Opening its doors in March 2019, the Castaway bar and restaurant has quickly made its mark in Long Beach, New York, both for its menu of new and traditional American fare and the sheer number of displays it packs into 2,500 square feet.

Installed by integrator Paply, the Castaway’s crowd favorite is a 29-foot-long video wall comprised of 12 65-inch Samsung displays. With video distribution provided by Just Add Power’s (J+P) 3G Ultra HD Over IP platform, guests can watch live sports and other content from four DirecTV receivers on the video wall — in addition to music videos from a live DJ on Friday and Saturday nights — in a variety of screen configurations. And with an additional 19 50-inch Samsung displays located throughout the restaurant — playing content from an additional four DirectTV receivers — there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

Music is another important element to Castaway’s atmosphere, whether it’s from a streaming service in the background, the aforementioned DJ, or live musicians playing during weekend happy hours. Audio distribution throughout the restaurant is provided by RTI’s AD-8x, with sources including a Russound XSource streaming audio player and two RTI RSP-1 remote source plates: one located in the DJ booth and the other connected to a Behringer X Air digital mixer used by visiting musicians.

“The Castaway’s owners love their high-tech setup, but during the planning stages of the project, it did raise a big concern for them: the burden it would place on staff to operate it,” said Richard Papp, president of Paply. “So control was a high priority in this installation from the beginning. The owners wanted a powerful system that would automate many aspects of operating the restaurant, while making it simple for staff to switch video and audio sources on the fly using an iPad. To meet these needs, we turned to RTI.”
Castaway’s control system is powered by RTI’s XP-6s control processor and IP drivers for the Samsung displays, DirecTV receivers, AD-8x audio distribution system, J+P transmitters and receivers, and Russound XSource. In addition, RTI’s ZW-9 Z-Wave® interface is being utilized to bring six self-powered JBL speakers — each of which is connected to a GE Z-Wave switch — into the system.

Employees interact with the Castaway’s technology using an iPad running RTI’s RTiPanel. They save valuable time when opening or closing the restaurant by turning on or off all displays, lighting, and more with a single button tap. The iPad’s custom interface also makes it simple for them to send any content to any display, change the configuration of the video wall, and switch between audio sources. And with the XP-6s’ built-in astronomical clock for time-based events, automated scenes free up staff throughout the day. For example, at a certain time every day, the Dinner Scene activates, which automatically adjusts all lighting to a predefined level and reduces the brightness of all TVs.

“We were able to check off every box for this project with RTI,” added Papp. “The staff absolutely love the control system’s simplicity and ease of use. It requires very little training on their part and allows them to spend less time managing the restaurant’s technology and more time servicing its customers. That’s a big win for the owners as well, and they couldn’t be more pleased.”