Extron NAV Pro AVoIP System Provides McLennan County Court with Superior AV Routing & Control
- Public relations contact:
- Joe da Silva, Vice President of Marketing
- Extron
- E-mail: [email protected]
Anaheim, California (January 29, 2025) - McLennan County officials recently recognized the need to upgrade the AV technology in their courtrooms in Waco, Texas. They turned to integrator Brazos Media Technologies who designed and deployed a solution around NAV Pro AV over IP and control systems from Extron. Brazos had prior experience with integrating NAV systems and knew it included the capabilities, signal integrity, and reliability needed in this mission-critical environment. The proof-of-concept installation went into a mid-sized courtroom on an upper floor of the historic structure built in 1901. The new NAV and control systems provide a more sophisticated AV system that enhances and streamlines courtroom proceedings by increasing AV functionality while enabling complete flexibility to route signals over the local network. According to Brazos, McLennan County officials, judges, attorneys, and courtroom staff found the flexibility, dependability, and fast responsiveness of the new NAV system with Extron control to be far superior to the previous AV system.
“This is our second installation using Extron NAV. The first project went so smoothly that there was no reason to look at anything else,” says Trey Shaw, Co-Owner / Manager of Brazos Media Technologies, LLC. “Using NAV makes the courtroom system completely expandable, now and in the future.”
The McLennan County Court holds jurisdiction over the 74th district of the state. The docket includes both criminal trials and civil lawsuits. The pilot courtroom, used for both criminal and civil cases, underwent a significant technological upgrade. In addtion to the NAV system, the project included an advanced control system, expansion of the sound system, and integration of additional monitors and displays at the judge’s bench, witness stand, jury box, attorney tables, and other areas. The NAV system enables source routing from the PCs at the judge's bench, the prosecution table, and the defense table, a document camera at the lectern for hardcopy display, and a PTZ camera system that supports Zoom®/Teams® calls, such as testimony from an expert witness at an authorized remote location.
The presiding judge has complete control of audio and video distribution within the courtroom using the TouchLink Pro tabletop touchpanel at the bench. It also enables content preview prior to selectable distribution to one or more displays. To lay the needed cabling, Brazos made discreet modifications to the floor and the platform under the Judge’s bench. The cabling was run between the floor and the ceiling of the courtroom below.
“Updating the technology in our courtroom improved all of our hearings and trials. The ability to display exhibits from counsel table exclusively to the witness made it easier and faster for attorneys to move through voluminous documents,” says Judge Gary Coley, Jr., District Court Judge of McLennan County and recipient of the Texas CASA Judicial Innovation and Leadership Award. “Additionally, the ease of transfer between screens makes it easier for jurors to follow along during complicated testimony involving exhibits. Ultimately, updating our technology helped everyone in the courtroom - the judge, reporter, lawyers, witness, jurors, and observers.”
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