Category: Webcam

Wolfvision CYNAP Pro

November 8th, 2022

App-free dongle-free screen sharing!

Connect and share your screen using the wireless technology that’s built into your own mobile device. Our wireless BYOD solutions suit all iOS, iPadOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows and Mac devices – with full support for AirPlay, Chromecast, and Miracast screen mirroring.

Record your content

Cynap Pro lets you record all your multi-window, multimedia content. Everything is captured in high definition and saved internally – perfect for use as part of your online educational program. The included Capture feature pack enables operation as capture agent for Panopto, and other compatible video management platforms.

Multi-platform web conferencing

Cynap Pro‘s multi-platform web conferencing solution runs directly on the device itself, and is designed to solve many of the issues most commonly experienced with BYOM web conferencing systems.

Complex multi-step setup, and bandwidth issues are eliminated, and Zoom, MS Teams or WebRTC-based wireless conferencing sessions are easily started and controlled, using a simple workflow, from a touchscreen, or any laptop, smartphone, or tablet.

Stream & record to mobile

Our unique vSolution App for iOS, iPadOS, Android, and Windows lets your audiences receive and record a live stream of presentation or lecture content from Cynap Pro onto their own smartphones and tablets.

Freedom to present

Cynap Pro plays, displays, records, and streams all commonly used media at the same time, giving you unlimited choice of materials during presentations, lectures, and active learning classes.

Access your data easily via cloud, network drive or from mobile devices – even your laptop is no longer essential – you can simply bring your content on a USB stick, or download it directly from the cloud!

Annotate over any open window

Add to your content material using our built-in annotation features – or note down your ideas using the digital whiteboard, and save the output of both for future use.

If you are looking for an all-in-one with only needing to add audio processing? The CYNAP line of products is a good way to go.

A New Kind of DDMC

October 27th, 2022

Bryan Center Studio 1

We had great attendance for this DDMC meeting! Featuring a lineup of big hitters and an all-star cast in the gallery at Studio 1 made for a great event. A big thanks to everyone for your support!

Richard Mitchell made his return to the DDMC, wearing a well fitted Biamp Vest, to give us a rundown of the new Parle’ VCB2500 video bar that is shipping! He also provided overviews of Biamp’s new AV control product line, Video conference cameras, Devio conferencing, and an easy to use classroom designer. The Biamp product line does an excellent job of covering all of your educational technology needs.

Michael Greene and Chris Lorch from Duke Learning Innovation discussed the impact of digital learning technologies on the classroom and other learning environments and showed how active learning helps students think, create, discuss and solve problems rather than passively sitting in a class receiving information. They highlighted the use of whiteboarding to promote brainstorming and group work. Reducing the need for podiums, providing good sound and visuals, and promoting more instructor interaction with online students are all components that should be considered in this new landscape of HyFlex teaching at Duke University. DLI is Duke’s resource for faculty and staff to tap into the opportunities that hybrid teaching tools can provide.

John Ballinger and Tim Hunnicutt with Panasonic brought an impressive array of PTZ cameras, video switchers and auto-tracking technologies to studio 1. John spent some time featuring Panasonic’s auto-tracking, which uses high-performance motion detection and high-accuracy facial recognition. These features allow precise tracking of the subject with minimal tracking errors, regardless of the direction the person is facing, even when the lecturer has his/her back to the camera. In addition, since this function provides detection/tracking with streaming video from the camera, the video capture board typically needed for capture on a PC is no longer required. This reduces the processing load for video capture, thereby eliminating the need for a high-performance PC. I also want to note the new PressIT 360, an easy to use plug and play conferencing camera ideally suited for small collaboration spaces.

Finally, our own Stephen Toback presented a topic near and dear to his heart: How to build a 4k studio for under $4,000. Knowing that the Bryan Center Studios will not always be convenient or the right place to shoot your video, Stephen put together a concise list of features your 4k studio should have in order to be successful. Room size, shape, acoustics, and lighting should all be considered before purchasing cameras and microphones. Stephen’s 4k studio equipment list details everything you need to outfit a studio of your own.

For more detailed information, please check out our Panopto recording of this event.

