Nina and I were assigned to the Hale Ohana Luau to take tickets at the Polynesian Cultural Center this evening. That meant arriving at about 4:15pm and being there until 6:20pm when we could then go over to the Prime Dining venue to have a free dinner.
I’ve been experimenting a bit with Periscope, a new video broadcasting offering from Twitter. Periscope is only available for IOS devices (iPhone or iPad) at the moment, but Android versions are said to be available Real Soon Now. One feature of Periscope is that I can save the video to my photo library and then later upload it to YouTube. So, I took a short Periscope video tonight and this is the result:
I’ll probably do more of this in the future. It’s an easy way to keep a video record of things as well as put it on my blog. I’ve got to get a lot better at it, though. Periscope only takes video in the portrait mode. It also doesn’t have any anti-shake capability, so the video can get quite shaky. But, ease of use trumps a lot of other things on the wish list!
We’ll be taking tickets again next week on Saturday at the Prime Dining venue. We then won’t be assigned until June.
The place where I took my Macbook for repair called this evening. The keyboard has to be replaced, otherwise all is well with the computer. Further, (a very tender mercy) the repair will be covered under the warranty. When I bought the computer in 2012 I purchased AppleCare which extended the normal warranty for an additional year. The part has to be ordered which will take 3-4 business days and then one day to repair. I’ll be very happy to have the machine back again. Now I just have to keep it away from my glass of milk with my breakfast….
A couple of people at the Visitors’ Center in the past week have asked about the technology that we’re using. It isn’t anything spectacular, actually, but it works generally well. Right now two systems are down and we’re waiting for parts to be shipped from Salt Lake City. That’s the only downside.
We have two theaters. One seats about 130 people and the other seats about 90 people. There’s a media server for each theater which is driven by a Shuttle PC with a redundant disk system holding the media. The input device is a touch screen monitor on the wall with the high definition video projector as the second monitor. We have more than a hundred videos available ranging from 2 minutes long to feature length movies such as “Meet the Mormons”.
The larger theater also has another Dell computer attached to the Internet where we can play videos from the various LDS Church websites such as LDS.org and mormon.org. We also use this setup to get training from Salt Lake City using Skype.
There are seven other Shuttle PC’s set up with a touchscreen monitor and a second HD monitor with a small selection of videos topical to that display. For instance, one is about temples and has videos as well as a couple of interactive games. Another has vignettes from the Book of Mormon. Others have a selection of Mormon ads, questions and answers for adults and for children, and selections from speeches. There is a corner for family history, again with a touch screen monitor and a video screen for watching videos about family history and genealogy (this touch screen is broken at the moment). There is also a Dell PC connected to the Church’s Family Tree website for people to do some basic family history research.
There is a Shuttle PC and touchscreen monitor for the Christus statue in the front area of the Center. This media server has all of the background music that plays in the Center during the day as well as the “Words of Christ” in fifteen languages that the missionaries can select and play for visitors. These “Words of Christ” are taken from the King James Version of the Bible and are quotations from Jesus Christ in the Bible, such as “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34)” and “If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15),” and several more.
Another area in the Center is called Prophets Corner. Another Shuttle PC, touch screen monitor and HD display unit has biographical information on the members of the Church’s First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.
The most complex system is in the area called “God’s Plan for Families”. This is a multimedia presentation where the small audience (ten to twelve people maximum) move from room to room where a story is told about birth, growing up, marrying, raising a family, and dying, a very moving recount of the Lord’s Plan of Salvation. There are seven parts to this system, each with it’s own high definition TV monitor and setup. The presentation takes about fifteen minutes and is a very popular part of the Center.
In the back room is a camera and surveillance system, also driven by a Shuttle PC that records and archives the video from the nine video cameras inside the Center, out in the courtyard, and in the parking lot. Occasionally people will rifle through unlocked cars in the parking lot stealing anything that might have some value. The county police use the video system to try and figure out who the perpetrators are (usually unsuccessfully). Hawaii is a good place to be homeless and live on the beach (some of the beaches down around Waikiki and Honolulu have lockers set up on the beach for the beach bums to use) and these folks need to get drug and food money somehow….
All of this technology is based around Shuttle PC media servers, touch screen monitors, video screens or projectors, and Dell PC’s. All of the systems are networked into Salt Lake City. Every evening control systems in Salt Lake update the media, reboot and archive the information, and run diagnostics.
Sometime later this year the Center’s technology is scheduled to be upgraded to Windows Server technology where dual redundant servers will drive all of the systems and all of the individual Shuttle PC’s will be removed. Many of the VGA systems will then be upgraded to HD displays along with a lot of new media. That will be a welcome upgrade.
About the same time we’re supposed to get an upgraded Book of Mormon display which will include a lot of additional technology (it’d be nice if it included the ability to plug in your smart phone and download the Book of Mormon! … but I don’t think it does, yet).
It’s been a nice day, long and tiring, but nice. A couple came into the Center this morning who have been called to go to the Kirtland Ohio Visitors’ Center in the Fall for a year. They had lots of questions and it was fun to show them around and answer as many questions as we could. It was quite reminiscent of last October when we were in Kirtland visiting Nina’s sister Pamela. We went down to the Kirtland Visitors’ Center and had lots of questions for the senior missionaries working there. What goes around comes around!
Life is pleasant.