DDMC

The good folks over at Neat were nice enough to send us a Neat Pad evaluation unit to test in Duke’s Zoom Room environment. Neat says that their Neat Pad is “a simple and elegant touch screen you can configure as a controller inside your Zoom Room, or use as a scheduling display outside any meeting room,” and it delivers! But, is it for everyone?

First, why would a University want a Neat Pad when options like an iPad or various other 3rd party controllers (Crestron TSW-770 for example) are available as Zoom Room controllers?

An iPad works wonderfully as a Zoom Room controller and is usually updated first when Zoom pushes out an update to the Zoom Room platform. But, at the end of the day, it’s still an iPad with all the little quarks surrounding such a universal device. Specifically, an iPad has a less than ideal charging system for conference rooms. The iPad also requires mounting/security hardware, etc. etc. Finally, if the iPad isn’t using ZDM, the iPad is basically another enterprise computer to manage, both the iPadOS and Zoom Room application need to be maintained. Plus, iPads have a tendency to “grow legs” as they are recognizable mobile devices. Having a wireless option is nice, but not so much when you need to send a technician to a conference room to “plug in the iPad” after a faculty/staff/student has forgotten to reconnect the iPad to a charger (or when the charging cable goes missing).

Many 3rd party controllers have nice features including Power over Ethernet (PoE) to provide clean wired network connectivity and power over a single cable, but they too require a good bit of management, occasionally requiring a specific skillset unique to AV technicians. While these devices usually have the advantage of being used for other applications outside of the Zoom Room environment… updating the firmware (specifically “Firmware Friday“) sometimes isn’t for the faint of heart.

The Neat Pad, in contrast, eliminates many of the challenges mentioned above. Unlike an iPad, the Neat Pad is tethered via a network connection for Internet access and power so while less “mobile” than an iPad, it is less likely to walk away. Also, because it’s not an iPad, people are usually less inclined to attempt to disconnect or “borrow” the device. Setup, unlike an iPad and other 3rd party controllers, takes <3 minutes and can be fully managed from the Zoom environment (aka, once connected, all management of the device is implemented by Zoom’s native web interface – no fumbling around with a hardware manufacturer’s specific software or cryptic embedded web pages for firmware updates. It’s all Zoom). As for price, the Neat Pad has an MSRP of $500. While that’s more expensive vs. an iPad, once you add in the additional hardware to make an iPad function in a conference room, you are quickly approaching that price point (not to mention the time involved with configuring the iPad). The Neat Pad is also less expensive than comparable 3rd party controllers. The only “cons” (and I hate to use that label – perhaps “consideration”) to the device would be that it will only run the Zoom Room environment – either as a controller or room scheduler (both worked wonderfully). It’s never going to run Microsoft Teams, O365 calendaring, Appspace, EMS, Robin, etc. etc. It runs Zoom Rooms and it does that well. One other consideration is that the Neat Pad usually trails a few weeks, perhaps a month, behind the official version of Zoom Rooms in terms of the app update (other 3rd party manufacturers do as well ). Finally, if I had a “Gee, I wish Neat would…” item, it would be that I wish they had a 10″ and 12″ version. The 7″ Neat Pad is great, but there are some locations where having a little more real estate would be ideal.

I was recently contacted by a staffer that had wildly differentiating audio levels for participants in a Zoom recording:

They had tried using “Normalize” but unfortunately the difference between the two was too much for that plug in to handle. This looks like a job for the “Hard Limiter”! Hard Limiter is a standard plug in available in the “Audio Effects” panel of Adobe Premiere. Most NLE’s will have a similar plugin.

If you measure the max level (in db) for your lowest audio, you can set your hard limiter to that level and it won’t allow any of the other audio above that level. This won’t help if one of your audio participants are over modulated or distorted.

In today’s world of remote interviews where we have no control over the participants audio, the hard limiter will be of great value.

One of the challenges with Final Cut Pro’s “Simple Border” effect is that it will not work if you crop the image. There are work arounds for this but I found a better solution. BretFX’s Better Border is a free plugin for Final Cut that allows you to crop and put on a border with one tool. I had a pretty complex border project (personal) and wouldn’t have been able to do it without this tool.

Check out the site as there are other reasonably priced plugins such as their Splitz effect that might make compositing multiple speakers much quicker.

I recently moved into a new home and my previous method of mounting my webcam wouldn’t work in my new home office. I thought I would try one of the low cost webcams offered on Amazon since it came with a tripod mount and said it featured a wide angle lens. I’m very impressed with the performance for a $30 webcam. The tripod was a perfect fit. Even though I’m not using the included gooseneck, for $18 this seemed like a great deal. Using the tripod set behind the laptop allows me to position my screen at an angle for easier viewing without having the built in camera looking “up my nose”

For those that don’t know me, I’m the guy that looks like he’s sitting in Guitar Center. 🙂

Camera: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0887X6JJM/

Tripod: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FMMZGYR/

In the era of Covid-19, people are scrambling to find great document camera alternatives for home and in-office use. There is a wide range of devices available, but they generally come in two flavors, cheap and problematic and expensive, full-featured, and bulky. Today, I’ll give a quick review of the HUE HD Pro, a ~$99 USB document camera that bridges that gap.

