The Council of the European Union Adds Ross Legislative Solution for Meeting Control

A Ross Legislative Solution installation has been completed at the Council of the EU’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium (via Proximus, the local provider and Diginet, the local RossVideo distributor). The system is comprised of a Ross Carbonite production switcher and the Legislative Control System for managing the many multi-lingual meetings.

The Ross Legislative Solution offers great flexibility and this is one of the main reasons why the Council of the EU chose this solution. It offers the ability to both configure the chamber and to make updates quickly and easily; technicians have been able to store camera shots, marks, and microphone identification so that if something goes wrong with a component they can replace the device, quickly load the file and get back up and running in a matter of moments, instead of delaying a meeting while dealing with technical issues.

The Ross Legislative Solution enables a single person to produce a live, HD, multi-camera program with graphic overlays without needing to understand the underlying technology. It can integrate with the microphone system to assist the operator in identifying who will be the next person to speak. The program can be fed to cable and broadcast outlets for immediate delivery, or to a web streaming encoder for access via a legislature’s website.

The Council of the EU (often still referred to as the Council of Ministers) is one of the Institutions of the European Union (EU) as listed in the Treaty on European Union. It is part of the essentially bicameral EU legislature (the other legislative body being the European Parliament) and represents the executive governments of the EU’s member states.

Given that multiple languages are used by the many different countries that comprise the Council of the EU, the system is also designed to internally broadcast the speaker to the translation booths around the chamber. This helps the interpreters do a better job because they can see the facial and physical gestures that are key to ensuring the context of the spoken word is taken into account.

Their primary requirement was to have a fully automated solution to broadcast the speaker internally. Their next requirement was to be able to control it remotely. Last, but not least, they wanted a system that a single operator can manage to produce a live HD program for our public debates. Ross worked with the Council of the EU to understand their requirements and developed custom features that helped improve the overall effectiveness of the system.

Supporting the Council of the EU is a great honor and a shows that our Legislative Solution works at any level of government; whether it is at a city, state, national or international, we have a scalable solution to meet any need,” says Greg Quirk, Legislative Market Manager for Ross Video. “We are seeing increasing interest from legislatures around the world as they look to simplify their meetings and improve their overall production values, and we are pleased to be providing a valuable service to the Council of the EU.”