At a glance
- Client: County of San Mateo, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program — county government and public health
- Location: 1731 S El Camino Real, San Mateo, California — an occupied clinic with no existing AV of any kind
- Scope: One conference room built from bare walls, plus a lobby entry camera with a staff monitor and lobby digital signage; contract $85,219.74
- Platform: Q-SYS control and DSP on a single QSC Core 8 Flex, one 86-inch Avocor interactive display, Crestron AirMedia wireless presentation and Crestron room scheduling
- Timeline: Site walk 30 July 2025, proposal accepted September 2025, scope revised 5 December 2025, installed 13–16 April 2026
- Result: Commissioned, tested and confirmed functional on 16 April 2026, staff trained the same day, sign-off recorded with no open issues
The situation: what do you do with a room that has no AV at all?
The County of San Mateo runs its Women, Infants and Children program out of a clinic at 1731 S El Camino Real. WIC staff hold trainings, case reviews and outreach sessions in a conference room there. When we walked the site with Kevin Pankhurst on 30 July 2025, the room had nothing in it. No display, no microphones, no speakers, no way to share a laptop screen.
That is a different problem from a refresh. Nobody was complaining that the camera framed badly or that the far end kept asking them to repeat themselves, because there was no camera and no far end. Staff either crowded around a laptop or booked somewhere else.
Two other problems came up on the same walk. Reception staff sit in cubicles with no line of sight to the front door, so they could not see who was coming in. And the lobby had no way to show program information to families waiting.
What made it hard
The clinic stays open. WIC appointments run through the day, families are in the lobby, and the conference room sits inside the working part of the building. Standard install hours were Monday to Friday, 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which means the work happened around clinic operations rather than after everyone went home.
Three separate systems had to land in the same building on the same trip: the conference room, the entry camera and monitor, and lobby signage. They share a network and a technician, and nothing else.
The scope also moved. The September 2025 proposal included a twelve-channel Eagle Eye video surveillance system — five cameras, exterior and interior, with three years of cloud recording. That was removed in a revised proposal dated 5 December 2025, and the contract was signed at $85,219.74 without it. Scope that leaves a government job late is normal; what matters is that the cabling and switch capacity left behind still suit whoever picks it up later.
How we designed it: one processor doing control and audio
The room standard is a QSC Core 8 Flex handling DSP, video routing logic and room control in a single box, with a QSC TSC-101-G3 touch panel as the only thing a user touches. Putting control and audio on one platform means one piece of software to configure, one thing to update, and no control processor arguing with a separate DSP over who owns the volume.
An 86-inch Avocor AVH-8620 4K interactive display is wall-mounted on the south wall on a Chief XSM1U mount, above an Audio Visual Furniture CR3-WM three-bay credenza. Two Shure MXA920W-S ceiling array microphones cover the table, and eight QSC AD-C6T-ZB-WH ceiling loudspeakers on a QSC SPA2-60 amplifier cover the room. A QSC NC-12x80 PTZ camera is wall-mounted above the display for conferencing.
Sources are deliberately boring: a county-furnished PC in the credenza, HDMI and USB-C at the table through a Lightware UCX-2X1-TPX-TX20 transmitter into a UCX-3X3-TPX-RX20 receiver in the rack, and a Crestron AM-3200-WF AirMedia receiver for wireless sharing. The touch panel gives four buttons — Computer, Laptop, Wireless Share, and Camera Control and Settings — plus a standby button in the corner. An Atlona AT-OCS-900N occupancy sensor wakes the room when someone walks in and drops it to standby when the room empties, so the display is not burning hours on an empty room.
Ceiling arrays rather than table microphones was the call for this room. Two MXA920s cover the table from the grid without putting anything on it to knock over, unplug or clean around. In a clinic where the room gets reconfigured for a training one day and a case review the next, coverage that does not depend on where the furniture ended up is worth the extra cost of the array and the ceiling access it needs.
The scope is also honest about what the room does not include, and it is worth repeating: there is no acoustic treatment and no video-specific lighting in this price. A room with hard surfaces or heavy HVAC noise will sound like one, and no amount of DSP fixes that after the fact.
