Choosing Audio Visual Equipment for Your Video Conferencing Setup
Audio visual (AV) is an integral part of the modern workplace. Not only is it vital for team collaboration within the office, it also enables remote workers to enjoy streamlined communication, regardless of their location.
However, given the wide range of AV solutions available, many organisations struggle when it comes to putting together the right video conferencing setup. Here’s a simple overview of what’s involved with choosing AV equipment, as well as our best tips for selecting the optimal solutions.
The Five Main Factors
Generally speaking, there are five factors you’ll want to consider when putting together your video conferencing setup:
- Meeting room size: How many people are going to use it, and how far will they be sitting from the display and/or camera?
- Specific application: The platform you’re looking to use it on (Zoom or Microsoft Teams, for instance)
- Functionality: How do you want to interact with the room? wired or wireless? Do you want to automate its operation?
- Form factor: The size, shape, and location of the AV equipment
- Cost: Your overall budget
Main Meeting Room Sizes
Keeping those factors in mind, here are a few examples of what a proper video conferencing setup might look like, based on three meeting room sizes — small, medium, and large.
Small Meeting Rooms
A small meeting room typically holds 1-3 team members and has a single digital display, sized roughly 40-55”. Hardware usually consists of small, wall-mounted all-in-one conferencing soundbars (including a camera, microphone, and speaker) or tabletop speaker phones and a camera. Simple setups allow for BYOD, where staff can use their own devices during meetings.
The new Logitech Rally Bar Mini is a simple and cost effective solution for small BYOD meeting rooms. It features a wall-mounted, all-in-one conferencecam with an ultra-wide lens that’s specifically designed for small rooms. The integrated microphone and speaker improves upon display audio and ensures participants are heard clearly. Simply plug in your USB cable and start conferencing.
Medium Meeting Rooms
Medium meeting rooms generally accommodate teams with 4-8 people with a larger, single digital display of 65-85”, allowing team members to view the screen from longer distances.
Video conferencing setups in these spaces usually include large, wall-mounted all-in-one conferencing soundbars or tabletop speaker phones and cameras on the digital display. Medium meeting room AV equipment is scaled up to provide increased performance and functionality, whilst signal extension may be required for those on the larger end.
Crestron Flex is a popular AV solution for medium meeting rooms and has a robust array of features, including:
- Full open SIP conference phone
- Ultra-high microphone and audio quality
- One-touch buttons to instantly join meetings
- A built-in occupancy sensor
- Multiple form factors for flexible installation
- Integrated Microsoft Teams Room or Zoom Room functionality
- BYOD flexible operation on specific models.
Large Meeting Rooms
Finally, there are large meeting rooms, which seat teams of 12-20+ staff members.
Typically, you have two main screen options for large meeting rooms in order to accommodate potentially long viewing distances. You can use dual digital displays with two screens (often roughly 65-85”), or you can use a very large single display screen (often 98” or larger LED).
AV hardware for large meeting rooms is application-specific and built for the specific needs of your team. High-performance cameras, including powerful PTZ cameras, are used along with table or ceiling-mounted microphones.
These video conferencing setups commonly come with sophisticated audio features like Audio processing with Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC) to ensure superior sound quality. To seamlessly control a large meeting room there are often features like a touch panel interface for in-presentation switching and microphone control.
Logitech, Microsoft, QSC and Sennheiser bring a collaboration of four of the most reputable brands when it comes to large scale video conferencing systems. This is a modular system that allows for configuration to the unique needs of your team and comes loaded with innovative features including:
- The ultra-high-quality QSC PTZ 12×72 camera
- Sennheiser Teamconnect Ceiling Array microphone
- Ultra-powerful Core 110f Audio Processing
- Logitech TAP control
- Seamless camera switching
- Native Microsoft Teams Rooms integration
- Q-SYS network based AV over IP signal transport.
Choosing the Perfect Setup for Your Organisation
To ensure you choose the ideal AV setup, let Engagis help you pick the right brand, whether that’s Logitech, Crestron, Poly or something else entirely. Not only can we supply you with the most suitable product, our top-tier managed service support ensures it stays running at a high-level.
Want to learn more about choosing AV equipment for your video conferencing setup, and get personalised suggestions for the unique needs or your organisation? Reach out to the experts at Engagis today.
