
times to a bare minimum, but we also
worked out various mobile options. In terms
of audio, we also determine if it is possible
to integrate speakers in the structure.
If that is not the case, we will foresee
86 | SUMMER 2021 | ONBOARD