Equipment by room type
| Room type | Count | Display | Codec / sources | Camera | Audio | Control | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference room | 1 | Avocor AVH-8620, 86-inch 4K PCAP interactive, on a Chief XSM1U mount | County-furnished PC; Lightware UCX-2X1-TPX-TX20 / UCX-3X3-TPX-RX20 for table HDMI and USB-C; Crestron AM-3200-WF AirMedia | QSC NC-12x80 PTZ, 12x zoom, 80° horizontal, on a PTZ-WMB1 wall bracket | 2 × Shure MXA920W-S ceiling arrays (Dante); 8 × QSC AD-C6T-ZB-WH ceiling loudspeakers; QSC SPA2-60 amplifier | QSC Core 8 Flex; QSC TSC-101-G3 touch panel; Atlona AT-OCS-900N occupancy sensor; Furman RS-2 key switch | Audio Visual Furniture CR3-WM three-bay credenza with a Middle Atlantic CAB-COOL-2 double-fan cooler; SurgeX SX-AEP-159 and SX-DPP-102i power conditioning |
| Room scheduling | 1 | — | — | — | — | Crestron TSS-1070-B-S with TSW-1070-LB-B-S light bar | Wall-mounted outside the door on an angled multisurface mount; green available, red booked; needs internet access |
| Entry camera and staff monitor | 1 | Sharp PN-E439 43-inch wall monitor at the cubicles | Blackmagic HyperDeck Studio HD Mini; Blackmagic Micro Converter HDMI to SDI 3G | Panasonic AW-UE4KG compact 4K PTZ in the hallway facing the front door | — | — | RTMP/RTMPS streaming capable; viewable in a browser |
| Lobby digital signage | 1 | Samsung QB43C, 43-inch | BrightSign XT244 player | — | — | — | Samsung SH37R-B 37-inch stretch display also supplied; PoE-powered player |
| Network | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | Netgear M4250 (GSM4230PX-100NAS), 24 × 1G PoE+ 480W, 4 × SFP+ |
The signal chain, by function
| Function | Model | Qty |
|---|---|---|
| Interactive display | Avocor AVH-8620, 86-inch | 1 |
| Processor, DSP and control | QSC Core 8 Flex | 1 |
| Touch panel | QSC TSC-101-G3, 10-inch | 1 |
| Conferencing camera | QSC NC-12x80 | 1 |
| Ceiling microphone array | Shure MXA920W-S | 2 |
| Ceiling loudspeaker | QSC AD-C6T-ZB-WH | 8 |
| Amplifier | QSC SPA2-60 | 1 |
| Table transmitter / rack receiver | Lightware UCX-2X1-TPX-TX20 / UCX-3X3-TPX-RX20 | 1 each |
| Wireless presentation | Crestron AM-3200-WF | 1 |
| Room scheduling panel and light bar | Crestron TSS-1070-B-S + TSW-1070-LB-B-S | 1 |
| Occupancy sensor | Atlona AT-OCS-900N | 1 |
| Rack power control and conditioning | Furman RS-2; SurgeX SX-AEP-159; SurgeX SX-DPP-102i | 1 each |
| Network switch | Netgear GSM4230PX-100NAS | 1 |
| Credenza and cooling | Audio Visual Furniture CR3-WM; Middle Atlantic CAB-COOL-2 | 1 each |
| Entry camera | Panasonic AW-UE4KG | 1 |
| Camera recorder and converter | Blackmagic HyperDeck Studio HD Mini; Micro Converter HDMI to SDI 3G | 1 each |
| Staff monitor | Sharp PN-E439 | 1 |
| Signage displays and player | Samsung QB43C; Samsung SH37R-B; BrightSign XT244 | 1 each |
Network and IT: what the county's people asked for
The as-built drawing separates two networks by name: AV LAN and DATA LAN. AV devices sit behind the Netgear M4250, which carries PoE+ with a 480W budget — enough for the microphone arrays, the camera, the touch panel, the scheduling panel and the BrightSign player without a separate injector anywhere.
The detail worth copying is a note printed on the control sheet: installers do not plug into client network; person commissioning will plug in at time of commissioning. On a county site the AV contractor does not get to decide when unknown devices appear on the county's network. Everything gets built, cabled and labelled first, and network connection happens once, deliberately, with county IT aware of it.
The horizontal cabling is shielded Category 6 F/UTP, 23 AWG, supported above the ceiling grid on j-hooks, terminated to RJ-45 in surface-mount boxes, labelled and tested; loudspeaker runs are 16 AWG two-conductor plenum. Shielded cable is not an accident here — both Shure arrays carry Dante interfaces alongside their control ports, and the serial record captures a separate Dante MAC address for each one. Audio that rides the same switch as everything else is a reason to spend the extra on the cable rather than discover it during commissioning.
Two devices need to reach the internet by design and were called out as such up front: the Crestron scheduling panel, for calendar access, and AirMedia for wireless sharing. Everything else can sit on the AV segment with no route out — and saying which is which in writing, before the review starts, is the fastest way to shorten it.
The rollout
The system was staged off site first — racked, configured and tested in the shop before anything went in a van. The proposal had allowed roughly 140 hours, eight days, starting eight weeks after the order. Order of work was cabling and mounts, then the credenza and rack, then the display, ceiling microphones and speakers, then commissioning and the single network connection.
On site, the work ran 13 to 16 April 2026 with three technicians. Training was two one-hour sessions on the same day, which is all a four-button touch panel should need. The county then had a seven-day grace period to use the room and report anything wrong, fixed at no cost. The coordination drawing set had gone out 26 February 2026.
Results
The system was commissioned, tested and confirmed functional on 16 April 2026, and county staff were trained on it the same day. The closeout sign-off sheet records the service-call section — issue and resolution — as not applicable: nothing was outstanding at handover, and the room went into use rather than onto a punch list.
The as-built revision was issued 20 April 2026, four days after the room was handed over and well inside the two weeks the contract allows for closeout documentation. The package the county holds is the complete one: as-built drawings, the Q-SYS design file, an equipment list, and a serial-number and MAC-address record covering every networked device in the room, down to the Dante addresses on both microphone arrays.