Shure/STEM ECOSYSTEM

September 13th, 2022

The DDMC welcomed Ryan Budvitis & Brooks Platts from Shure’s conferencing and meeting product line up today. The STEM ECOSYSTEM audio products fill that gap just below professional audio products like the Microflex and the home office product lines at Shure. When you have a meeting space that can host 5-15 people and you would like to keep the AV simple and user friendly. The Shure STEM audio products is the right fit. The Audio Fencing feature reduces the busy streets and noisy offices that often encroach into most of our web conferences.

Additional features that include room design, one button room adapt, room check, and remote management are more features that helps the STEM ECOSYSTEM stand out in a very crowded USB peripheral market.

Need more more detail?

Review todays recorded meeting or contact The DDMC.

neat.

February 25th, 2022

The DDMC hosted a new comer just 2 years old to the Zoom/Teams appliance world of approved products called neat.

” Neat designs simple and elegant pioneering video devices for Microsoft and Zoom, helping make the meeting space experience the best it can be.

Continuously pushing boundaries, Neat devices are incredibly easy to install, set up and use and have unique features to support a safer, more enhanced and engaging hybrid working and learning environment going forward.

Advanced smart room sensor technology enables you to monitor air quality and people counting for healthier, lower-cost rooms. At the same time, crystal clear audio and video mean you can always precisely see and hear everyone, no matter where or how they position themselves in the room.

Bringing you the future of video today, Neat bridges the gap between in-room and remote participants like never before by individually auto framing each person in the room and presenting them equally up close on remote participants screens. This capability gives you, your colleagues or students the truest sense yet of being physically all together in the same room.”

One of the stand out features is what they call double-talk.

“All Neat devices have an excellent echo canceller that suppresses echo and not someone’s speech. As for the other echo cancellers out there, even though many do a great job of suppressing echo, they unintentionally squash speech too, which typically happens if people talk over each other – a phenomenon known as ‘double-talk.’

When ‘double-talk’ performance is poor, people may not always hear what you’re saying. Or worse, they probably won’t even realize you’re saying anything at all. It means that you can’t just quickly jump into a conversation without most devices dampening out your voice. Neat devices enable you to share in lively debates without that worry.”

POLY.com

February 3rd, 2022

As follow up to the ZOOM meeting from January, 28th. We just finished a product preview of the new POLY X70. That can leverage the ZOOM ability to share multiple screens simultaneously and be that “all-in-one” videoconference solution. The X70 combines (2) 4k video cameras with a stereo sound sound bar promising a conference room solution at a reasonable price.

Poly X70 Cut Sheet:

https://www.poly.com/content/dam/www/products/video/studio/studio-x70/doc/poly-studio-x70-ds-en.pdf

Along with the similarly featured (1) camera X50 all in one conference solution that brings small to medium conference rooms into reach as far as ease and simplicity is concerned.

Poly X50 Cut Sheet:

https://www.poly.com/content/dam/www/products/video/studio/studio-x50/doc/poly-studio-x50-ds-en.pdf

Some interesting audio features that may help with noisy environments are the Acoustic Fence and NOISEBLOCKAI features which allow user to set up an “audio exclusion zone” and reduce unwanted room noise.

https://blogs.poly.com/the-most-of-poly-acoustic-fence/

https://www.poly.com/us/en/innovations/noiseblock

Take a look at our ZOOM meeting for yourself!

https://duke.is/85juq

mmhmm, Taking Advanced Online Presentations to the Next Level

November 30th, 2020

As we enter year 700 of COVID-19, some faculty and staff are looking at 2021 wondering how they can spice up their online teaching environment without spending hours or days learning a full-blown video production application. While Zoom offers a wide range of ever-expanding features, there is still plenty of room for growth and mmhmm, a startup from Phil Libin, is capitalizing on that need.

First and foremost, mmhmm acts like PowerPoint steroids. You can supercharge your presentation by your webcam video overlayed on rich media content elements such as slides, images, videos, sounds, etc. Best of all, I was able to pick up the basics of the application in under 20 minutes or so, your mileage may vary. The easy drag and drop configuration nature of the application will have you creating or enhancing your presentation in minutes. Best of all, you can save your layout so that the next time you present, unlike Zoom, you won’t need to reposition your webcam feed, content location, etc.

Where mmhmm really excites us is its ability to feed that content into Zoom and a range of other video applications as a virtual camera or piece of content. While Zoom has enhanced a few features in this area over the past 6 months, mmhmm is considerably further along when it comes to rich presentations. On top of that, mmhmm is capable of capturing your presentation locally in a high-quality .mp4 video file WHILE also sharing that presentation with Zoom. Yes, Zoom can record the session, but sometimes you want a higher quality version, or you would rather not have the participants being a part of your recording. It’s the best of both worlds.

