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Audio Pro Provides Soundweb Solution for New Council of Europe Facility in Strasbourg
Audio Pro Heilbronn has created an imaginative digital audio matrix infrastructure to connect boardrooms within a new Council of Europe building in Strasbourg. In order to implement this, the company turned to Soundweb London technology from BSS Audio.
The German Harman Pro distributors were brought in by main contractor, Siemens Building Technologies GmbH & Co. oHG of Freiburg.
While Siemens handled the media technology element of the competitively-tendered contract (video and control) it was their sub-contractor Stemin GmbH, who took on responsibility for the audio design.
Stemin needed a digital matrix for audio transmission of the discussion and interpreter systems in each of the six boardrooms set within the new construction.
Said Audio Pro project manager, Stefan Beck: “We had to make it possible to transmit the original source and four interpreter signals from each room to any other room and the two control rooms.”
Along with Stemin, Audio Pro devised an alternative CobraNet concept which proved satisfactory to the client. Built around a Cisco Systems Gigabit backbone, 700 Mbit VLAN (for CobraNet) the system is driven by seven BSS Audio Soundweb London BLU-80 processors and four BLU-32 expanders, managed from a custom control panel within HiQnet London Architect.
Each of the boardrooms is served by a BLU-80 with the final BLU-80 and two BLU-32 expanders located in the control room of the new building; for networking purposes, additional BLU-32 devices have been added to the main control room racks of the original Council of Europe building and the Human Rights Building.
The components of the discussion and interpreter system are housed within an electronic cubicle in the six boardrooms. Each BLU-80 receives five input signals (the original voice and four translated versions from the interpreter system).
These signals can be routed from any boardroom to any other simultaneously, with the audio signals from each boardroom transmitted independently to the control rooms for recording and monitoring purposes. This can work bidirectionally, since playback signals from the control rooms can be transmitted independently to every boardroom.
“To avoid any unnecessary traffic, CobraNet bundles are disabled when audio transmission between boardrooms is not required,” explains Stefan. “This has been realised within the Logic domain of HiQnet London Architect.”
Another Logic application is the use of the control panel to avoid listening to the wrong signal — achieved by resetting the monitoring signal selection.
The entire cubicle in each boardroom can be turned on or off via control output on the BLU-80 as can the president microphone — indicated by LED status lights — while other LEDs show which interpreter cabin is active. “Making these connections was very easy because of the control inputs and outputs (GPIO) on each of the Soundweb London devices,” Stefan Beck explains.
There is also a bank of error LEDs, which will highlight any problems with the discussion and interpreter system, any Soundweb London device or the CobraNet network.
Summarised Audio Pro’s project manager: “We have come up with a progressive and versatile operating, routing and management solution for the Council of Europe. This includes providing a control panel within HiQnet London Architect which allows for the operation and surveillance of the entire system.”
3rd January 2008
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