That record is the part that pays off later. When a switch port needs tracing or a device needs replacing in year four, nobody has to open a ceiling to find out what is up there.
Support from here
The room came with a one-year workmanship warranty covering installation, programming source code, and the labour to handle any materials warranty claim during the term. Materials follow each manufacturer's own policy, and the Avocor display carries an additional two-year extended warranty on top of its standard term. Where a CreationCare service-level agreement is in place it supersedes the warranty documents.
The SLA is a four-priority model with published clocks. P1, a system completely unavailable: one hour to respond, two hours to a remote connection, four hours to a resolution path, two business days on site, two business days for equipment. P2: two hours, four hours, eight hours, two business days on site, one week for equipment. P3: four hours, eight hours, next business day, one week on site. P4, an information request or a covered change: eight hours to respond. The commercial tier runs 8/5 with next-business-day on-site, and the service desk takes calls Monday to Friday, 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Pacific.
Optional monitoring puts a data collection appliance on the county's network over an SSL tunnel, backed by a 24/7/365 service desk, and raises an incident before anyone calls it in — with notification by email and, for P1, a phone call to the site contact. A web portal lets the county open and track tickets rather than chasing an inbox.
A room like this drifts quietly. Firmware moves under the Q-SYS design, a certificate expires on the scheduling panel, someone swaps the county PC and the USB routing no longer matches, and none of it announces itself until a meeting will not start. Rooms stay in spec because somebody looks at them on a schedule, not because they were built well once.
Frequently Asked Questions — Building a Q-SYS Conference Room in a County Clinic
Answers to the questions county IT, facilities and procurement teams ask most often about building a conference room from bare walls, county security review, and what happens after handover. Last updated: September 2026.
What does a conference room like this cost?
This build — one conference room from bare walls, plus an entry camera with a staff monitor and lobby signage — was contracted at $85,219.74, including sales tax and a one-year workmanship warranty. A conference room on its own, without the signage and camera work, lands well below that.
The display, the credenza and the ceiling audio carry most of the cost. The control platform is the cheapest line item and the one that decides how the room behaves for the next decade.
How long is the room out of service during an AV installation?
This room did not exist as an AV space, so nothing was lost while we built it. On site, the work ran 13 to 16 April 2026 with three technicians, and the system was commissioned, tested and confirmed functional on the last of those days, with staff trained the same afternoon.
In an occupied building the off-site staging is what makes that possible. Racking, configuring and testing in the shop first means the days on site are installation, not problem-solving.
Can we reuse an existing display or room PC?
Often yes. The county supplied the room PC here and we integrated it into the credenza on a rack plate. The condition on owner-furnished equipment is always the same: it has to be on site and tested working before installation starts.
If it turns out to be faulty or undocumented, integrating it becomes extra parts and labour — and usually becomes the reason a room misses its date.
Can one AV design be standardized across other county sites?
Yes, and Q-SYS makes it straightforward. The same Core 8 Flex design file, the same TSC-101-G3 touch panel and the same four buttons — Computer, Laptop, Wireless Share, and Camera Control and Settings — can be pushed to another room. One spares pool, one firmware baseline, and staff who can walk into any of the rooms and run them.
The same standard runs on the county's renovated Human Services floor across town: three Q-SYS conference rooms with voice lift.
What does a county security review of AV equipment involve?
Typically five things: which VLAN each device sits on, which devices need to reach the internet and why, how they authenticate, what firmware is approved, and who holds admin credentials after handover. None of it is AV work and all of it blocks AV commissioning.
On this job the answer was written into the drawings: build, cable and label everything first, then connect to the county network once, at commissioning, rather than plugging devices in as they are installed.
What does the support contract actually cover?
Remote troubleshooting with your room's documentation in front of the technician, on-site dispatch when remote will not resolve it, RMA handling, firmware guidance, and optional monitoring that raises incidents before anyone reports them.
Response, remote-connection, resolution-path and on-site times are published per priority level and run 8/5 on the commercial tier, with the service desk open 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Pacific on weekdays. See CreationCare maintenance and support.
What happens when one of these AV products is discontinued?
Everything in this room will be discontinued eventually. What keeps that cheap is the closeout package: as-built drawings, the Q-SYS design file, an equipment list, and recorded serial numbers and MAC addresses for every networked device — Dante addresses included.
With that in hand, replacing one box stays a swap. Without it, it becomes a redesign, and the redesign costs more than the box.
COUNTY & GOVERNMENT AV • BUILT FROM BARE WALLS
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Technology partners on this project
Related reading: the same Q-SYS standard across three conference rooms on a renovated San Mateo County floor, earlier county work at the San Mateo Board of Supervisors, our control system and DSP programming work, county and municipal AV projects, healthcare and clinic AV, digital signage, and the conference room AV standard we build from.
Creation Networks, Inc. — nationwide commercial AV integrator, CTS-D certified, based in Concord, CA and Incline Village, NV. Design, engineering, programming, installation, and support from a single point of contact since 2006. Call 888-230-3661 or email sales@creationnetworks.net.
