904AV

Which camera is right for your conference room

March 31, 2021 / roncassette

There are a lot of factors that go into choosing the right camera (or cameras) setup for your conference room. One of the most common factors is the table.

Table Shape

The most common table I run into is the rectangle.

Setups like this can be captured from a single camera. Longer tables like the one in the picture would need a pan/tilt/zoom (ptz) camera mostly for the optical zoom aspect. Another technology that would help with this setup is auto framing. Auto framing uses artificial intelligence to see where people are sitting at the table and will zoom in to frame them.

The U

This is one I sometimes run into for boardrooms. the U shaped table spreads people out while still allowing them to see each other.

While one camera set in the middle of the room can capture the entire space you will either need somebody driving it or leave it zoomed all the way out. There are two better options:

Camera Tracking

The first one is through camera tracking. There are several manufacturers making camera tracking tech but the better ones for this type of setup use two cameras. One is focused on the active speaker and the other is looking for the next speaker. The benefit of this is when the system switches from one speaker to the other you don’t see the refocusing as the other camera has already found the speaker and zoomed into them before switching over.

Triggers

While camera tracking generally uses sound to determine who to focus on you can also use triggers like a mic being unmuted. Large U shaped setups also lend themselves to discussion systems, mics with built in speakers for each seat at the table. With multiple cameras covering the room the view is determined by which microphones are unmuted. Ideally the system will be setup to only allow a small number of mics to be active at any one time.

Vaddio makes a reliable trigger called the StepVIEW that works great in classroom settings. Its a rubberized mat that triggers a camera preset when stepped on. Place one at the podium and the camera will automatically zoom into the teacher standing at the lectern. When they step off the mat the camera zooms out to a wider view. There are a lot of creative uses for triggers.

Everybody is turning on their camera these days, make sure you have the right one!

You need a cable path to your conference table.

March 16, 2021 / roncassette

Often one of the first questions I have on a site visit is ‘what’s the cable path to your table’. The move to bring video and audio conferencing to more spaces is creating a need to put more equipment on the table. Things like microphones, control surfaces, video inputs and even power all require wires. Wire paths generally go from the table to the walls where they can find their way to the ceiling for speakers, behind displays or other parts of the room for cameras.

In new construction customers can have holes poked through the floor or trenches cut into the slab.

Unfortunately in existing rooms it can be very costly to create a poke through or a trench. So how do you bring cables to the table without creating a trip hazard. The simplest (though not recommend) way is to tape them down.

The trip hazard is fixed and the new tape lets everybody know where your cable path is! Not only is this an ugly solution it also does nothing to protect your cables. It will only take a couple roll overs from a conference room chair to kill the cables under this tape.

My go to solution for these situations is Connectrac. They make a terrific floor raceway that can either go over the carpet or under it if your lucky enough to be in a room where they are replacing the flooring. There are built in channels allowing us to run both power and low voltage cabling through it.

cross section of Connectrac over carpet solution

The over carpet raceway is about 10″ wide and ADA compliant. You can walk and run chairs over it all day long and the cables will remain protected. If your working in a a space where they are putting down new floors they make one that can go under the carpet as well, though its really more IN the carpet.

This solution creates a gentle slope with the raceway built into the floor and the top cap slides off to give you access to the wirepath. It does require coordination between us and the flooring installer but the finished product is clean, safe and secure.

Off to the next project!

Zoom Rooms added benefit: Wireless presenting

March 1, 2021 / roncassette

A lot of my customers have brought Zoom into their enterprise as a web conferencing option. Its easy to use and priced fairly so its not surprising to me. Where I have been surprised though is how the Zoom Room app has changed how people use their conference rooms for in person meetings. Specifically around video presentations.

I’ll use a recent project with Swisher International as an example. We were tasked with putting in some new conference spaces.

