In the heart of Waxahachie, TX, the Ellis County Courthouse is an emblem of architectural heritage and civic service. Completed in 1897, offers a glimpse into the craftsmanship of Romanesque Revival architecture. Ellis County Courthouse’s recent restoration efforts brought new life to the facility, addressing deteriorating stonework, enhancing accessibility and correcting interior alterations that strayed from its historic roots with the help of Visionary AV over IP solutions.
[AVoIP and KVM in the Control Room]
Within the courthouse’s restored walls, outdated audiovisual infrastructure posed a major challenge. The county judges, court reporters, attorneys and other courtroom participants were relying on a system that had already outlived its lifespan. A longtime partner to Ellis County, Infinity had installed the original system and remained a trusted integrator for ongoing service. When the opportunity came to bring the AV system into the modern age, the team partnered with the county to deliver a complete overhaul across four identical courtrooms, including a new sub-courthouse and an administrative courts building to support its growing population. Infinity’s approach honored the original layout by keeping input locations at the judge’s bench, prosecution bench and defense bench, but replaced the outdated system with AV over IP technology from Visionary.
“At this point, Visionary has become our go-to video system provider,” explained Noah Mast, CTS, sales consultant for Infinity Sound. “The flexibility and simplicity they offer with the PacketAV Matrix Series are unmatched. I really appreciate the DUET 2 devices because they support both HDMI and USB-C, which makes them compatible with virtually any computer, especially helpful as more devices transition to USB-C.”
A new endpoint was added at the witness stand to ensure video evidence could be viewed with greater clarity, a critical component in courthouse settings, and routing capabilities were significantly enhanced. Beyond the hardware, the system was designed with seamless usability in mind.
“Our setups are engineered to be easy to configure. We use NETGEAR switches, so the entire system is straightforward from a deployment standpoint,” Mast added. “Visionary’s decoders are a standout, with built-in RS-232 that let us control displays and projection screens directly from the device. It’s a streamlined, all-in-one solution.”
Even though the courthouse currently uses existing all-in-one displays for conferencing, the infrastructure is designed to support expanded capabilities in the future. “They’ve recently invested in the desktop collaboration and conferencing units, so they’re holding off on a broader video conferencing rollout for now,” said Mast. “But the system is ready whenever they are.”
Having serviced the courthouse for many years, Infinity takes pride in the partnership and the reliability of the technology they’ve implemented. “We now use Visionary’s PacketAV Matrix Series on nearly every video system project,” said Mast. “From procurement to backend support, they’ve been awesome to work with. Honestly, the fact that we rarely need support says everything—it just works.”
Now, courtroom participants can easily manage video feeds and route content directly to their monitors with precision and confidence. The upgrade replaced aging technology and transformed the system into a scalable, flexible, and future-proof solution.