Rydges Gold Coast Airport Hotel’s LG Pro:Centric Upgrade

Rydges Gold Coast Airport Hotel opened its doors back in late 2020. For specialised AV & data integrator, AusDigi, it was shaping up as a regulation, RF modulated hotel TV job. Until it discovered that none of the coax cable had been laid. Nothing else for it, the hotel would need to adopt IPTV. AusDigi chose the Ikusi Flow IPTV platform combined with an LG Pro:Centric solution.

Fast forward to 2025 and some things have changed and others have stayed the same. The hotel has a new owner, who has relaunched and refurbished the hotel (the only hotel in the Gold Coast Airport precinct). The Ikusi Flow IPTV platform stays; the LG Pro:Centric content management and interactive guest services solutions stays; but the LG hotel TVs go… to be replaced by the latest generation of LG hotel TVs. All installed and integrated by AusDigi.

FIVE YEARS ON

“Things have progressed in the five years since we installed the original LG hotel TVs,” explains AusDigi Chief Engineer, Patrick Corballis. “Casting was still relatively new in the hotel space. Netflix had taken off domestically, but in hospitality it remained uncommon. At the time, it wasn’t unusual to see Chromecast dongles being plugged into TV ports – but that’s no longer compliant, especially under Netflix’s commercial licensing terms. You must have proper PMS-linked check-in and check-out procedures in place to legally provide casting and app-based streaming.”

The hotel’s PMS (property management system) manages daily operations, such as reservations, guest check-ins and check-outs, room assignments, billing, and reporting. You’ve probably had the experience of attempting to log into Netflix (or YouTube, or Stan, or Kayo etc) in a hotel room and finding that the previous guest hadn’t logged out. This is no longer acceptable. Hotels need to be provide the capability whereby the PMS automatically logs the TV out of all those streaming services when the guest checks out. In other words, PMS integration is crucial.

PMS: IT’S PERSONAL

Patrick Corballis: “PMS integration was a key feature – not just for personalisation (like displaying the guest’s name on-screen) but also to enable secure casting and in-room Netflix access via LG’s SoftAP solution. With the infrastructure already in place and a robust IT backbone, we knew we were well-positioned.

“We work with a variety of hotel TV systems, but LG’s Pro:Centric is the standout for us. One major reason is the quality of the Google casting experience. It doesn’t mislead the guest with app icons on screen unless they actually have those services. It simply allows guests to cast from whatever apps they have on their own devices, whether that’s Netflix, Stan, Kayo, Foxtel Go, and so on.

“Some other systems will show app icons on the screen, even when the hotel guest doesn’t have access to those services. It might look good, but it leads to disappointment when they realise they can’t use those apps without an account. Pro:Centric avoids all of that.”

BEYOND CASTING

LG’s Pro:Centric hotel solution is more than the bridge between the hotel TVs and the PMS. It allows hotel management to display welcome messages, send personalised notifications (like letting someone know their lost keys are at the front desk), and set in-room wake-up calls. It can also be used to promote hotel amenities, such as the gym, the function rooms or specials at the restaurant/bar.

Patrick Corballis: “Rydges Gold Coast Airport is still in the early stages of its Pro:Centric journey. We started by designing a clean GUI and a few core screens, and are now expanding with integrations, such as Nightlife Music Video for in-room entertainment and in the gym, as well as live flight arrival and departure feeds – vital for an airport hotel.”

And it’s all the ‘tip of the iceberg’, according to Patrick Corballis. He can see revenue-generating possibilities as well:

“The system is capable of creating a new revenue stream. We can help hotels build reels showcasing local experiences, such as hot air ballooning, helicopter tours, winery visits, etc. That becomes an opportunity for advertising partnerships or referral-based income. It’s about adding value to the guest experience and monetising the platform.”

Chris Wilson, Head of Information Displays at LG, agrees: “LG’s Pro:Centric Hotel TV offering gets more and more sophisticated each year. The ability to personalise a patron’s experience and offer contextual content useful to their stay, is transforming the in-room TV into the main touchpoint – the importance of the hotel TV will only increase.”

ZERO FAILURES

AusDigi supports thousands of networked displays across the country – not all of them LG displays – and is well placed to have an opinion around reliability and service standards.

Patrick Corballis: “We’ve had zero failures with LG since the original install six years ago. Not 0.1%… zero. We support thousands of screens across Australia, and we see failure rates across all brands. But not with LG.

