Products are Expected to Migrate to the Entire Industry

The audio/video renovation of San Francisco City Hall has produced new products that were custom designed for the various audio/video systems within the historic structure. All of the new technology created for City Hall is now part of a standard line, and is being offered to the general industry by the respective manufacturers. The products are:

• Crestron’s liquid crystal touch screen with a built-in microphone and loudspeaker (a custom add-on to their standard VT 3500-series panel). Crestron’s innovative remote control panels have already been used in another installation, Cathedral City Hall in the Palm Springs, California area.

• Crestron’s broadcast pan/tilt head with the intelligence built into the head, a refinement of their existing product line, which features a head with an external-drive intelligence system.

• QSC’s Rapid Rave Custom Processing Software. (QSC took existing Rave Technology and added a special feature to speed the payload. It was paired for the first time in City Hall with a Peavey Media Matrix System. BBI Engineering performed the Media Matrix programming.)

• EAW (Eastern Acoustic Works) Line Source Loudspeakers, now a standard product added to the company line.

Crestron's Remote Control Touch Panels
The Crestron Remote control touch panel incorporates sophisticated add-ons to its standard liquid crystal color video panel. Several usually separate items have been consolidated into each touch panel, including capabilities for video playback, audio reinforcement, and an integrated microphone, along with the usual control capabilities. The Crestron remote control touch panels are distributed among supervisors, the press, clerks, and other staff members. The system allows supervisors and committee members to turn off the microphone or to control their speaker volume. The touch panel can be adjusted for video and still images, or to watch the rebroadcast of the meetings.

Supervisors can vote, call staff, communicate with the clerk, or select what they want to look at, all from their touch panels. The design of the panel minimizes the intrusion into the historic context of the building by placing a small, non-obtrusive piece of equipment on a supervisor’s desk that doesn’t require complex cabinetwork. Because of constraints on mounting equipment within the building, there was no practical means of incorporating an external drive box at a great distance, or putting up a drive box locally. In response to the problem, Crestron incorporated the intelligence into the broadcast pan/tilt head, and now sells the product as a standard item.

QSC'S Rapid Rave Custom Processing Software
System designers were concerned that the lengthy audio transmission and processing chain between meeting rooms and the control centers in the basement might cause delay problems. QSC was asked to create a product that would meet the short latency requirements and lower payload of the system. QSC’s solution was to upgrade its existing Rave product into a new version called Rapid Rave, which was engineered to reduce the latency time. For the audio systems in the meeting rooms, the Rapid Rave system provides the preamplification, digitalization and multiplexing for transmission of AES/EBU standard signals to and from the basement main control room.

Once the signals are delivered to the control room on fast Ethernet transport, they are processed through a Peavey Media Matrix system. After processing, the signal is routed and distributed by the routing switcher, inputted to another QSC Rapid Rave system in AES/EBU format, and then transmitted to a satellite rack in the designated room. There the signal is converted back into analog form and amplified for distribution over the room’s loudspeakers. The system is also unique because it represents the first pairing of Rapid Rave with Peavey’s Media Matrix technology using their new AES/EBU card. BBI Engineering of San Francisco provided the programming for the Media Matrix.

EAW Line Source Loudspeakers
Standard loudspeakers couldn’t be used within the historic Supervisor’s Chamber because of preservation guidelines. In response to the problem, Eastern Acoustic Works designed and built a family of custom loudspeakers for the application. The loudspeakers were designed as vertical liner rays, and are placed as insertions between existing architectural filler elements. The mechanical beam within the speaker tilts so that the directivity pattern of the energy is placed into the audience.

SUPPLIER INFORMATION
BBI Engineering, Inc.
241 Quint Street
San Francisco, CA 94124
415-695-9555

Crestron Electronics, Inc.
15 Volvo Drive
Rockleigh, NJ 07647
800-237-2041

EAW
One Main Street
Whitinsville, MA 01588
508-234-6158

Peavey Electronics Corp.
711 A Street
Meridian, MS 39301
601-483-5376

QSC Audio
1675 MacArthur Boulevard
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
800-854-4079