At its most basic, a video conferencing setup needs four things: a camera, a microphone, a speaker, and a display — plus the compute (a laptop, mini PC, or dedicated room console) to run the meeting software itself. For small rooms these often come bundled into a single all-in-one video bar; for anything bigger, they’re usually separate, purpose-chosen components. Beyond the hardware, it’s worth making sure whatever you choose is certified to work with the platform your organisation actually uses — Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or otherwise.

The gap is bigger than people expect. A huddle room (a handful of people) is well served by a single all-in-one video bar — camera, mic and speaker in one unit — paired with one screen. Move up to a mid-size meeting room and you’re generally better off with a dedicated PTZ camera and a tabletop or ceiling microphone for more even audio pickup. A large boardroom needs more again: multiple cameras or a premium auto-tracking wide-angle camera, ceiling microphone arrays with noise-filtering, and often dual large-format displays or a video wall to keep everyone visible and heard. The right setup follows the room, not the other way around.

A video bar is a single device with the camera, microphone and speaker built in — plug it into a screen, connect a laptop or mini PC, and you’re up and running. It’s simple, quick to install and cost-effective, which makes it a strong fit for huddle rooms and small-to-medium spaces. A full room codec system is modular: separate cameras, microphones and speakers connected to a dedicated processing unit, giving you far more flexibility — multiple cameras, ceiling mic arrays, support for larger or oddly shaped rooms, and the ability to upgrade individual components down the track rather than replacing the whole system. In short: video bars for simplicity and speed, codec systems for scale and flexibility.

Most of the equipment we work with is built to be certified for one or both platforms — Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms — meaning it’s been specifically tested and approved to run natively with that software, rather than just technically connecting to it. Which certification matters depends on what your organisation already runs day-to-day, and it’s one of the first things we check when recommending hardware, so you’re not left with a video bar or codec that only half-works with the platform your team is actually using.

Yes. We handle the full installation, from initial site assessment and cabling through to mounting, connecting and configuring the equipment and testing it end-to-end before we hand the room over. The goal is a room that works the first time someone walks in and starts a meeting, not one that needs troubleshooting in week one.

It comes down to a few key factors: the size and shape of the rooms you’re equipping, which conferencing platform your organisation already uses (Teams, Zoom, or both), how many rooms you need to standardise across, and how much flexibility you want to keep for future upgrades. Rather than picking hardware first, it’s worth starting with those questions — we usually walk through a room-by-room assessment so the equipment actually matches how each space gets used, instead of a one-size-fits-all setup that under-serves the big room and over-specs the small one.