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George W. Bush stands behind an elegant rostrum, a microphone in front of him and in the background a picture of the White House on a genuine night blue velvet curtain. A scene that can be seen on the news nearly once a week: The president of the United States holds a press conference in the famous James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House.
Anybody watching the press briefing carefully may have noted the diversity of media in attendance. Each of these press entities requires a clean audio feed in brilliant quality from the Presidential Podium to interface with their recording or broadcast equipment providing a perfect broadcast for their audience. To perfectly fulfill this task and handle the complex audio routing, VARIZONE the digital public address and audio distribution solution from KLOTZ DIGITAL is used.
A VARIZONE matrix controller, the core of KLOTZ DIGITAL's PA system, has been installed to provide a digital audio distribution solution. It is a computer controlled and configured to handle all analog and diigtal audio inputs and outputs, as well as DSP and mix functionality requirements. It accomodates all required audio sources, including the audio feed from the presidential podium, ceiling microphones for journalist questions.
It also facilitates an outdoor press location just outside the West Wing of the White House, an event feed from an off-site presidential event and the central control at the rear of the press briefing room receiving external audio feeds from all over the world. Pick-up microphones and new loudspeakers over the press seats balance the sound and eliminate the need for boom microphones. All incoming audio sources are processed, if applicable, mixed and routed to various destinations, e.g. speakers inside the press briefing room.
Primarily, the White House VARIZONE infrastructure was designed to interface with destinations relevant for media and broadcasting, such as satellite uplinks, recording feeds and press booths. Each press control room operator can select an audio source from the VARIZONE eight-button wall mounted controller to assign source destination, format and level while monitoring audio through a VARIZONE addressable digital amplifier module (PAM) driving an Atlas Sound loudspeaker. Via an integrated press call, the White House spokesman can inform journalists in the press booths when a press conference will start.
Installation was simplified by the VARIZONE digital bus architecture. It allows 8 channels of simultaneous 16 bit 44.1K digital audio along with power for local amplification and a data stream for system monitoring and control all on the same CAT5 cable infrastructure.
The White House VARIZONE installation has been designed and assisted by Atlas Sound, KLOTZ DIGITAL's exclusive VARIZONE sales and service partner in the USA. The White House fact sheet offers detailed information about the comprehensive renovation of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070711-1.html
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