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.

Case Study: Rocking with AREC - Recording Drumming Sessions

Dear ADENA Partners, this time we would like to share a rental case study. Using our complete Media Capture System, drummers like Lieh Lin are able to record their sessions and use them for self-training, discussion, and other purposes.

Before he started using AREC, Lieh wasn’t able to properly record his drumming sessions. Preparation could take more than half an hour every time, and post-editing required on every video much longer. That was because of several reasons - for example, video coming from different cameras was not premixed into layouts, and the audio mixer was recorded separately and needed to be mixed with video feeds. It is thus understandable why Lieh was not keen on recording every time. Nonetheless, reviewing recordings is an extremely important and useful learning method, and thus Lieh looked for options to streamline his production.

Fortunately for him, all of his problems were easily solved by AREC. Using a KL-3T Media Station, Lieh mixed two PTZ network cameras CI-T10 and A-TC02 OnyxCam with musical notes from his computer. The Media Station made sure that audio and video were recorded simultaneously, mixed, and matched in every original video source as well, significantly reducing the drummer’s post-editing workload. The station proved convenient for the drummer for other reasons too - it gave him plenty of customisable layout options to arrange his cameras and notes in the video, add his name and title of the song, and control it all through mobile phone, inbuilt touchscreen, and web interface. You can see some of the warmups he did in the two videos below.

Are you also looking for a way to simplify your media creation process? Consult with us at www.a-dena.com and we will be happy to help you.

ADENA Hack: How to choose between AREC IR tracking cameras?

There are two AREC IR tracking cameras in the current product line - CI-T10 and CI-T21H. Both cameras rely on the same IR positioners AM-600 and AM-360 to follow the target, and have the same tracking range, so what makes them different from each other?

If we look specifically at their technical differences, then these are the main ones:

	CI-T10	​CI-T21H
Maximum FPS	30	60
I/O	Network, USB 2.0	Network, HDMI, USB 3.0
Working Modes	Either Network or USB, one at a time	Network, HDMI and USB, simultaneously

These technical differences are also reflected in price - CI-T10 is more suitable for entry-level and budget installations as opposed to the more advanced CI-T21H. Nevertheless, both cameras offer spectacular image quality and depth of image configuration.

If you would like to see and evaluate them yourself, don’t hesitate to request a personal demonstration via our website here, and we will arrange it when it is convenient for you.