News

Columbia, SC -  Advanced Video Group (AVG) was recently contacted by the South Carolina Department of Health and Enviornmental Control (www.scdhec.gov) to assist in the renovation, design, and implementation of their Emergency Operations Control Room.  AVG was selected to assist the Agency after careful evaluation of similar mission critical projects of similar size and scope.  AVG had recently completed a full system roll out for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, a division of the Adjutant General's Office who is responsible for Statewide emergency management progroam (www.scemd.org).  Several key decision makers were familiar with the SCEMD Control Room space and elected to build their new system on a similar platform.

The Mission Statement of AVG is to engineer, provide, and support state-of-the-art communication solutions created for reliability and ease of use.  When designing systems for reliability, AVG engineers will typically build systems using proven technologies and this application was no different.  The SCEMD Control Room had been deployed and functioning for 18 months with little to no technical issues, so the decision was easy to build the new system on a similar platform.

Through the use of the Crestron DigitalMedia switching and control platform, users can route and control a variety of sources to multiple preset video wall configurations and layouts.  To simply the user experience, AVG programmers built the custom user interfaces for the Crestron touchpanels that focused on commonly used room functionalities and layouts.  This allows users to configure the entire room in a matter of seconds in the case of a Statewide emergency.  The Crestron DigitalMedia system is a configurable switch with the ability to be expanded upon in the case of future system growth or requirements.

A Biamp TesiraFORTE Audio DSP mixer allows for full room audio conferencing through the use of Clearone Ceiling Microphones and balanced distributed audio using SoundTube ceiling speakers.  Operators have the ability to control volume levels, microphone levels, mute functinonality, and telephone control through the Crestron touchpanels.

In conclusion, AVG was to build and deploy the client's vision on time and within budget.  The State of South Carolina is now better prepared to respond and act upon natural disasters and Statewide emergencies.