Courthouse A/V System Installation

Thompson Electronics Company worked with the Peoria County Courthouse in Peoria, IL, for several audio/video system needs throughout multiple rooms in their downtown Peoria location.

A/V System Integration for Peoria County Courthouse

Modern Courtroom Audio/Visual System

The goal of this system was to allow the user to display a variety of evidence media and a video arraignment system over four high definition video displays. We used Crestron’s Digital Media system for all signal transmission, control, and audio/video switching. This system takes all signals and converts them to high bandwidth shielded twisted pair cabling for exceptional audio and video over long distances. This is the industry standard on running high definition content from device to device in professional environments.

There is a large 80” LED touchscreen display for use as the main display in the courtroom (with annotation), a 20” desktop non-touch monitor for the witness location, a 20” non-touch monitor for the evidence cart, and a smaller 20” non-touch monitor for the judge’s bench. There is an iPad docked at the Evidence cart for annotation over the county PC image (mirrored on the 80”). There are tabletop plates at both Counsel tables to plug in user laptops (HDMI and VGA). The system has a high definition document camera for presenting physical evidence or paper documentation and a county provided PC to display electronic media evidence.

There is also an HD video arraignment system reused from our existing system. The audio/video system is controlled via a tabletop Crestron touch panel located at the judge’s bench as well as at the evidence cart. These touch panels control the function of the audio/video system. The user can turn the entire system on and off, choose the evidence source that they want to display on the screens, control the dialing of the video arraignment (judge only), and mute the video with the push of a button if improper evidence sharing is being attempted (judge only).

Expandable AV Matrix

There is one Crestron digital media AV matrix with an external system controller installed in the system; this switches the video being shown on the displays. This unit is fully digital and capable of switching analog and digital video signals. For inputs, we have a VGA/HDMI table input for both counsel tables, an input for the evidence presentation cart, touchscreen PC, and an input for the video arraignment system. For outputs, we send a video feed to the 80” display, the judge’s desk monitor switcher, and the witness monitor. The matrix we selected has a modular 8×8 card-based I/O unit and offers openings for future I/O needs based on the current system design. There are three extra input slots and three extra output slots available for future expansion. As a control interface, we implemented two 7” desktop touch panels.

We included an 80” commercial grade touchscreen LED monitor as the main display device in the courtroom. This can be used as a brilliant HD display for showing any source from the evidence presentation cart or from the tabletop PC inputs. We also included a Crestron scaler, touchscreen PC, USB extensions, proper commercial tilt mount, and power surge suppression. The touchscreen allows users to annotate directly onto it. We included a dedicated iPad with docking station located on the evidence presentation cart. The iPad allows users to annotate over images on the iPad that will mirror on the 80” display wirelessly (and vice versa). They can then capture each annotation during the proceedings directly to the county PC.

For the Witness location display, judge’s display, and evidence cart, we have an LED desktop non-touch monitor. This monitor will be able to display any of the counsel PC inputs, document camera, county PC, or video arraignment far-end video. The judge was provided an LED monitor with an A/B switch as we have done in other courtrooms at Peoria County. This allows the judge to switch between viewing their local PC or the AV system feed.