EXTENSIVE AV COMPLEMENTS NAR'S "GREEN" HQ

EXTENSIVE AV COMPLEMENTS NAR'S "GREEN" HQ - Page 7

Power Room with a Power View

The event room is a power room with a correspondingly powerful view of the Capitol Dome. In contrast, the boardroom located on the same 12th floor, but on the other side of the building, looks over the city, but not the Capitol. According to Apter, the event room was positioned for VIP events, receptions, dinners and presentations because, as you speak, people are looking at you and over your shoulder onto the Capitol. Accordingly, there are half a dozen floor boxes available for various panel discussions and lectern presentations around a U-shaped table.

“You can position the furniture in such a way that it’s over the floor boxes,” explained Apter. “So it’s very clean cabling. And the floor boxes have inputs for microphones, laptops and control panels. When you walk the room, you don’t see anything amazing. You see two projectors on the ceiling, facing side-by-side screens. Then there are a couple of output plates for plasmas that can be brought in on an ‘as needed’ basis.

“Most of the time, presentations are done through the Christie projectors onto the electric screens, which drop in front of the glass. Then they can choose to leave the windows open because the projectors are bright. Or, if they want more focused presentations, they can drop the blackout shades; you lose the Capitol view, but gain the audience’s focused attention.” The lectern can be moved in front of the glass or near the one eight foot drywall in the room.

On the audio side, a pair of JBL program speakers is powered by a Crown amplifier. For conferencing, 16 Klipsch ceiling speakers are driven by a Biamp power amplifier. Voice reinforcement is via a bevy of beyer dynamic wireless Delegate encoded/encrypted conferencing systems. The high-level encryption system was important to the client; these units are similar to the simultaneous translation systems used in the United Nations. Participants’ voices are reinforced through all the other participants’ speakers in the Delegate system sitting in front of them. When the mics are used for audio conferencing, the Polycom is used for echo cancellation.

At press time, NAR’s Richards noted that the event room will have videoconferencing capabilities added “in the next couple of weeks. We’re in a build-out phase now. We’re just waiting for some equipment to come in.”

Used with permission of Testa Communications from the August 2006 issue of Sound & Communications magazine. For more information, please go to: www.soundandcommunications.com