Overture by Barco
Enterprise Class A/V Control
Reduce complexity and cost with software based A/V Control
The convergence of A/V and IT is no longer just a talking point
It is a reality for many IT departments. Conventional solutions for controlling audiovisual devices are overwhelmingly hardware based, distributed, and use proprietary programming languages. In stark contrast, Overture is a solution designed by A/V veterans for the IT department.
From Houston to Hong Kong Your System Works the Same
Overture is an effective enterprise-wide A/V control software. It controls, monitors, and automates thousands of A/V devices in multiple locations, integrates with IT services, and delivers visually stunning, highly interactive user interfaces.
Get Rid of the Unnecessary
Today’s A/V control solutions rely on proprietary hardware controllers that are expensive to install and maintain, remain powered on 24 hours a day, and are multiple potential points of failure.
Overture software is designed to run in a fully redundant virtualized environment, providing high availability, fault tolerance, and negligible energy impact.
The Control System Sets Up the Room Not You
As a centralized solution, Overture interfaces with Microsoft Exchange for room booking integration. Users book their meetings as they always have using Outlook or a third-party room booking application.
Overture reads the room booking information from the Exchange server and automatically sets up rooms prior to scheduled meetings, turning on only the equipment that will be used for the meeting.
Overture can also tie in with the Building Management System to monitor occupancy sensors, detecting that a meeting has ended and the room is vacant (or that the meeting never occurred) and automatically shut down power-hungry equipment.
It’s All About User Experience
Overture generates all control interfaces almost automatically by simple database configuration, providing consistency in the graphical design, minimizing system programming, and easing deployment of multiple language versions of the same interfaces.
Focus on Communicating not Technology
Overture centralizes all A/V control in one company-wide system and provides interfaces for remote help desks to assist users, which can be located anywhere in the world.
In addition, Overture collects information about equipment usage company-wide and can send alerts to technical staff when equipment has an error or needs to be serviced.
AV & IT Can Play Well Together
Overture offers an easy to learn, graphical programming interface and uses standard IT technologies, which allow IT operators to deploy and maintain the system without needing to bring in outside specialized programmers.
Any device that has a web browser can be used as a control interface, including smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
Security is a Serious Matter
Overture includes user access management with different levels of control granted to different groups of users.
Overture’s credential management can interface directly with Microsoft Active Directory so IT managers can control what users have access to what types of control and users don’t have to remember yet another password, taking advantage of Microsoft single sign-on.
Communication between Overture and connected web browsers is encrypted with HTTPS, eliminating the possibility of man-in-the-middle attacks.
Saving Energy Should Not Cost a Fortune
Overture interfaces with your building management system to turn off A/V equipment in empty rooms and can send instructions to the Building Management System to adjust air conditioning and lighting.
Communication with BMS uses common industrial protocols such as BACNet.
Functionalities
Overture is an effective enterprise-wide A/V control software. It controls, monitors, and automates thousands of A/V devices in multiple locations, integrates with IT services, and delivers visually stunning, highly interactive user interfaces.
It is an open database-driven software for fast and powerful integration with your existing control and management infrastructure. Use information from the room booking system to prepare your meeting rooms. Log system and user activity and interface with your SNMP monitoring software. Send alerts to maintenance staff about device failures and set up an A/V help desk anywhere in the world to remotely control your equipment.
Overture fits the needs of today’s IT and A/V departments and their demanding end users, who require easy-to-use interfaces from a wide range of portable devices.
Control Overture Magic Menus
Overture serves user interfaces as web pages, which means any tablet, smartphone or PC can be used as a control surface. The pages are responsive and automatically adjust to fit the size of the screen on the device. In-room user interfaces are automatically generated from data in Overture’s infrastructure database, which describes the equipment in each room. Room control interfaces can be multilingual, and function identically in all languages.
Monitor Overture Help Desk
Overture collects real time device status information in one system, which means the data can be displayed in dashboard widgets such as charts, graphs, and lists. Alarms can be raised whenever there is an equipment error, a device needs to be serviced, or a value is outside of its normal range. This is particularly handy for tracking projector lamp hour usage or to know when the air conditioner isn’t working in the boardroom!
The help desk’s map interface shows monitored data in real time, and the data flags can change color if a value is in an abnormal state. The Help Desk interface also includes a dashboard where users can display data from devices system-wide, making it easy to keep an eye on system status and use. Clicking on a data flag shows real time data about devices or room status. Devices can be controlled or in-room user interfaces can be accessed to assist users who call for help.
Since the data is all being collected in one system, Overture can be used to determine how much each device or room is being used. If the meeting rooms on the second floor are constantly booked, but the meeting rooms on the fifth floor are often empty, usage statistics will reveal this trend. Devices can be serviced according to their actual use, not just a calendar.
Security
Access control is a real concern for all corporations, and the AV system should be no different. Overture uses existing access control mechanisms such as Microsoft ActiveDirectory and LDAP for user login credentials and access roles management. Every user is given just the access they are entitled to, based on their credentials, no matter what device they use to access the system.
Automation
A centralized control system includes the added benefit of automation such as automatic power on/power off based on a fixed schedule, room booking information from Microsoft Exchange, in-room occupancy sensors, or a combination of these.
Rooms can configure themselves, setting the air conditioning, powering on the display, and setting up the audio routing automatically before a scheduled videoconference. When the meeting is over, the AV equipment and room can be turned off or put into a power saving mode.
Automation saves energy by turning off devices when they are not being used, which also improves the useful life of the equipment!
Overture Architecture, Overture is made of two main software components:
- Control Server, which controls devices, and
- User Experience Server, which generates and serves all the user interfaces (Help Desk, Smartphone, In-Room GUI).
A User Experience Server can be connected to one or several Control Servers, depending on the architecture required or the size of the project.
A large venue may use one User Experience Server with one Control Server to manage all devices in the same building, while a corporation may use one User Experience Server at its headquarters, connected to 20 Control Servers—one in each branch or country—to centrally manage and control all its AV devices worldwide.
