Audio-Visual Design Practices for the Security Operations Center

By Brian Murphy, CTS

The Security Operations Center, or SOC, presents unique audio-visual challenges. The standards and accepted practices that apply to more conventional audio-visual spaces such as classrooms, meeting rooms and auditoria do not readily apply to the SOC.

The typical SOC is equipped to allow security personnel to view multiple images simultaneously. However, in the SOC this multi-image viewing occurs on a scale that usually exceeds that found in most other audio-visual environments. For example, while an advanced classroom might provide the capacity to display several images simultaneously, a SOC for even a moderate-sized corporate campus may require the simultaneous display of hundreds of images. To add to the challenge, most SOC’s are relatively small facilities, designed to seat only a few people at most, so a large amount of display capacity must be crammed into a tight space.

In fact, high display count and small room size tend to make many SOC’s resemble a broadcast control room, and so it is to the broadcast industry that one can look to find some good design practices. Publications from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) as well as numerous broadcast industry white papers provide a wealth of information that can be applied to the design of the environment as well as the display systems within the typical SOC.

What follows are a few rules of thumb for the proper design of the SOC:

• Walls and décor surrounding the viewing area should have a neutral matte finish with no reflective surfaces and no dominant colors. The finish should not exceed 10% of the peak luminance of the viewing display’s reference white level.
  
  
• The security console and desk millwork should likewise have a neutral finish with no reflective surfaces or dominant colors.
  
  
• Lighting within the room should be provided by directional fixtures, with no more than 5 foot candle (fc) incident upon the display surface, or no more than 10% of the peak luminance of the viewing display’s reference white level, whichever is less.
  
  
• Illumination on work surfaces should be within 8-10 fc. This light level is bright enough for reading and writing, but dim enough that the viewer’s eyes do not need to adjust whenever they look up at the display.
  
  
• Display technologies that have non-reflective surfaces (LCD, rear projection) should be considered over technologies that have reflective glass surfaces (Plasma).
  
  
• The optimum viewing distance should be between 3 and 5 times the height of the largest image normally displayed, with 4 times the height being the ideal viewing distance. In a SOC utilizing a highly configurable display such as a video wall, this is typically the camera view displayed during an alarm event, or any image called up for critical viewing by the operator.
  
  
• The maximum vertical viewing angle from seated personnel to the center of the display area is 25 degrees, with 15 degrees preferred. The maximum horizontal viewing angle is 15 degrees. Angled seating and consoles can be used to help achieve this.
  
  
• Video walls that utilize multiple rear-projection DLP cubes should be given consideration over video wall utilizing multiple flat panel monitors. Cubes have much smaller bezels than flat panels, reducing the effect of an image being “broken-up” when it is enlarged across multiple displays within the wall.
  
  
• To prevent outside sounds from distracting security personnel, and to protect secure speech within the room, wall, floor and ceiling constructions should each provide a minimum Sound Transmission Class (STC) of 55. This minimum may need to be increased depending on adjacencies. The ceiling structure above (in the case of their being an occupied floor above) should have a minimum Impact Isolation Class (IIC) of 38.
  
  
• To aid personnel in hearing alarm events and each other, the maximum Noise Criteria (NC) for the room should fall between 30 and 35. Air distribution as well as partition construction (see above) should be adjusted to meet or exceed this goal.
  
  
• The reverberation time (RT60) within the room should be between 0.4 and 0.7 seconds. Provide acoustic treatments as needed to meet this goal.

Brian Murphey, CTS, is a senior A/V consultant with EDI. He can be reached at bmurphey@ediltd.com.