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Videoconferencing made easy

The challenge. To provide a video experience so good that you forget the fact that the people you’re meeting with are not in the room with you. Also to provide it consistently, with a system so reliable and easy to use that you can forget about the technology and concentrate on the task at hand.

The solution. Designing a videoconferencing room is a complex problem requiring a systems integrator with real expertise. There are a several things you should look for and expect in your new room:

“In a good video system, you should get the feeling that you’re talking to someone sitting directly across from you,” says John Laughlin, chief operating officer of CTI. “The system should give the emphasis to the people you’re meeting with. They should be the right size and they should sound natural. It’s a lot like when you take your child to a photography studio. The photographer carefully positions your child, the camera, the lighting and the background, to focus your attention on her.”

• The system should be set up so that, when people look at the screen, they are looking directly into the camera. “If they’re not,” says Laughlin, “then you always have the feeling you’re talking to someone who is not looking at you, that is, not really interested in what you’re saying.” In most cases, the camera should be centered just below the bottom of the screen, which will put it a little above table height, almost on a level with people’s faces.
• The background should be neutral. You don’t want distracting objects or artwork behind meeting participants.
• Lighting should be soft and brightest on the people in the meeting, so they stand out from the background.
• The room should be quiet and acoustically neutral. “Rooms that have soft carpets, soft walls and textures that absorb audio certainly outperform those that don’t,” says Laughlin.
• Teardrop, round and wedge-shaped tables are best. “If people are sitting at a straight boardroom table, every one of them has to lean forward or back to get a view, and the camera doesn’t get a good look at any of them.”
• The right microphones and audio processors are critical, so you have clean, natural sound. “This is a big issue when we design distance learning systems in large classrooms and lecture halls,” says Laughlin. “We always ask, how many of the students do we need to see and hear? We can mic every seat in the house, but generally there’s a much simpler solution that will save the client a lot of money.”
• Controls need to be extremely simple and intuitive. “You have to ask, what is the technical expertise of the people who will use this room, and then design controls that will work for them.”

Finding a systems integrator. When you choose a supplier for your videoconferencing system, make sure you choose someone with real expertise. You need someone like CTI, who does hundreds of conferencing rooms each year and who has years of experience in the field. Your vendor should not only design and build systems, but also provide the maintenance and support you need to keep your system running at its best. Be sure to ask if they can send technicians to your site for critical meetings and if they offer a multipoint bridging service and ISDN gateway, so you can avoid the high cost of ISDN service and extra data lines.

“The fact is, if the room is easy to use and extremely reliable, then it will be used all the time,” says Laughlin. “If the room is inconsistent and not put together properly, you’re going to have a hard time getting anyone to use it at all. Therefore, whether you hire CTI or someone else, it’s critical that you find a firm with real expertise. You need the right solution at the right budget, so you can accomplish your primary goal of raising the productivity level of your staff.”

Conference Technologies Inc.®  ~   Creating A Vision For Technology