Minato City Assembly

Stability and operability realized by integration of digital system equipment and PC software

Assembly Hall

Committee Room

Minato City, Tokyo, is an attractive metropolitan area with several facets, including: office areas in Toranomon/Shinbashi/Shiba in which major businesses have their main offices; lively commercial/entertainment districts in Aoyama/Akasaka/Roppongi; stylish residential areas in Azabu/Shirokanedai; quickly-developing areas, such as Shiodome/Daiba; and also embassies of different countries. The City Assembly is the highest authority which decides the intent of the city. It consists of resident-elected city council members, whose duties include deliberating and determining submitted measures in order to reflect the residents’ opinions in the city administration, along with monitoring whether those decisions have been properly put into practice. There are different types of meetings: assembly meetings, in which all of the council members are summoned (ordinary meetings, impromptu meetings); and committee meetings, in which specialized issues are discussed. Assembly meetings are held about 22 times a year, while committee meetings are held about 100 times a year. In addition, meetings of the assembly have been broadcasted for public viewing on the internet since 2009.

Background

Upon the end of support for the old system, built with Microsoft Windows XP, planning for a new system began. System stability was a prerequisite for the development of the new system, in view of the importance of the operation of the Assembly. As a part of this new system, we automated the operation of cameras/microphones as well as the insertion of captions during broadcast streams. The system can now be operated by a single individual. The maintainability of the database, as to regular membership changes, has been enhanced by operating an intuitive graphic user interface. Looking ahead to the future as much as possible, digital system equipment has been incorporated into the system core, which will result in fewer issues related to the end of OS support. The Minato City Assembly has the first to the sixth committee rooms in addition to the Assembly Hall, and the third and the fourth committee rooms can be merged for integrated use as necessary in accordance with the number of attendees.

Systems

◆ High Stability and Operability Through Integration of Digital System Equipment and PC Software

Digital system equipment can provide great performance for processing high-definition image signals and is not subject to the end of OS support. On the other hand, PC software has an advantage in that it flexibly controls system equipment and can serve as a user-friendly operation interface. By combining both features, the new system realized high stability/operability, and will only require replacement of the PC software when OS support ends in the future.

Visual control system providing a variety of media with visuals

◆ One-Person Operation for Broadcasting Meetings

Internet broadcasting was introduced to the Minato City Assembly to make meeting proceedings available to residents of the city.
https://gikai2.city.minato.tokyo.jp/g07_broadcasting.asp
Due to the nature of live broadcasting, it is important to operate meetings smoothly without causing any distraction to viewers. In the new system, devices are linked semi-automatically in line with the proceeding of meetings. By clicking the speaker button or the council member button, the relevant microphone is turned on, and the camera zooms in on the corresponding member, with his/her name caption displayed. This chain of operations can be accomplished by one operator.

◆ Flexible Maintenance of Membership

Re-arrangement of the members who make up the assembly and the committee occurs regularly. The seating layout for each room is displayed in conjunction with a database of titles/names. Operators can edit the layout and confirm the data through an intuitive, visual touch-screen interface.

Confirm the layout and drag to arrange members

Innovations for Smooth Operation

The new system is equipped with devices that were innovated for smooth operation in order to avoid interrupting assembly meetings or committee meetings with system errors.

◆ Self-Check Function of Microphone System

Operation checks are always conducted in the mornings of meetings. Using the automatic diagnosis function enables effective confirmation as to whether the sound from the speakers can be picked up by microphones.

◆ Hybrid Recording in Case of Incidents

The old system used tapes for voice recordings, whereas the new system makes the most of digitalization by using an SD card recorder and an IC recorder to achieve double recordings. The operator can concentrate on facilitating meetings without having to worry about changing the tape. The new system is designed in such a manner that desktop microphones are recorded by the left channel and the ceiling microphones are recorded by the right channel. Thus, the ceiling microphones supplementarily catch sounds and ensure recordings even if it is difficult to hear due to the noise caused by documents that have grazed the desktop microphones.

◆ Displaying Elapsed Time

The remaining time counter provided on the podium desk counts per second. If the time of the meeting is exceeded, it still keeps counting, but the count is displayed in red. There has been positive feedback about this counter from speakers who want to ensure time for Q&A sessions, etc., and overall, meetings have been conducted more effectively than in the past.