DDMC

I made a visit to the construction site that is or will be the Bryan Center Studios – here’s a quick update:

We had a few changes and ended up with a conference room that we’ll try to fashion into a small screening room. Studio 4 (the podcasting studio) got a bit squarer and still have room for the reservable editorial suite.

We’re hoping to finish up construction by the end of March, but given the difficulties getting any electronic equipment, Studio 3 and 4 and the conference/screening room may not be open until the Summer. Studio One will re-open as soon as it’s safe and will shut down for a short time after opening for relighting (installing more eco-friendly and more easily controllable LED lights).

We met with Zoom today and reviewed some of the options in Zoom Room software and hardware and talked about some new features:

1. Smart Gallery – Using a digital camera (not PTZ camera), Zoom Room software can take a wide shot of conference table and using AI, break it up so that there are multiple close ups of each individual participant. This helps avoid the “security camera” view of a conference room table.  This is limited to certain Zoom appliances today but will be coming shortly to Mac/Windows Zoom rooms. For more information: https://blog.zoom.us/all-you-need-to-know-about-smart-gallery/
   1. Smart Gallery also supports the simultaneous use of two cameras – For example, simultaneous front and rear facing cameras or instructor camera and document camera.
2. Focus Mode – Another feature in Zoom Room software allows the instructor to turn off all participants cameras (so they only see participant’s names) and only broadcast their camera. They can still see all the participants cameras to make sure they can keep an eye on things. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4411732965389-Using-focus-mode-in-a-Zoom-Room
3. Companion Whiteboard – Although requiring a second license, this allows you to deploy a touch device to an existing zoom room to use it as a dedicated white board: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360038401111-Setting-up-a-companion-whiteboard-in-a-Zoom-Room

We also briefly discussed hardware options alternatives to Logitech including solutions from Poly (formerly Polycom – merged with Plantronics) and Neat. We’ll be planning a DDMC meeting in the next week or so with Poly to discuss some of their solution. One feature that caught my attention was Poly’s inclusion of a USB-C plug that allows you to connect the system to your computer and use their camera, speaker and microphone on your laptop – if you needed to connect to Skype, Go To Meeting, etc… Poly’s NoiseBlock.ai seems pretty cool as well – especially in our new media lab with the loud air exchanges.

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/