“I’ve personally visited the LG manufacturing facilities in South Korea. What impressed me most was its product testing. They randomly pull 100 screens from a production run and subject them to extreme heat, freezing cold, sand and dust chambers, and then drop them from 10 feet inside their packaging to test durability. If even four fail, they pull the entire production batch.

“In the commercial AV world, a return-to-site callout is the most expensive kind of failure. That LG build quality gives us the confidence we need. Plus, its warranty and service response is second to none – if something does go wrong, we get same-day or next-day support. That level of reliability is gold.”

RATED COMMERCIAL

With zero failure rate, ‘what happened to the previous LG displays from the hotel?’ you might ask.

Patrick Corballis: “In this particular deployment, we replaced the existing LG Pro:Centric TVs, which were five or six years old. They were still going strong – another testament to LG’s durability. In fact, we only replaced a handful over that time, and all due to damage rather than technical failure. There were zero warranty claims.

“The old screens have been repurposed for secondary use by the owners, and we’ve installed LG’s latest UM662H displays. These 4K displays are purpose-built for the hotel market – IPTV-ready out of the box, fully compatible with RF if needed, and natively Pro:Centric-enabled.

“These models directly support satellite signals using smart cards and CAM modules, so if, for instance, you wanted to provide direct French or German satellite TV, you could do that without additional hardware.

“There are also important hotel-specific features like the ability to lock down the settings menu. In venues using domestic TVs, guests can often bypass settings with a quick Google search. That’s a security risk. With these LG hotel TVs, we can lock them down entirely – critical in commercial environments.

“Finally, they’re commercially rated. Domestic TVs are typically only designed for six to eight hours of continuous use per day. These are rated for 16 hours daily over three years, with an optional warranty extension to five years. For us, the warranty means peace of mind and reduced service callouts.”

BUILT-IN CASTING

And Google Casting comes as standard, straight out of the box?

Patrick Corballis: “Absolutely. Google Casting is built in and compliant with commercial licensing standards – particularly Netflix’s requirements. This is critical. You can’t just plug in a Chromecast dongle and call it a hotel solution. Netflix has strict guidelines for commercial use – you must have check-in/check-out integration, a licensing key, and you must display approved messaging and branding.

“LG’s Pro:Centric handles all of that. It’s a licensed solution with Netflix, which protects both the integrator and the venue from breaching agreements. We don’t support any non-compliant setups.”

The casting process is straightforward. When the guest selects the Google Casting icon on their in-room screen, they’re presented with a QR code. They simply scan it using their device, which connects them to the TV via a SoftAP – essentially a temporary, direct Wi-Fi connection initiated by the TV itself. From there, the guest just opens their app – Netflix, Stan, Kayo, whatever they use—and hits cast, just like they would at home.

Patrick Corballis: “This direct pairing method is more secure than relying on shared hotel Wi-Fi. The QR code acts as a key, and each TV has a unique ID – typically the room number – so there’s no risk of casting to the wrong screen, like the room next door. It’s simple, secure, and familiar to anyone who’s cast content at home.”

BUILT-IN CASTING

And casting comes as standard, straight out of the box?

Patrick Corballis: “Absolutely. Casting is built in and compliant with commercial licensing standards – particularly Netflix’s requirements. This is critical. You can’t just plug in a Chromecast dongle and call it a hotel solution. Netflix has strict guidelines for commercial use – you must have check-in/check-out integration, a licensing key, and you must display approved messaging and branding.

“LG’s Pro:Centric handles all of that. It’s a licensed solution with Netflix, which protects both the integrator and the venue from breaching agreements. We don’t support any non-compliant setups.”

The casting process is straightforward. When the guest selects the casting icon on their in-room screen, they’re presented with a QR code. They simply scan it using their device, which connects them to the TV via a SoftAP – essentially a temporary, direct Wi-Fi connection initiated by the TV itself. From there, the guest just opens their app—Netflix, Stan, Kayo, whatever they use—and hits cast, just like they would at home.

Patrick Corballis: “This direct pairing method is more secure than relying on shared hotel Wi-Fi. The QR code acts as a key, and each TV has a unique ID – typically the room number – so there’s no risk of casting to the wrong screen, like the room next door. It’s simple, secure, and familiar to anyone who’s cast content at home.”