AVC needed to meet the main objective of supplying up to eight channels of digital audio recording for court hearings across all courtrooms, with full redundancy. These recordings needed to be shared between all interested parties (judges, lawyers, transcription services), with security and usage tracking possibilities, and finally archiving.
Each system in the courtroom is stand-alone. Only the multi-channel recordings are shared over the government-wide broadband network.
BSS Audio provides the hub of the entire network. Since no two courtrooms are the same, and the number of audio I/O varies, AVC needed a reliable device that could handle different signals, be easily adapted for each need, have dynamic processing embedded and prevent unauthorized changes in setup parameters.
"From a maintenance perspective there was only one product to consider and that was Soundweb," said Jani Medic, project manager for AVC. "Besides all these audio processing functions, we were also looking for simple/predefined and limited individual control for the end user, with fully-centralized control and supervision of all devices over the network by AVC technical staff. We found BSS Audio's BLU-100 met all the criteria.
"Not only we can handle combinations of gooseneck mics (between four and eight) with proper processing such as Level Adjustment, Compression and EQ for direct output for multi-channel recording, we can also mix and process the same signals for PA purposes in the same device. In some instances BLU-BOB2 devices have been added to increase the audio distribution capacity."
Additional Harman equipment deployed throughout the courtrooms include over 2,300 AKG gooseneck microphones, 1,500 AKG headphones, 258 dbx AFS 224 Advanced Feedback Suppression processors, 258 Crown XLS amplifiers, and 590 JBL CBT 50LA loudspeakers.
(Jim Evans)
