Commercial Integrator + Security Sales Sept/Oct 2023 - 52

TECH UPDATE
C llab rati n
TODAY and TOMORROW
Choosing the Right CAMERAS
for Your Conference Room
Considering the most essential
power features for conference-room
cameras, as well as the various
form-factor options to evaluate.
By David Maldow
IT HAS NOW BEEN about three years since the pandemic
lockdown. Back then, we would have thought that, after the
return to the office was complete, we wouldn't need so many
video cameras. After all, everyone we'd want to meet with
would be back at the office with us, right? This isn't how it
panned out. Instead, we have a new, flexible/hybrid workforce.
On any given day, only some members of a given team will be
at the office. Every meeting is now a video meeting. Rather
than fewer cameras, we actually need more of them.
turns out that it's relatively easy to optimize a home office for
video: A decent headset and webcam, along with proper framing
and lighting, can make anyone look and sound great on
Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, etc. Meeting rooms, however,
are another story. At a minimum, you need more powerful audio
and video to handle larger meeting-room spaces. To make
things even harder, it can be tricky to capture and frame multiple
participants in oddly shaped (or even standard-shaped)
rooms. Vendors are responding with a constant flow of new
devices, features and form factors.
Let's start by looking at the top features you might want
to have for your meeting rooms. Then, we'll look at the
available form factors you can choose from to deliver that
experience.
2023 Meeting-Room Power Features
A list of every possible hot feature, representing every vendor
in the category, would be far too extensive for this article.
Instead, let's look at some of the top things that matter for your
meeting rooms.
1. Video Software Certification: Today's top video software
services, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, offer
certification programs for hardware. These companies want
to ensure that, when their customers use Zoom Room or Microsoft
Teams Room software, they will have good experiences
and that one manufacturer's component is swappable for
another. These certification programs are rigorous, and they
might require changes to devices' actual hardware design in
order to get them certified. If you make sure that your room
system is certified for the service you intend to use in that
room, you've taken a big step toward optimizing the meeting
experience in that room.
2. Video Service Interoperability/Compatibility: One of
There is a lot of interest in, and excitement around, business
video in general and meeting-room videoconferencing
systems in particular.
Interest/Excitement Around Business Video
With this clear background, there is a lot of interest in, and excitement
around, business video in general and meeting-room
videoconferencing systems in particular. This is because our
experiences with meeting-room video must be improved. It
the most common problems in business communications
today is how to manage multiple services. You might choose
to use Zoom for everything, put it in all your meeting rooms
and give all your employees accounts. However, at some
point, you will most assuredly get a Microsoft Teams meeting
invitation. Many companies have actually installed multiple
meeting-room systems (e.g., a Zoom Room solution, a Microsoft
Teams Room solution) into each room to try to solve
the problem. Fortunately, today, we're starting to see systems
that can support meetings from more than one video service.
Obviously, this should be one of the top considerations for
any new deployment.
52 Commercial Integrator+Security Sales & Integration | Sept/Oct 2023
KOLDUNOVA/STOCK.ADOBE.COM
Commercial Integrator + Security Sales Sept/Oct 2023

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