This is the tweet heard ‘round the AV world — or at least, it should have been: The March 21st tweet from R/GA read: A thousand years from now humans will have shed their physical form and ascended to a higher state of consciousness and conference room AV systems still won’t work. — R/GA (@RGA) […]
Blue Jeans Network, Inc. today announced its plan to offer BlueJeans Rooms-as-a-Service featuring Dolby Voice Room in the near future. BlueJeans Rooms-as-a-Service featuring Dolby Voice Room will be a new service-based subscription model for quickly adopting Dolby’s hardware with BlueJeans’ enterprise-grade cloud meetings platform. The Room-as-a-Service model provides IT decision makers with the benefits of […]
Oblong Industries just announced something called Rumpus, a new visual collaboration application for purely virtual teams. Oblong is marketing it saying that Rumpus makes web conferencing both content and context rich. It provides simultaneous access to shared screens from meeting participants, and delivers a new layer of communication with shared cursors, annotation and emojis for […]
Videoconferencing technologies have improved tremendously over the past several years. Cloud services have made it possible to cost effectively scale deployments to thousands of desktops and conference rooms. Improvements in video encoding, compute power and broadband services mean anyone can join a video call, from almost anywhere, via practically any device. And USB conference cams […]
I love writing this annual predictions article. If you’re a regular reader, you already know this but for those that don’t, my Kayye’s Krystal Ball piece is an annual article where I not only tell you what I think is going to happen in the AV market for the upcoming year, but I also go […]
RTI today announced its product lineup for Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2019, taking place Feb. 5-8 in Amsterdam. In Stand 1-N85, the company will be showcasing media distribution and collaboration solutions for classrooms, lecture halls, and meeting spaces, including the new VXU-SC video conferencing system. In addition, the company’s Miravue VIP-1 video-over-IP system and VMS-741 […]
Altia Systems, known for the PanaCast 2 180° Panoramic-4K USB camera system, today announced the introduction of PanaCast 3, the world’s first UCC panoramic video system with 40 Megapixels capacity. PanaCast 3 integrates three 13-megapixel cameras, stereo microphones and advanced software to deliver 100 percent video coverage, 100 percent audio capture and 100 percent data […]
Well, here we are again. The holidays are upon us, so it is time to pour a glass of, well, whatever a sales rep sent me for the holidays and summon my internal psychic. Each year at this time I write a final column for the year, summing up what I think the year has […]
I was fortunate enough to cross paths with the senior editor of a well-respected technology magazine while I was over in London last week. It was a far-ranging discussion, but on the flight back, I continued to think about the question he’d put to me regarding software that enables collaboration when we are together and […]
QSC just announced it has been awarded a utility patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its Q-SYS Web Conference Integration Solution. This patent (USA 9,973,638) recognizes the solution’s ability to bring an IP camera stream from Q-SYS PTZ-IP conference cameras into soft codec applications (like Zoom, Skype for Business, GoToMeeting, etc.) […]
Last week, I attended Oculus Connect, the conference for Facebook/Oculus virtual reality developers. It was one of the best glimpses I have yet seen into the uses of a new technology that will change the way we do business in industries with events or communication and collaboration with remote people (rental and staging, collaboration, education, […]
Huddle spaces are the Goldilocks of meeting rooms: not so big and formal they stifle creativity, yet not too small for a team to get work done. And while they’re great at facilitating collaboration, it’s important to note that they’re not “just another meeting room” when it comes to implementing video conferencing. These ad-hoc collaboration […]
Everyone who’s anyone in AV knows that 4K provides four times the resolution of 1080p. 1920×1080, commonly referred to as ‘Full HD’ was the industry’s high-resolution display platform for over a decade and has recently been usurped by 4K — which in ProAV-land is known as UHD, or 3840×2160 (or in DCI-world, 4096×2160) is, in […]
By PanaCast College campuses around the world are enabling students to be more flexible with their learning by providing high-tech solutions that allow for more distance and remote learning opportunities, mixed in with traditional classroom learning. Many universities now have two or more campuses, further heightening the need to keep campuses connected. The good news […]
Lately, it seems like just about every device maker in the conferencing space is coming out with a 4K webcam or conference camera. It started in February 2017 when the Logitech BRIO 4K Pro Webcam was introduced at ISE, and since then I’ve seen announcements from Cisco, Panacast, Aver and Dolby (just to name a […]
Avonic today announced its completely redesigned PTZ camera, the CM40 — designed for fixed AV installations. The CM44 camera is specifically designed for video conferencing applications; this USB-based camera is compatible with the most used soft-codec conference tools like Skype, Zoom and GoToMeeting. Avonic says that their selling point is for the price of a […]
The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) and AVIXA have announced the release of the new standard Recommended Practice for Lighting Performance for Small to Medium Sized Videoconferencing Rooms (ANSI/IES/AVIXA RP-38-17). Created by lighting experts from IES and videoconferencing experts from AVIXA, the standard is ANSI (American National Standards Institute) approved, demonstrating that the development procedures meet […]
