The Parliament Of Tasmania Captures Important Governmental Proceedings With Telemetrics Robotic Camera Systems

THE PARLIAMENT OF TASMANIA CAPTURES IMPORTANT GOVERNMENTAL PROCEEDINGS WITH TELEMETRICS ROBOTIC CAMERA SYSTEMS

The mission of the Parliament of Tasmania, where official proceedings are held at the historic Parliament House In Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, has always been to provide complete transparency for the citizens of Tasmania. The internal Parliament video team produces both live video feeds and video on demand content of the official proceedings conducted in the Parliament and makes them freely available online.

In July 2019, to help improve the recording of its open governmental meetings, Asia-Pacific system integrator Techtel—with offices in Sydney, Singapore, Auckland, and Melbourne—installed four multi-camera robotics and camera control systems from Telemetrics in four separate control rooms that each include a Robotic Camera Control Panel with LGS software, Pan/Tilt Heads, and EDCS central server, CNA1 kits and DS-4 gateways. The Telemetrics control panel operates six Sony BRCH900 cameras in each main chamber and three cameras in each of three separate committee meeting rooms.

“There really is no space for camera operators in these chamber rooms so robotics was the correct option for most parliamentary operations,” said Matt Feeney, Director of Projects for Techtel. “The systems are networked so that they can move to any of four separate control spaces to operate their equipment.”

Using the Telemetrics EDCS central server, the system allows the parliament’s video production staff to control any one of their seven meeting rooms from any one of four separate control rooms. This offers unparalleled redundancy and flexibility. The Telemetrics DS-4 allows any of the Telemetrics serial control panels and robotic devices to communicate with each other through the Parliament’s IP/Ethernet network.

In each control room, a Telemetrics RCCP-1A control panel with LGS Control System helps operators spotlight different speakers and direct the cameras to pan or tilt in whatever way is required at the time. A number of camera presets can be stored in the panel to make proceeding recording run smoothly. The LGS software running on the control panel includes a large touchscreen display that includes access to special camera control software designed for government applications that have a need to capture multiple speakers, sometimes simultaneously, while using a single controller.

With the LGS software, an operator with limited production skills can pick any number of the cabinet members in a large chamber they want to feature on camera and store their facial profile into the system. The operator then simply pushes an icon for that person on the control panel’s touchscreen interface and the corresponding camera moves to that person. It can also intuitively acknowledge when a person has left their seat and a new title can be displayed automatically.

The LGS software also includes a selectable Robotics Status display to show all major robotics parameters—such as pan/tilt angles, elevation height, rotational status, lens information—for any selected camera, at a glance.

Quick access to custom overlays, stored presets and built-in intelligence for all robotic cameras within a system allows the user to easily select the best camera angles, and add graphics, with one button press. The system also includes the internal ability to snapshot thumbnails for shots and live video preview.

Rounding out the Tasmanian Parliament system is a Grass Valley Kula production switcher, Techtel Inflo™ capture engine, a GV Kumo router, and a PixelPower LogoVision CG system, which are all tightly integrated with the Telemetrics camera robotics systems.

The four separate control rooms are designed so that any control room can manage any of the Tasmanian Parliament chambers, which include the House of Assembly, Legislative Council, Committee Rooms and function rooms. When a room is loaded as a show in the Telemetrics control panel, the robotic camera feeds are routed to the Kula switcher and the RCCP-1A panel takes control of the robotic Pan/Tilt heads. It can also remotely control lens functions on the Sony cameras.

In each of the chamber rooms, the Sony cameras are mounted on the ceiling to provide the most coverage area. The Sony BRCH900 PTZs include fiber-optic cards that leverage the Parliament building’s existing optical fiber infrastructure. Each room has a selection of cameras available to it at any given time.

“Our customer is very pleased with the final solution,” Mal Chandler, CEO of Techtel, said. “The on-site support provided by Telemetrics has been superb and the performance of the system is exactly what Tasmanian Parliament was looking for.”