Case Study: Enhancing Transparency — Kirkkonummi Municipality Chooses AREC Systems

Dear ADENA Partners, in this case study we are looking at a municipality in Finland that has started using AREC systems to stream council meetings. This project was carried out by our partner F-Musiikki and system integrator ATEA, who helped the institution choose the LS-400 Media Station for all their media needs.

The Kirkkonummi municipality is committed to being open and meeting the needs of its residents in all its communications. They manage various social media accounts and regularly share updates, news, and events on their website. To make information more accessible, the municipality decided to improve their live streaming capabilities by using professional AV equipment that can be automated, making the production process simpler and cost-effective.

For this purpose, the municipality chose the AREC LS-400 Media Station. This model can handle up to 4 video sources at the same time. Users can connect computers, network and conference cameras, document cameras, phones, and more to it. The station can arrange these devices into preconfigured and custom video layouts for recording and streaming. These video layouts can also be enhanced with custom logos and backgrounds to make the videos more visually appealing or to display important information. The station can simultaneously record a video layout and individual video sources, additionally providing the institution with materials for post-editing. Lastly, the station has the capability to display a particular video source on a local display or projector while simultaneously recording and streaming a different video layout.

One of the main benefits of the LS-400 is its user-friendly approach to recording and streaming. This device can be controlled using a standard computer mouse or touchscreen, through RS-232 and TCP control panels, via its own web interface, cloud service, mobile devices, and more. It's also possible to schedule recordings, streams, and backups, which is incredibly convenient for council meetings. Municipalities can easily integrate their event calendar with the station, allowing it to manage media processes automatically. As a result, the station can replace the need for a live crew, significantly reducing recording and streaming costs.

With the station in use, Kirkkonummi municipality has improved its communication by delivering clearer messages without requiring an operator's assistance. Discover how your organisation can streamline and automate media production with AREC on our website at www.a-dena.com. We're available for live chat support and welcome any questions, so please don't hesitate to get in touch!

Case Study: AREC and Bosch Integration - Belgian Council Experience

Dear ADENA Partners, our case study this month is about one of the common applications of AREC Media Capture System for governments. With assistance from our distributor SANEL and integrator Avadis, the City Council of Leuze-en-Hainaut in Belgium introduced live streaming of municipal debates to the public.

Leuze-en-Hainaut is a quiet city and municipality in Wallonia. Despite its size, the city has a booming industrial zone Leuze-Europe, which is powered by many green energy projects that are taking place in the area. Leuze-en-Hainaut achieved this thanks to a number of factors, with one of the primary reasons being their strong local government. Building on that point, and to spread information and involve the local community in the municipal development plans, the city council decided to procure professional recording and streaming AV systems. AREC proved to be the most user-friendly option and combined functions of many devices, making it the best choice.

The council got AREC LS-200 and DS-4CU stations. LS-200 is a 2-channel Media Station that is able to record two different video channels at the same time and mix them with connected audio sources. These video sources can come from literally anywhere - computers, cameras, network sources, and more.

For the purpose of council meeting streams, one of the sources is a laptop with presentation content, whereas the other source is AREC DS-4CU Speaker Tracking Station. It allows users to automatically track active speakers using any of the integrated microphone congress systems. For the Leuze-en-Hainaut city council, that means Bosch CCS 1000D. Whenever a Bosch microphone is activated, one of the connected 4 AVer network PTZ cameras starts tracking the speaker. DS-4CU automatically changes camera layouts, overlay, and background graphics, all at the same time. You can see this effect yourself if you watch one of the sessions that the council published on their Facebook page.

Streaming council debates is just one of the many applications that AREC has for the government sector. Are you or your customers looking to create or upgrade recording and streaming abilities? Talk to us at a-dena.com and we will help you find the right solution!

KS-CC1 - Closed Captions Station

Dear ADENA Partners, we are happy to announce the launch of our new device, KS-CC1, Close Captions Station. It can transcribe and translate speech from a wide variety of languages and output it as a textual overlay live. The station is also saving transcribed and translated text along with the mixed audio and video, so users can edit any inaccuracies present and download the captions as SRT text files. KS-CC1 is a fully automatic, AI-based device relying on Google API to provide its core functionality, and thus it ensures a high transcription and translation accuracy, similar to that of Google Translate.

KS-CC1 has a number of principal applications. For example, it can help organizations, companies, universities, and others involve deaf audience members by providing close captions of spoken material. Since the station supports simultaneous translation and transcription, it can also be used for multilingual audiences. It can transcribe the spoken language and translate it to two different languages at the same time. Users that connect to the station via displayed QR codes can then follow the event in a language of their choice.

Lastly, KS-CC1 is highly cost-effective when compared to traditional transcription and live interpretation. All of the above qualities make it a perfect companion for all AREC Media Station installations, and specifically for DS-4CU Speaker Tracking Station. The latter combination will not only enable organizations to track the speakers, but also caption and translate them, without human involvement.

KS-CC1 is already available. Please feel free to contact us at a-dena.com to receive a free demonstration or to learn more about it.