The DC Superior Courts has been utilizing digital recording technology since
1996. The system chosen at that time was replaced in 2003. The DC Superior
Court selected the superior technology offered by
CourtSmart Digital Systems
to produce their record in 94 courtrooms.
CourtSmart
is also in the process of providing full sound systems in each of their 94
courtrooms. DC Superior Courts centrally records and archives all courtrooms on
2TB servers that provide the court within nearly 2 years of on-line
proceedings. The picture shows the server racks where all courtroom audio is
digitized and recorded.
Interesting facts about this installation:
1. The control room is equipped with independent, fault tolerant HVAC systems
that produce over 35,000 BTUs of cooling per hour. A failure of any AC system
automatically switches to the backup system.
2. More than 300,000 feet of cable were used in the installation
3. More than 15,000 connections were soldered in the control room
4. There are 11 2 TB primary servers, 3 archive servers, and 5 backup servers
for fault tolerant non-stop recording
5. All servers have
CourtSmart's
voice activated auto record systems
CourtSmart was selected on the basis of its technology merits featuring non-stop fault tolerant recording, open database standards, secure network architecture, and the CourtSmart concept of managed e-solutions with the superior support staff of CourtSmart Digital Systems.