Based on their old standard that would have involved a Cisco codec, Mersive wireless and an HDMI connection at the table. Since switching to Zoom I figured we would replace the Cisco codec with a Zoom Room PC and everything else would be the same. WRONG. What Swisher had figured out was in spaces where they deployed a Zoom Room solution their users were presenting locally through Zooms wireless screen share option.

Ok, so no Mersive. Got it, everything else stays the same. WRONG AGAIN! Because of how how well Zooms wireless sharing worked they ditched the HDMI too. And taking the HDMI out also takes some of the backend video switching equipment out. No extenders, no cable runs, no conduit.

Rooms are now simplified from:

Of course you still have microphones and cameras to work with but just focusing on the video presentation portion it really does simplify things. Users also have the same experience in either local meetings or Zoom calls as it comes to presenting video.

Zoom Rooms also have the ability to ultrasonically detect a PC running their app and enable one touch sharing. Walk in, run Zoom, share screen. It really is hard to beat that kind of simplicity! Throw in some ceiling microphones and you end up with a super clean looking meeting room.

We used Sennheiser Teamconnect mics in this room. You can hardly see them but if you look close two of the ceiling tiles have an X on them. I’ll talk more about microphone arrays in an upcoming blog post.

On to the next project!

Is it time to switch from projection to flat panel?

February 17, 2021 / roncassette

With large flat panel displays becoming less expensive I’m starting to use them to replace older projection systems. I’ll use a recent project as a good example of this. As a Caterpillar Regional Dealer Learning Center it is important for Ring Power to keep their training rooms up to date.

Current setup

Like many training spaces this one had a podium up front with both a built in PC and also a connection for an instructors laptop. The projector screen was 120″ diagonal but formatted for a 4:3 aspect ratio (more of a square). The customer wanted to upgrade the video quality and since the room was wide but not too deep they also wanted dual displays.

Flat Panel vs Projector

Generally speaking projection gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Recently though flat panel displays like the 98″ NEC C981Q are starting to compete, especially in setups like this one. Though the current screen was large at 120″ it was formatted for a 4:3 image. Modern PC screens are formatted for HD images (16:9). When you connect your HDMI PC to a 4:3 setup you get either a scaled image (remember stumphead from one of my previous blog posts) or black bars at the top and bottom.

Wasted Space

Displaying an HD image on a 4:3 formatted screen will result in wasted space. You’ve probably seen it with the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen but this graphic gives you a better understanding of how much space is not used.

While the 4:3 image is 120″ the HD (1920×1080) image can only be displayed at 106″. Thats only 8″ larger than the 98″ flat panel display.

The Price is Right

With an MSRP of only $8799 the NEC competes very well with the cost of replacing both the projector and the screen. Especially when you take into account all the added benefits like a 4k image, super bright display, and a commercial 3yr warranty.

Project Complete

No need to dim the lights, these 4k 98″ displays provide an excellent training environment!

Flat panel displays are not for every room, currently the sweet spot seems to be in replacing these older 4:3 displays. Once you get above 100″ on flat panels you get into a different class of display (like dvLED) and the price goes way up. If the room and application supports it though, you may want to look at these more affordable 98″ gems.

On to the next project…

Monitor in front of a window? There is a solution for that.

February 9, 2021 / roncassette

In conference and boardrooms I always like to mount the display at the head of the table. All meeting participants are facing in the same direction when viewing content and if there is a video conference we can put a camera at the front to capture all the happy faces. Unfortunately the head of the table can be a window which makes mounting tricky.

Salamander Designs to the rescue

One of our premier vendors is Salamander Designs and I had a call with Chris Discotto recently that opened my eyes to some cool solutions. Salamander makes credenzas that have built in mounts for monitors.

Sounds boring, I know, but it actually solves a lot of problems. One of them is our window issue.

They have lots of finishes to match your table

The cabinets have passive cooling (can be active too) and built in rack components to store your equipment. They’re very customizable both inside and out.

