POLARaudio News

Dungannon Council System Publicity Situated just South West of Belfast is Dungannon. The town epitomises all that is beautiful about the Irish way of life and is home to Dungannon & South Tyrone District Council. It is here, in the Council chamber that Belfast based AV Company, Niavac has transformed the way the council operates. Steve Kennedy, Niavac’s AV consultant worked closely with the beyerdynamic Technical team to achieve a design that not only encompassed the council’s requirements but set a level of quality and automation that will ensure the system remains at the cutting edge of technology for a long time to come. The brief was to allow the Council to have a fully functional chamber but at the same time, allow it to be used for external presentations in both audio and visual formats. At the front end, Niavac looked to utilise beyer’s MCW-D 50 wireless conference system. With 30 stations operating on the 2,4ghz waveband, the microphone system is portable, easy to set up and simple to use. With the additional encryption in place, the council are assured that security breaches are not an issue.
The audio from this is not only heard from the system’s own built in loudspeakers but also from a small pa system comprising of 4 x WHD MX40 cabinets and bittner multi-channel amplification. The speaker system is also designed to be used in conjunction with additional radio microphones and lectern mics, and here beyer’ specified the OPUS 350 and SHM 203A gooseneck respectively. In this set up either all of the available microphones can be utilised or just a particular user selection. With all these different user configurations, a CUE, robust control system was required. Niavac turned to another beyerdynamic solution in the form of Biamp Nexia DSP and Cue touch panel control. Niavac have been using Biamp DSP for some time now and feel it is a versatile tool that can help satisfy any number of situations. Steve Kennedy, who also does the programming for Biamp said, “ I just love its flexibility. The open architecture is not something we had with our previous product, so it is great to be able to change file designs at the drop of a hat.” “If I need more inputs or outputs I can just add these in, and more importantly, if the customer changes their mind at the last minute, I don’t need to worry about finding extra rack space, the Biamp DSP has so much processing selection, I can click a button and satisfy them in minutes.” CUE touch screen control may seem new to some people but it has in fact been around for over 10 years. The company, based in Prague, specialises in producing aesthically pleasing, well priced panels with any level of control that its competitors may offer. This ethos has seen CUE sales rocket worldwide and it has proven to be more than just an also ran. It has in fact helped to bring extra business to its’ army of users. The reason being, is its economy /features ratio which means a “proper “ touch screen control system can be afforded by all, high sales into education bear this statement to be true. Niavac have simplified the chamber’s operation by inserting a “one button does all” into the GUI. Any of the councils users can simply initiate this and screens roll down, projectors warm up and the audio system levels itself up ready for the meeting. All in all, it is a great example of what can be achieved with today’s technology and it was fitting that it should be commissioned on the day of the Northern Irish elections - March 7^th 2007. A new start all round...
contact information: Steve Kennedy Niavac Audio Visual Belfast Tel. (028) 9079 3000 www.niavac.com