Each major videoconferencing vendor offers a program to help schools and colleges write grants to obtain equipment; see list below. Often these efforts will focus on the USDA’s RUS grant program, which is highly competitive but has also funded lots of I-TV/Distance Learning projects. Getting assistance in your grant writing effort is a good idea and all of these vendors have capable people that we can put you in touch with. However, organizations should realize that if you have Brand X help you write your grant application, Brand X will make sure that all of your technical requirements are written so that Brand X is the only choice. This is the reverse of the normal process of securing fundings and then making a product selection. Instead organizations that use these services need to first evaluate the available products and select a solution, and then go to the maker of that solution for help with grant writing. As a dealer experienced in the usage of all three major product lines in the videoconferencing world, we can help you evaluate and choose the most appropriate technology for your applications.
Short throw projectors have a lot of advantages for most class and conference rooms:
The short image throw allows for presenters to approach the screen without interfering with the image or having to look into the projection light.
The short image throw also allows for several projectors to be placed in a small room, making it ideal for videoconferencing, or I-TV, classrooms.
However, the installation of these projectors can be complicated. A small change makes a big difference in the projected image with a short-throw projector. We recently learned a few lessons installing a couple of Sanyo PDG-DWL100 projectors in a classroom. The problem was that with the size of the image that we were trying to project, we didn’t have enough height to project on the screen without having to tilt the projector which resulted in a keystoning effect that had to be corrected. However, when corrected, the image size was reduced: so you would have to back the projector farther from the screen, tilt it even more and reduce the image size again. We found that we were simply caught in a situation where we could not ever get the image we wanted without either lowering the screen or getting the projector higher than the current ceiling. You can see the issue with the photo below.
Below is the illustration of the projected image from the manual and you can see that this projector will always take 15% of the overall distance of the image from the screen before the image will start. This is more severe than some other short-throw projectors.
In this case we will build a custom box that will fit into the 2×2 ceiling grid so that we can mount the projector flush with the ceiling grid; a little to the left in the image below. We could attempt to mount the projector flush with the ceiling, but without some room for adjustment, it would be problematic at best.
With 20/20 hindsight, we would have used a smaller screen in this installation (which was the original spec, but we decided to use a larger size since it was being used for the instructor monitor in a videoconferencing classroom). We have at least one more installation of this projector coming up in the next month. In that case, we have plenty of ceiling height to deal with. However, we are going to use a mount from chief that should give us plenty of flexibility and adjustments: click here for details.
Below is a video on the installation of this mount with a short-throw projector.
Video communications has been around for years. Whether you consider the first viable videoconferencing system to be the system that AT&T’s debuted at the world’s fair in the late 60s, or Cornel’s CuSeeMe application, or the Polycom Viewstation, there is no doubt that the technology for interacting visually with a person or persons who are geographically distant from you has existed for a long period of time.
When videoconferencing systems moved from ISDN to IP in the late 90s and early 00s, it opened up the videoconferencing world in many important ways, namely driving down the cost of making a connection. But ISDN had one big advantage: a national dialing plan. With IP, there is no one standard system for calling. Yes, every system has an IP address, but many systems are behind firewalls and have to be NATed, others are using a firewall transversal devices or gateways, and most are registered to their organization’s gatekeeper and use their own scheme for E.164 numbers, etc. Likewise, other resources that one might want to use in a video call (MCUs, video recording devices, gateways and gatekeepers, etc) take more than just knowing the IP address to access (for some good reasons). The so-called unified communications solutions have only been able to unify communications within an organization and often at great expense compared to the increase in productivity that they provide.
In the fall of 09, we saw the first traditional videoconferencing device (the LifeSize passport) with built in support for Skype in the endpoint itself. And today at CES, numerous vendors are announcing lcd displays with a built in camera and built in Skype capabilities (http://www.which.co.uk/news/2010/01/ces-2010-skype-hd-arrives-on-tv-screens-193540). In a month or two, you will be able to purchase an HD videoconferencing system at your local Best Buy. It seems clear to me that Skype is becoming the national dialing plan for video communications, allowing laptops, display appliances (like those being announced at CES), and room conferencing systems to exist together. It won’t be long until every video system from the major makers (Polycom, Tandberg, Lifesize, etc)–perhaps with the exception of Cisco whose profit margins are dependent on remaining proprietary–will offer Skype capabilities built in. Expect video streaming/recording devices to also be compatible with Skype as well.