Wall Backing and ADA Compliance

One of the first things I provide when we are kicking off a new project is an elevation showing where we are going to need wall backing, conduit and power. If your credenza comes with mounts it solves these issues too. Now all I need is power. It also helps when you are trying to create standardized rooms by eliminating the need to bring in another trade to prep the wall and add conduit.

Ever worry that your monitor may stick out more than ADA compliance allows? Placing the credenza under the monitor fixes that issue, even on egress walls.

AV furniture may not be as exciting as a 100″ interactive display but it sure can solve a lot of problems.

And look great too!

Bigger isn’t always better (though it usually is (but this time it wasn’t)

February 9, 2021 / roncassette

Boardrooms are always interesting! This one seemed to be well equipped when I did my first site visit. Large monitor at the head of the table and ceiling mics to keep a non-cluttered aesthetic. The Cisco codec was out of date but that’s an easy fix. Give me some pain!

So what’s not working here?

Lets take a closer look. Though the monitor was large (over 100”) it was an older consumer grade model. No matter how you tried to scale or format the image it always looked wrong. Either there were large black bars of wasted space or you experienced something I like to call stumphead syndrome.

Nobody wants to look like a stumphead while talking with the CEO of their company

The other pain point was the microphone setup. Though the room was tuned and had a decent DSP it just didn’t sound great. Upon closer inspection we figured out part of the problem, single element choir mics.

Work great when your capturing a group of singers, work poorly when your trying to focus in on a single talker.

The Upgrade

The customers VTC standard was dual monitor, one for far side video and one for content. In this case though the room was built with a nook to house a single large display. We talked to the rooms users and determined that a multi monitor approach would work while still keeping a single large monitor for content. We replaced the old consumer grade monitor with a new 4k Planar and in a bid for symmetry, we flanked it with two smaller far side view monitors. Though the 4k Planar was a couple inches shorter than the one it replaced it could be formatted correctly to eliminate the dreaded stumphead.

I am a big fan of table microphones. The closer I can get the mic to the talker the better. In this case though the customer wanted to keep the clean table look so we upgraded the single element choir mics with multi element beam trackers. The new microphones do a better job of picking up the active talker while ignoring softer background sounds.

The boardroom now has a fresh new look and people on the other side of the calls are appreciating the improved audio and correctly proportioned faces 🙂

On to the next project!

AV in Industrial Designs

February 8, 2021 / roncassette

Ron we’re looking for an open industrial design for this space

Those were the words I heard echoing around the room when I did my site survey. At the time the area was being demo’d with the ceiling grid removed and the floors stripped down to the concrete.

‘There’s a bit of an echo’

Hard surfaces allow sound to bounce around. The more bounce the more noise which is bad enough for in person meetings but really bad for audio calls. The plan for this site was tile floors and an exposed concrete ceiling, plus one whole wall was glass windows. If you’ve ever been in a restaurant with this look (and there are some in Jax) you know it’s almost impossible to carry on a conversation. Cool look but lots of noise!

Customer Vision

My customer was looking for a space to do both in person and video conference calls, in this case WebEx. They also wanted to be able to divide the space into zones to allow for break out sessions. Each zone could operate independently with their own display and speakers or everything could be combined with any of the zones being the main source. In this design sound will follow video and everything is routable.

Our Design

For video distribution we used Crestron’s network based NVX solution controlled with a 3-series processor. This network-based design made it easy to route the video signal to the desired zones. The audio signal was broken out and fed into a BiAmp Tesira server. To help reduce bleed over between the zones we went with a heavy speaker count. You may be thinking, noisy space and lots of speakers? Actually, more speakers allows us to focus the sound where we want it while keeping the overall volume down.

And a little help from the architect

In a lot of AV installs we seem to be the last trade to the mix. Luckily with this project we got in early and were able to influence the overall design. While the hard floors and ceilings stayed the architect also added baffles, acoustical tiles and area rugs.

Great Project! Onto the next…