Located next to the City of New Orleans and stretching from Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico, Jefferson Parish is the most populous parish in the Greater New Orleans region. Jefferson Parish, home to 440,000 individuals, offers a variety of communities consisting of modern high-rises, historic homes, fishing piers, Mississippi River views, marshland, contemporary and old-world restaurants, flourishing industrial parks, and family-friendly green spaces. The Mississippi River, which flows through the parish, has built a history of commercial success and created a home to many major industries including medical, energy, marine, and professional services.
Historically, Jefferson Parish has experienced some of the most catastrophic storms and hurricanes ever to hit the United States. The Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department is responsible for providing emergency management planning for major emergencies, such as hurricanes, floods, storms and other natural disasters. The Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department, which operates out of the Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center, provides emergency management coordination and guidance during major emergencies to ensure the continued safety of citizens and visitors. If an emergency occurs, it is the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department’s responsibility to respond timely and efficiently; therefore, the Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center is a mission-critical environment requiring the latest and most reliable technology.
Challenge
The Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center processes a plethora of information from multiple sources, including the National Weather Service and the Department of Transportation. It provides a control center for executive staff, government officials, first responders and other essential persons to bring situational awareness in emergency events. The Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center harnesses multiple video feeds to evaluate and assess emergency situations and provide resources through an emergency response plan.
Previously, the Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center utilized an outdated video distribution system with limited interoperability and functionality. The Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center featured limited displays; therefore, it was challenging to display the necessary information. Additionally, the previous system proved difficult to distribute content to displays across multiple rooms within the facility, such as the unified command room,conference room, and other meeting spaces. Each room had its own audiovisual system, limiting the ability to distribute content simultaneously to inform all stakeholders.
Crescent Multimedia Solutions was selected to evaluate, design and integrate a new audiovisual system for Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center. Cory Ancar, founder and owner of Crescent Multimedia Solutions, added, “The Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department invited us to walk through their current facility to evaluate a new audiovisual system for the Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center. The existing system was a few years old, but offered very limited functionality. The Emergency Operations Center included four displays with limited routing, restricting the amount of information they could simultaneously visualize.”
Solution
Crescent Multimedia Solutions designed an easy-to-use, interoperable solution that enabled the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department to increase its visualization capabilities. Ancar explained, “The audiovisual system was originally designed with another manufacturer’s products to route and manage audio and video distribution throughout the Emergency Operations Center. Unfortunately, the manufacturer couldn’t fulfill our needs within our timeline and, with hurricane season quickly approaching, we had to find a new solution that fit within our budget and timeline.”
Crescent Multimedia Solutions selected ZeeVee’s ZyPer4K Encoder and Decoder, powered by SDVoE technology, to meet the unique demands of the Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Center. ZeeVee, a founding member of the SDVoE Alliance, delivers independent audio, video, RS232 USB and multiview to multiple independent monitors with the ZyPer4K Encoder and Decoder 4K. ZeeVee’s ZyPer4K Encoder and Decoder allowed the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department to utilize Ethernet and fiber optic networking to integrate up to 19 specific images within a single multiview. The ZyPer4K Encoder and Decoder eliminated the requirement of a dedicated signal processor and, as a result, enabled the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Department to decrease footprint and audiovisual architecture, reduce energy consumption, and most importantly, meet the budget and timeline requirements to integrate a fully automated system.
Benefits of SDVoE Technology
SDVoE reaches beyond existing standards to provide benefits no other technology can claim:
- A complete ecosystem – SDVoE Alliance members are manufacturers with expertise in signal distribution, display manufacture, IT infrastructure, chip design and AV software. The integrator has dozens of partners to align with and products to choose from.
- A flexible yet simple software platform – the SDVoE API allows rapid development of highly specialized software, custom-tailored to the needs of a vast array of end users.
- A full OSI stack solution – only SDVoE offers
the simplicity of a complete top to bottom solution, fully encompassing infrastructure, transport, processing, and a simple control layer.