What I think we are seeing here is the dawn of videoconferencing 2.0: the ubiquitous integration of video systems of different form factors on one network, from telepresence rooms to cell phones. Is Skype the best system/network to support videoconferencing 2.0? It doesn’t matter, because Skype has the critical mass in the marketplace. If Skype is good enough for Oprah, it is good enough for you. Skype has already become a verb in our culture, much the same way as google has. “I’ll skype you tomorrow.”, “Just Skype me later today and we’ll talk about it”.
What will this mean for distance learning? A lot, I think. For one, it will open up lots of doors for truly blended forms of distance learning–online courses can have a weekly discussion section via Skype every week. This could be a great boon from not just the student perspective, but also the instructor side. Teaching online is hard and many instructors have been reluctant to do so, but a blended course feels more like a traditional course and can give the one-on-one visual interaction with students that they need to feel comfortable. For traditional I-TV courses, it will open up new locations and opportunities for gaining students (and teachers). How else? You tell me…
J Scott Christianson, owner of Kaleidoscope Videoconferencing, has been awarded the 2009 Distance Learning Leadership Award by the Missouri Distance Learning Association. This honor recognizes outstanding leadership in the field of distance learning. Scott started his work in this field as the technical coordinator for a distance-education consortium in 1993. Over the years Scott has continued to be a leader in Missouri’s distance learning efforts, serving on numerous distance learning boards, task forces, and grant review committees, co-authoring a book about distance education and making more than 23 presentations at regional and national education conferences, sharing his experience and knowledge with others in the education community.
As the economic slowdown continues and non-critical business travel budgets are reduced, videoconferencing is becoming an acceptable alternative. But if the facilities aren’t designed appropriately, what could have been a productive meeting ends up as a technological nightmare. Although it seems easy just to set up a camera and monitor display in a conference room, there are five key areas that should all receive attention to create a successful videoconference room with a high-quality experience for all participants.
1. Room Acoustics: Check to see if there is an echo. With smaller conference rooms, the biggest room acoustics concern is flutter echo. Flutter echo is the repeated reflection of sound between two parallel surfaces, such as the floor and ceiling or two walls. The use of high noise reduction coefficient (NRC) materials on these surfaces will help with this effect.
2. Noise Level: Evaluate the surrounding noises. Are there mechanical systems that impact the room? What about local traffic? Is there a gathering place in the hallway that invites conversations? While minor mechanical noise on the local side of the videoconference may be easy to ignore, the impact of that noise is greatly magnified when relayed to the far-end participants.
3. Lighting: Determine the appropriate lighting. The lighting of a videoconference space will need to be designed to deal with the fundamental limitations of cameras. The lighting should be brighter than your typical workspace, with 70-foot candles being ideal. Indirect lighting is best, with no more than a 10 percent variation in illumination level. The color temperature of the lamps in the room should all be the same, with 3,500 Kelvin being the preferred temperature.
4. Interior Design: Study the room’s décor. In addition to helping with acoustical properties, the room’s finishes can help create a clearer, easier-to-understand video image for the far-end participants. The background surfaces should be a solid color with a matte finish. Medium blue-gray and brown tones work best. Glossy surfaces such as glass or patterned finishes are not recommended. The room’s dominant furniture piece will be the conference table. The table should be shaped to allow for good sightlines of all the meeting participants to both the camera and the main display. The most common table shape for videoconferencing is a “V,” with the top of the “V” closest to the camera and main display. Similar to the background finishes, the table finish should be a neutral tone and have a non-glossy finish to reduce glare.
5. Technology: Invest in the appropriate technology. When choosing the active technology components of the videoconference system (camera, display, microphones and codec), it pays to be forward-looking and to purchase the newest on-market model rather than the model line about to go out of production. Technology integration costs time and money, and by purchasing the newer series of product, the installation will have a longer life before changes in the market will require an upgrade. The newest videoconference equipment also has key features that will add to the success of the conference. These include high-definition video, better audio fidelity and interactive collaboration tools.
Keeping these key elements in mind when designing a videoconference room will result in a more successful videoconference experience and provide a faster return on the investment.
David A. McNell, CTS-D, LEED AP, is an audio-visual designer based in the Chicago office of architecture and engineering firm RTKL.
