As hybrid meetings have become the norm, user expectations have grown tremendously. A basic wide shot of the room is not enough anymore — today’s users demand more intelligent video systems that can deliver broadcast-quality experiences without the cost of a full video production team.
So what are these new tools that can be used to improve meeting equity for remote participants and help them feel like they’re actually part of the meeting and not just a fly on the wall?
Benefits of Single-Camera Solutions
Most new conferencing cameras (or soundbars, for smaller spaces) include some degree of intelligent video functionality. These often feature some combination of group framing, speaker tracking, presenter tracking and/or participant framing.
- Group framing zooms in to keep everyone in view without excess, empty space around them. This can be useful when a large room is being used with a smaller number of participants, but note that if the room is full, the experience won’t differ much from a basic wide shot.
- Speaker tracking uses audio cues to focus on active talkers. Some solutions may offer views of multiple active or recent speakers, or display a PiP overlay with a wide room shot for context. Cameras that rely on digital zoom can quickly cut to show a new active speaker, but the image quality can suffer in larger rooms where more digital zoom is required. Conversely, PTZ cameras with optical zoom will look much better, but viewers may be distracted by the physical movement of the camera from one speaker to the next.
- Presenter tracking follows a presenter as they move around the front of the room, rather than focusing on speakers around a table. These solutions typically offer tracking and exclusion zones, as well as preset areas for things such as a lectern or whiteboard.
- Participant framing digitally zooms and crops individual faces for better visibility, though image quality may suffer at high levels of digital zoom. Different cameras may also vary in how many faces they can frame simultaneously, which can limit effectiveness in larger rooms. Some conferencing platforms can natively process wide shots to similarly isolate faces rather than requiring that functionality to be built into the camera.
Note that sometimes “presenter tracking” functionality can be referred to as “speaker tracking” in product literature for intelligent video systems, so one must always confirm the actual functionality that users are requesting and that a particular solution is offering before deploying them.
How Multi-Camera Kits Improve The Viewing Experience
Multi-camera systems, often ready to use with minimal setup, add cost but can improve the viewing experience.
- Dual-head PTZ cameras can locate the next speaker before switching, so remote users don’t get distracted by seeing the camera constantly moving every time someone new speaks.
- Multi-lens cameras or soundbars switch between different wide and narrow field-of-view lenses to better capture meeting participants without excessive digital zoom.
- Center-of-table companion cameras pair with front-of-room soundbars for more natural camera views based on which way the meeting participants are facing.
- Multi-camera kits expand on the functionality of a standalone intelligent camera solution while still offering the simplicity of a single USB connection to the computer. These handle all the switching between cameras automatically, but offer limited adjustments to their default behavior.
While a lack of customization can streamline deployment and save on programming costs, it also means you may not be able to tailor the solution to specific needs. It’s highly recommended to pilot these systems in your environment before deploying them widely.
How to Leverage Advanced Custom Solutions for Meetings
Advanced custom solutions leverage intelligent microphone systems to locate the active speaker and aim one or more PTZ cameras accordingly. Lower-budget solutions may support fewer cameras and have functional limitations, like only supporting basic camera preset recall based on audio levels in a particular microphone zone.
More expensive solutions may offer additional audio processing to discern speech from noise, visual AI to detect which way speakers are facing and select the best camera shot, automatic switching to a presenter tracking camera when a presenter is detected, and advanced support for reconfigurable furniture layouts.
While these solutions can deliver impressive results, they come with a high price tag both for the equipment itself and for the programming and configuration work required to fine-tune the systems for your needs. Several of these solutions are designed to only work within a particular ecosystem, so it’s important to verify compatibility before getting started if you already have standardized audio, control and/or video conferencing hardware.
Other Considerations for Intelligent Video Systems
- Camera placement matters. There’s often tension between optimizing for capturing the full room versus ensuring a clean view of a distant participant, such as the CEO at the head of the table. If you have to compromise, which is more important? You’ll need to prioritize what matters most to you.
- Large-format front-of-room displays can make it hard to have a camera centered and at eye-level at the front of the room, so consider what alternative angles you’re willing to live with.
- Lighting is another crucial and often-overlooked factor. Aim for clear, even lighting across the entire room, with neutral backdrops. Avoid aiming cameras at windows that see a lot of sun, or else your meeting participants may look like silhouettes.
- Audio: At the end of the day, you can still hold a productive meeting if your video drops out. But if your audio isn’t intelligible, you can’t have a functional meeting. That’s why proper microphone selection, quantity and placement within the room are all crucial, as well as the fundamental acoustics of the space itself. Technology can only do so much to counter the laws of physics, though advances in audio processing are certainly helping.
When to Hire Live Operators
There’s a big difference between a space designed for day-to-day conferencing and one meant for special events like quarterly business reviews or CEO town halls. While intelligent video solutions can stretch into some of these use cases, it’s important to consider and account for their specific needs.
For example, if post-production is required, you’ll need isolated camera and audio feeds, which essentially means you need to just build a video production studio. In that case, designing from a production-first mindset may be more effective than retrofitting conferencing tech.
Another factor to remember is that outfitting a space with intelligent video systems just offloads cost and expertise from live operators to equipment and integrators. Whether or not that means savings depends on the clients’ unique application and needs. Depending on how often clients need that functionality, it might be more cost-effective (not to mention higher-quality) to hire a professional team to shoot and broadcast the event.
At the end of the day, the fundamental goal of any meeting room technology is to facilitate better meetings, not show off tech for tech’s sake. If a solution is distracting, ineffective, hard to use or unreliable, it’s not helping. Users are going to spend valuable time and energy getting frustrated by that technology instead of being focused on business productivity.
Sometimes, the simple solution is the best one. As an integrator, consider working with a trusted partner to help find the right solution for the environment.
Nathan Firesheets, CTS-D, CTS-I, CMCP-G, is director of technology and innovation at AV-Tech Media Solutions.
