The UK Supreme Court

London, UK

The Supreme Court replaced the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords which, until October 2009, was the final Court of Appeal for all cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland and civil cases from Scotland. Located in Parliament Square in London, the Supreme Court is home to the 12 Law Lords, or Justices, who sit in the three chambers and preside over hearings that have reached what is now the UK’s highest court.

proAV was asked to deliver extensive professional audio visual systems to facilitate the broadcasting, recording and distribution of events at the newly refurbished Supreme Court building in Parliament Square.

A wide range of fully integrated AV technologies including the industry’s most sophisticated broadcasting, display and control hardware and associated monitoring, presentation and post-production software formed part of an innovative, highly specialised solution.

The Supreme Court is the first court in England and Wales to televise court sessions and the proAV solution will allow the distribution of live and pre-recorded feeds to the NLES and on to Millbank Studios in Westminster for distribution to Sky, BBC, ITN and the Press Association.Mark Hazell, proAV

Sophisticated audio visual equipment that incorporated the industry’s latest cutting edge technology was installed throughout the building, notably the court’s three chambers, the main gallery, a secondary gallery which serves as a Non Linear Edit Suite (NLES), exhibition space and outside broadcasting units.

All monitoring, recording, equipment racks and control systems were housed in a central gallery with a studio console with seating for three engineers.

The Supreme Court now has the capability to digitally record court proceedings and store footage on a centralised server. The court is the first in England and Wales to televise court sessions and the new facilities will allow the distribution of live and pre-recorded feeds to the NLES for post-production and/or outside broadcast units and on to Millbank Studios in Westminster for distribution to Sky, BBC, ITN and the Press Association.

proAV's design, technical and project management teams delivered this high profile, integrated solution on time, within budget and according to the consultant's precise specification.

Discover more about proAV's powerful control technologies, then contact us so we can show you the difference they can make to your organisation.

A number of specialist areas at the Supreme Court were equipped with the following professional AV technologies:

Courtrooms 1, 2 and 3

Each of the Supreme Court’s three chambers were equipped with the following:

• 4 x HD PTZ video cameras to provide coverage of the Judge and Advocate positions. Each camera is fitted with an optical multiplex card to output SDI video into its respective multiplexer unit in the main gallery
• Microphone system incorporating 15 (Courtroom 1), 11 (Courtroom 2) and 11 microphones (Courtroom 3) with individual mute/on/off controls and ‘halo’ LED indicators. Signals from each microphone are routed to respective gallery mic mixer
• Speech reinforcement system with 100 volt line speakers built into Judge, Advocate and public gallery positions providing amplified feed from respective gallery audio mixer to each courtroom

Main Gallery

The main gallery houses all key audio visual and broadcast systems hardware including main studio console into which vision mixing, camera control equipment and video monitoring equipment is installed.

• Custom built studio console for three engineers, each with desk mounted high-end LCD monitor for dedicated preview and programme camera monitoring incorporating router, vision mixer, audio mixing desk, multi-format monitoring system multi-view processor and master clock, studio headphones and telephone handset
• Video routing and switching system, incorporating SDI router and composite OB feed matrix
• Signal processing modular enclosure with ADC, DAC, PAL, AES Mux/De-Mux and DA signal processing cards
• Live, patchable Outside Broadcast feed output to two external OB boxes at front of building
• Control system with colour touchpanel unit for management of LCD displays, router, audio control and record and play-out transport controls
• Central RAID archive server housed in equipment racks