With the new branding, AVIXA appears to have picked up a new motto, one which many of us have seen on the various promotional items for sale in the AVIXA store at InfoComm: “Together, we can change the way people experience the world.” Those who know me I believe in language, and believe in having […]
Black Box today introduced Coalesce Professional, an enterprise-ready all-in-one videoconferencing and wireless presentation system that lets remote teams collaborate like they’re in one room. Coalesce Professional features enterprise-level, advanced functionality like splash screen customization and central deployment/management. The system is infinitely scalable from the maintenance/monitoring perspective via its central management portal and from a budget perspective with its competitive […]
Extron announced that it has teamed up with Zoom Video Communications to extend Extron control capabilities to any Zoom Room, providing a one-touch user experience for conferencing, collaboration, and now AV room control. There’s no more need to switch devices — a single user interface on your Apple iPad or Extron touchpanel is all you […]
MXL Microphones introduces its new USB-powered table-top web conferencing microphone, the MXL AC-360-Z, at this year’s InfoComm Show (Marshall Electronics Booth C2164). The new MXL AC-360-Z has been co-developed with engineers from Zoom, a leading web conferencing and communications software provider, to enhance the microphone solution for Zoom Rooms and Zoom-enabled conference rooms. The AC-360-Z expands upon the popular three capsule boundary microphone, […]
While some other video communications platforms only have limited support for Apple, Zoom runs on Mac and iOS devices including desktops, iPads and iPhones. Regardless of if a user is on PC or Mac, Android or iOS, Zoom users get a very similar and highly intuitive user experience including iOS screen sharing, ability to schedule, start and join meetings on mobile […]
Marshall Electronics will demo its CV502-U3 HD USB POV Camera at InfoComm 2018 (Booth C2164). Designed for the ProAV and UCC markets, the CV502-U3 is plug-and-play connectivity on any Mac, PC or Linux system supporting USB 3.0 input infrastructure and uses video capture drivers included with common computer software and soft codecs. Utilizing UVC 1.5, common teleconference and video […]
i3-Technologies has teamed up with Zoom as a member of the Zoom Rooms Technology Ecosystem Program. The software-based video communications platform from Zoom and the interactive touch displays from i3-Technologies allow organizations to bring visual collaboration to any size room. Remote collaboration is a growing reality for businesses. The simple yet powerful interface from Zoom, paired with the plug […]
By David Danto and Andrew W. Davis The year was 2006. Videoconferencing had been used in the corporate world for more than ten years — and everyone hated it. It failed to meet the promises of reducing travel costs and providing easy, “just like being there” experiences. Enterprise AV was really no better. Huge boardrooms […]
As the rest of the advertiser-supported AV press just reprints the Polycom or Plantronics press releases, we’re going to call it how we see it — with the truth about this “acquisition.” Yes, Plantronics is taking control of Polycom — a history-making videoconferencing company that all but invented the space — for what amounts to $2.0 billion in enterprise […]
Panasonic and TrueConf have teamed up on a family of video conferencing offerings. TrueConf Server is officially compatible with the Panasonic KX-HDV430 SIP deskphone and Panasonic’s KX-VC-series, including the KX-VC1000, KX-VC1300, KX-VC1600 and KX -VC2000. This integration will expand video conferencing capabilities as people using Panasonic deskphones and high-definition video conferencing systems can join conferences running on TrueConf Server […]
What’s it like preparing for a videoconference at your business? Is it a smooth, seamless process that automatically sets the technology at your service as soon you enter the room? Is the video quality stunningly realistic? Or do you have to start from scratch every time, locating plugs and remote controls, pushing a number of buttons and […]
TrueConf has added support for Cisco’s Open H.264 video codec. This implementation of H.264 provides wide compatibility of TrueConf solutions with third-party video conferencing endpoints and enhanced web conferencing experience. Cisco open-sourced it’s H.264 codec implementation as a license-free alternative solution to allow its use in WebRTC standard along with VP8 video codec. Open H.264 ensures compatibility between […]
Avocor announced at ISE that it’s joined Zoom Video Communications to add an option to Zoom Rooms via the Zoom Rooms for Touch program. As you likely know, Zoom Rooms features wireless content sharing, up to 4K video and audio conferencing with up to 500 interactive video participants while integrating with most calendaring systems. Zoom Rooms for Touch is a mode […]
Zoom Video Communications today announced a variety of new features and enhancements to its core Meetings platform and its Zoom Rooms software-based conference rooms. Altogether, these enhancements streamline administrator and user experiences and increase productivity as part of Zoom’s ongoing effort to create frictionless experiences for buying, deploying, using and managing enterprise video communications. Zoom also announced the general availability of […]
TrueConf has announced an integration with Microsoft’s Skype for Business through its latest offering, TrueConf Server v. 4.3.9. The integration adds interoperability for TrueConf and Skype for Business users, including audio, video and instant messaging functionality. TrueConf and Skype for Business users can easily participate in joint video calls and conferences, as well as invite legacy room endpoints. TrueConf […]
