The Client
Merthyr Tydfil County Borough has been one of the 22 unitary authorities in Wales since 1 April 1996. Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council has 33 councillors and a population of 59,000 residents.
The Requirement
The council had an ageing conference system and requested a modern microphone system with electronic voting capability and webcasting. The council had previously installed individual screens per councillor and wished for the new system to be linked in to display voting results, camera feeds and presentations, all this for a fixed budget.
- Auditel’s Portable Envoy 3rd Gen system
- Portable Envoy system
- Electronic voting
- PTZ automated camera control
- Presentation switching
- Full microphone control
- Auditel Camera system
The Solution
Auditel’s Portable Envoy 3rd Gen system was the system of choice due to the fixed budget of the project. The portable Envoy system met all requirements that the council requested from electronic voting, PTZ automated camera control, presentation switching and full microphone control by either the operator or chairman. The operator/chariman can have control over what microphones become live from a request to speak list. The system also included automatic speech timers that reset after every speaker ready for the next. This is controlled via a touch screen monitor which can be moved to three different locations in the chamber depending on type of meeting.
The Auditel Camera system allows for all individual microphones to be logged into the system. When the microphone becomes live either by councillor or operator, the system automatically Point, Tilt and Zoomed to the coordinates that had been stored in the system. This helps reduce the work load of the operator during a web cast meeting.
The Envoy 3rd Gen system come as standard with electronic voting, the ACCS central control PC was installed to provide full voting capabilities as well as enabling the use of the PTZ automated camera system. The ACCS software out puts was patched into a vast amount of matrix splitters to provide visual feeds on all delegate screens on the floor and Dais as well as the large 45” screen for the public gallery.
The ACCS control PC also gives the council the control of the AV switching system. The operator whilst using the PC is able to select which out put is displayed on the 45+ screens in the chamber. The different outputs from the PC are of the camera feed, presentations, electronic voting commands and results.
Merthyr Tydfil is also one of the first councils to sign up with Auditels own Web Casting service, Auditel Streams. Audtiel Steams seamlessly links with Merthyr Tydfil committee decisions management system Modern.gov. All information that is entered for Modern.gov is automatically polled to Auditels streaming software ready for web casting. Once web casted, a local copy is saved to the PC as well as to an unrestricted DVD, giving the council complete flexibility with the footage. All webcasted footage is stored on the dedicated Merthyr Tydfil website for 12 months for unlimited play back on demand.
Support
With all of the Auditel equipment there is a 5 year warranty in place. This covers all of the microphone units, control PC and PTZ cameras.
Merthyr Tydfil now have just one company to contact for all AV related aspects of the council chamber. From the microphone system, to electronic voting, to PTZ cameras and now web casting.