First, the HUE HD Pro connects to a computer using a standard USB-A connector, so if you’re a modern Mac user, you’ll need a USB-A to USB-C dongle to get this working, so plan accordingly. Once you plug the HUE in, you’re ready to go, no batteries needed. I was able to fire up Quicktime/Zoom/etc. and see the HUE without installing any video drivers as the device leverages the built-in UVC driver available on all Windows and macOS devices. The image was initially very soft, but after a quick turn of the focus ring (did I mention that this is a manual focus camera), it was tack sharp. It’s worth mentioning, as I just did, that the camera focus is completely manual. While that may sound like a negative, I actually prefer setting the focus, as the camera doesn’t constantly “track” (going out of focus and back into focus as with some less expensive webcams) to obtain a good quality image. Considering it’s a document camera, the manual focus works great, as you only need to set it from time to time, and it doesn’t re-focus when it sees your hand.

The HUE HD Pro also has a mic… which is, well, OK at best. It’s passable, but if you are going to be doing any serious, long-term, document camera intensive teaching, you’ll probably want to use a different mic, or upgrade to a USB lav mic (ahem! – https://sites.duke.edu/ddmc/2018/01/04/the-movo-usb-m1-microphone/). You don’t buy this device for the mic, but considering you can also use the HUE HD Pro as a webcam (yep, just point it up from your document and manually refocus… and presto! You have a webcam!), the mic makes sense. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t buy this device if my primary goal was to use it as a webcam. There are plenty of higher quality webcams on the market, with autofocus, which has a better image and a lower cost. You buy the HUE HD Pro for the long flexible neck. But, it would work as a webcam in a pinch or if you are attempting to be ultra-mobile.

Image Quality: While I found the image very clear when sharing a hand-drawn diagram, I did notice that the camera picked up a good bit of flicker (aka, flicker happens when the alternating on/off of LED lights doesn’t match the frame rate of a camera). Overall, it wasn’t a major problem, but it was noticeable, and there really isn’t a way to eliminate the flicker, unless you are willing to swap out the lightbulbs in your environment (aka, not going to happen).

I’ve demonstrated this device about a dozen times, and the feedback is usually, “That’s exactly what I need, perfect… thanks.” It’s a simple device that performs a simple task, but as an educational professional will say, sometimes it’s the simple solution that solves the core underlying issue. Some AV professionals say that document cameras are going the way of VGA… but I still see a wide range of applications where a simple camera, sharing a hand-drawn diagram, is the best and cheapest option to convey a concept. I’ll take a document camera over an advanced touch screen most days.

Pros:

• No additional drivers required: The HUE HD Pro uses the native UVC driver included with Windows and macOS devices
• Cost: At ~$99, this is a well-priced USB document camera considering how flexible the device can be
• The image quality is good and when sharing written notes in a Zoom session, it looks great
• Oh, and it has a small LED light, which is nice (note con below regarding the light)
• It just works… and is simple enough for anyone to understand. Even > I < was able to use it!

Cons:

• I wish the articulating arm was longer, like 6” longer. Sometimes it is challenging to get an oversized sheet of paper in the camera frame, requiring that I place the HUE HD Pro on a book to “zoom out” as it really doesn’t have a zoom
• Regularly, I found myself twisting the HUE HD Pro’s neck in odd ways to get my documents in the correct orientation. It would have been nice if there was an option to flip the image sensor on the device natively with a tactile button push (this may be possible using their included software, but I generally hesitate to install such software as it’s usually not supported all that well)
• The light is… well, OK at best. They are not very bright and the color temperature of the LED lights isn’t ideal for every situation, but I’m a color temperature matching perfectionist
• Flicker, if you have LED lights in your teaching space, you may see a noticeable strobing flicker. This can be problematic for users that are very sensitive to flicker. The guinea pigs, errr… remote Zoom users, didn’t mention it when I was demoing the hardware… but it’s there. I see it, and a few other AV folks would see it… but it’s by no means a deal-breaker

As we’re all working with instructors that are recording at home, we can count on some of them not recording in the best surroundings for audio. We’ve tried several noise reduction plugins but I recently got the AudioDenoise 2 from CrumplePop and like its super simple interface. It has less “robotic” sound than other plug ins (like the one built into Final Cut) and feel that it’s worth the $99 price tag. Here’s an example: