Gencom Technology Upgrades Fijian Parliament's Video Monitoring Distribution System

In today's connected world, constituents expect real-time access to live government proceedings. In the last decade, governments worldwide have responded by implementing dedicated on-campus broadcast production facilities to meet the demand.

But given the dynamic nature of the media landscape, many government entities now find themselves upgrading their facilities once again. This time, the focus is on making the switch from traditional baseband video and audio to IP (Internet Protocol), which promises enhanced scalability, greater flexibility, and long-term efficiencies.

The Parliament of the Republic of Fiji (the Fijian Parliament) is one of the latest to make the pivot. It recently collaborated with New Zealand-based systems integrator Gencom Technology to transition a legacy audio distribution system from analog to digital and baseband to IP, opting for the Dante AV-over-IP platform. Part of a larger initiative to build a live streaming pipeline featuring real-time captioning and multi-language transmission, the overhaul also included the development of a new campus-wide video monitoring distribution system, with 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 conversion to/from Dante AV supported by AJA Dante AV 4K products.

The Fijian Parliament first worked with Gencom six years ago to build a video production and delivery infrastructure from the ground up that would power free to air public broadcasts of general and committee sessions. Since then, the legislative body has looked to Gencom's team for continued support and technology recommendations. With regular check-ins, both quickly realised the time had come to upgrade the infrastructure to support growing broadcast, live streaming, and video-on-demand needs. As a first step, they opted to replace the facility’s original analog audio distribution system with a digital solution that could support real-time translation and captioning.

Fijians speak three different languages during proceedings, which can make inclusivity and accessibility difficult to achieve. Gencom Director Keith Bremner knew his team would need to find a better way to help The Fijian Parliament’s team transcribe and translate those languages into live captions, so that officials could feel free to speak in their native tongue.

"Through our conversations, it quickly became clear that we'd need to replace the campus’ legacy analog audio distribution system with something digital and more scalable. Dante Audio was a natural fit, as it's become such a ubiquitous platform that so many manufacturers now support, and its performance is top notch," Bremner explained. "Since the translators and captioners also needed to be able to monitor video, Dante AV and AJA's Dante AV 4K products provided an ideal complement. They've made it easy to move audio and video from the broadcast facilities into the transcription and captioning booths, and anywhere on campus, over the IP network."

Gencom kicked off the latest install by establishing a new fiber backbone on campus to power the Fijian Parliament’s IP network and support audio and video distribution across buildings. The team then built a protected, resilient red and blue Dante AV network on top of it. Rounding out the design, Gencom installed a number of AJA Dante AV 4K-T transmitters in production control rooms and Dante AV 4K-R receivers in other locations across campus. All the new technology was seamlessly integrated with an existing production infrastructure comprising several pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) cameras that capture legislative activities live.

Within the Parliament Chamber and two committee rooms on site, these cameras generate feeds that are transmitted to separate control rooms, including a production control centre. There, the feeds are cut into one main program feed, featuring graphics overlays and sign language insertion, and fed through to AJA Dante AV 4K- for distribution across the campus-wide network. AJA Dante AV 4K-Rs – located in spaces where operators, translators, sign language professionals, captioners, or other professionals who need access – receive those feeds. Each translation or captioning booth houses two people who watch and listen to what's being said on the floor in Vosa Vakaviti (native Fijian), Fijian Hindi, and English, and complete translations. Translated feeds are then pushed out to displays on the parliament floor and via a public broadcast.

"Having a live visual of what’s happening on the floor is key to the translation and captioning process, and that’s where AJA's Dante AV products are helpful. They make it easy and cost-efficient for the Fijian Parliament to distribute the video signals to different locations across campus using Dante infrastructure," Bremner noted. "Being able to integrate Dante Control systems into their existing control systems lets us easily create simple, big-button interfaces for the operators and even the non-technical operators to make their jobs more intuitive and easier."

In addition to using AJA Dante AV 4K solutions, the Fijian Parliament leverages AJA openGear OG-ROI-HDMI HDMI to 3G-SDI scan converter cards. Gencom first installed them for the institution in 2020 to integrate video conferencing feeds of members who could not attend parliament sessions in person. "I'm a huge fan of openGear technology," Bremner explained. "The OG-ROI-HDMI cards have been a staple in the Fijian Parliament infrastructure from the start. We were able to quickly and easily slot the card into the openGear frame, and they could then control it from DashBoard software. openGear is a platform that can do 95% of all your audio/video processing needs without having to go to multiple form factors or control systems, which is a huge advantage."

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