Case Study: AREC + Televic, the formula for every successful council

Dear ADENA Partners, in this case study, we review how Rochford Council in the UK successfully uses the AREC DS-4CU together with the Televic Confidea discussion system. Thanks to the efforts of our distributor, Tukans, and system integrator, Nuway, Rochford Council now embodies its “Simpler, clearer, faster” slogan in every council meeting, increasing transparency and improving public outreach. Learn more about how the systems work below and watch the system in action on the Council’s YouTube channel.

Rochford Council is a governmental institution responsible for district services and providing information for the Rochford district. This includes plans for local economic development, tourism, housing, jobs, and many other matters. The council’s workload necessitates frequent meetings and debates, which, until recently, were streamed with a single camera. 

While the streams did make the meetings publicly visible, they only conveyed the bare minimum. Important parts of the proceedings, such as computer-shared content and diagrams, could not be displayed, and it was not possible to focus on active speakers without manual control of the camera. Consequently, the council decided to look for a way to improve its streaming setup, and thanks to the efforts of our distributor, Tukans, and system integrator, Nuway, found that the AREC DS-4CU was exactly what they needed.

DS-4CU Speaker Tracking Station

The DS-4CU is a speaker-tracking station that supports up to four video sources connected by HDMI, VGA, or network. It is integrated with a variety of popular discussion systems on the market, including Audio-Technica, Shure, Bosch, Televic, and others. The station can select a customisable layout with multiple video sources, switch overlays and backgrounds, and control PTZ movement of each connected camera uniquely for every speaker in a fully automatic mode. The combination of these features allows Rochford Council to clearly display the current speaker, switch to opposite cameras to display councillors on the other side of the chambers, and show various computer content as part of the livestream. 

Televic Confidea

Our station is used together with the Televic Confidea, a bespoke and robust discussion system for councils. It ensures that every speaker is clearly heard and comes with a multitude of features tailored to council meetings, such as voting, RFID authentication, and more, which Rochford Council uses in every meeting.

The council has joined the long list of successful meeting transformation projects accomplished with AREC, and you can see the results on its YouTube channel. Is your council also looking for a solution to improve recording, streaming, and conferencing processes? Reach out to us at www.a-dena.com, and we will be happy to arrange a discussion to show why AREC is the right solution.

Case Study: AREC KL-3T Helps to Create an Oasis of Transparency in Manchester Council

Dear ADENA Partners, this time we focus on Trafford Council in the UK and how it uses AREC products to ensure transparency and access to livestreams for local residents. The project, completed with our distributor Tukans and system integrator GVAV, demonstrates how AREC KL-3T stations make it simple for governmental institutions to reach all of their constituents day after day.

Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council is the local authority of Trafford Borough in Greater Manchester. It is an organisation responsible for a variety of administrative processes in Trafford, such as setting the levels of council taxes, monitoring the health service, education, social care, and more. The council performs these duties through meetings, which must be recorded and streamed for transparency. 

However, the original system in place for this was not performing as well as the council had hoped, as it was not easy to initiate and monitor the recording and livestream processes. The council started looking for solutions that could improve these and other aspects of meeting production, and our distributor Tukans, along with the system integrator GVAV, offered a complete solution that fully satisfied the council's needs.

The proposed solution was based on the AREC KL-3T Media Stations. These devices can combine up to 3 video sources with audio inputs into a single channel for recording and streaming. The stations also record these video sources separately at the same time, creating material for post-editing and independent viewing. The mixed video created by the Media Station can feature custom overlays and backgrounds, including logos of the organisations, titles of the speakers, advertisements, or other information. 

KL-3T Media Station

The KL-3T model is a particularly good fit for councils, as it features an inbuilt interactive display that shows what the device is recording and streaming at all times. It also comes with a GUI that can be used to control all key features of the device with a single touch. This means that anyone, even without an IT or AV background, can record and livestream without any other hardware or software, thereby helping to save the budget.. Moreover, thanks to the inbuilt control and preview display, the stations are very portable and can be moved to different council rooms as needed.

The council uses Angekis PTZ cameras to capture the speakers from different angles. These cameras are automatically displaying the active speaker thanks to the Televic Confero CAM solution, which is connected to the station and generates names and titles of those speakers. The Televic Confidea G4 Discussion System is used to capture audio, with its central unit connected to the Media Station as an audio input.

The solution created for the Trafford Council simplified the production of council recordings to the point of automation — exactly what the council wanted! It is used to great success to ensure public access to all council’s meetings, which can be watched live on the Trafford Council YouTube channel. Alternatively, take a look at the stream from the council’s chambers - one of the locations where Trafford Council is using AREC devices.

Is your local council providing the same level of transparency? Reach out to us at www.a-dena.com and let’s discuss how we can improve their setup with the AREC Media Capture System.

Case Study: AREC Tracking Speakers for Costa-Rica’s Governmental Meetings

Dear ADENA Partners, our new case study from Costa Rica is about the construction and equipping of a ‘Türkiye Room’ in ICAP, a public administration institute. Designed by our partner in Costa Rica, Interactiva, the room features various AREC, RADA, and other brands’ conferencing solutions. Together, these solutions have significantly improved the organisation’s video conferencing meeting experience. 

The Central American Institute of Public Administration (ICAP) is an organisation within the Central American Integration System (SICA), an economic and political union of Central American states. ICAP’s function is to modernise the public sector and develop human resources, thus increasing the integration between SICA member countries. ICAP does this by holding meetings with partners from all over the world through video conferencing and in-person meetings.

Effective conferencing necessitates the usage of quality AV products. Knowing that, ICAP got an opportunity to upgrade their existing conferencing venue with the help of one of their partners, the Turkish Agency for Cooperation and Coordination, otherwise known as TIKA. The two organisations envisaged for this updated venue to have the latest technology in AV conferencing. It was decided that the room needed to host 40 participants, featured a way to quickly display active speakers, and could output multiple cameras simultaneously into conferencing apps like Teams, Zoom, and others. Our partner Interactiva offered a solution based on the AREC DS-4CU Speaker Tracking Station, CI-21H PTZ Camera, and CI-T10 IR Tracking Camera, as well as the RADA A-BR01 HDMI to USB Bridge.

The DS-4CU is a device that allows users to connect up to 4 video sources, such as network and regular cameras, network streams, computers, and others. These sources can be mixed and displayed in customisable layouts with user-uploaded overlay and background graphics. It is set apart from other devices by its unique feature — tracking integration of discussion systems from brands like Televic, Shure, Bosch, Audio-Technica, and others. This allows the station to automatically change how it displays the video sources according to the active microphone on supported systems from these brands. 

Importantly, this switching can also be done manually, even if you do not have a compatible discussion system. This is precisely the case with ICAP, where custom presets are set up for every chair. The operator switches both the video and PTZ presets through the station’s graphical user interface by tapping on seat numbers. ICAP uses CI-21H PTZ network camera to capture each of the possible 40 participants, and a CI-T10 IR Tracking Camera to ensure that the main presenter has freedom of movement. Additionally, a computer with slides is connected as another source to the DS-4CU, and the mixed output of the station is converted into USB by an A-BR01 RADA Bridge. This allows ICAP to join conferencing calls and display their whole room with computer content, active speakers from the audience, and the main presenter all at the same time.

With the AREC system in place, ICAP’s conferencing calls can now effectively display every active participant for the remote side. Interested in learning more about this or other solutions you can build with AREC? Let us know at www.a-dena.com, and we will arrange a demonstration for you.