Finally, mmhmm has a copilot capability that will allow a remote participant to manage aspects of the presentation. This would come in handy when you have large productions where people are working together advancing slides. Perhaps not something for everyday use, but for power users… this could be a game changer.

Pros:

It just works!
Adds a level of sophistication to presentations, when you have the rich content
May allow for a better teaching delivery
Simplifies tasks that could take 30-60 seconds in Zoom (30-60 seconds doesn’t sound like long, but when you perform that task 20-30 times during a class, it’s an eternity)
The ability to save rich presentations can’t be understated… and is a feature lacking in Zoom. Having to “reset” your video layout can be problematic.

Cons:

The subscription pricing model is… well, expensive ($9.99/mo or $99/yr – no educational pricing to be seen)
mmhmm can consume a considerable amount of processing power. The fans on my MacBook Pro were screaming when running Zoom and mmhmm with advanced videos, etc. in the content box. I’m sure the new MacBook Pro with the M1 CPU won’t even blink.
You CAN do much of what mmhmm does with free and open source applications if you are willing to invest a good bit of time learning such platforms (which can be buggy at times), but mmhmm packages it up in a more faculty/staff friendly package.

Zoom Room Appliances

October 29th, 2019

It’s no surprise, but I’m a fan of Zoom and Zoom Rooms. The platform is easy to understand, flexible, and users simply like it. While many people are familiar with Zoom, they are generally less familiar with what a Zoom Room is. In essence, a Zoom Room is a computer attached to a display, mics, speakers, camera, and a control interface, that is always on and ready to host a meeting. This is in sharp contrast to a bring your own device (BYOD) space where the user brings a laptop and connects to the AV in the space, wasting precious conference time and adding complexity to the essential task of having a meeting. With a Zoom Room, similar to a Cisco WebEx Room Kit, you walk in, touch a button on the control interface… and away you go! But, unlike a Cisco WebEx Room Kit, a Zoom Room is hardware agnostic which, relying on a Windows or Apple computer at the heart of the system, attached to anything from consumer to professional peripherals. This nearly infinite flexibility of the Zoom Room platform comes at a cost of reliability. Maintaining a Zoom Room can be challenging… keeping the local computer up-to-date with the OS, security, virus protection, not to mention all the drivers of the peripherals! If only Zoom offered a Zoom Room codec style device!

Enter Zoom Room Appliances… While these haven’t shipped, they may resolve many of the issues many Zoom Room managers have experienced. By eliminating the need for an in-room computer attached to a camera, mic, and speaker… it dramatically reduces the overall complexity of the platform. Install the soundbar like device, enter the Zoom Room activation code and BOOM! The system is connected to the hardware and you’re ready for the next meeting. No more worrying about Windows updates, what feels like weekly security patches, etc. etc. It should just work! We can’t wait to get our hands on the devices to properly test these in higher education!

Kaptivo

July 17th, 2018

Let’s face it… humans like articulating concepts by drawing on a wall. This behavior dates back over 64,000 years with some of the first cave paintings. While we’ve improved on the concept over the years, transitioning to clay tablets, and eventually blackboards and whiteboards, the basic idea has remained the same. Why do people like chalkboard/whiteboards? Simple, it’s a system you don’t need to learn (or you learned when you were a child), you can quickly add, adjust, and erase content, it’s multi-user, it doesn’t require power, never needs a firmware or operating system update, and it lasts for years. While I’ll avoid the grand “chalkboard vs. whiteboard” debate, we can all agree that the two communication systems are nearly identical, and are very effective in teaching environments. But, as classrooms transition from traditional learning environments (one professor teaching to a small to a medium number of students in a single classroom) to distance education and active learning environments, compounded by our rapid transition to digital platforms… the whiteboard has had a difficult time making the transition. There have been many (failed) attempts at digitizing the whiteboards, just check eBay. Most failed for a few key reasons. They were expensive, they required the user to learn a new system, they didn’t interface well with other technologies… oh, and did I mention that they were expensive?

Enter Kaptivo, a “short throw” webcam based platform for capturing and sharing whiteboard content. During our testing (Panopto sample), we found that the device was capable of capturing the whiteboard image, cleaning up the image with a bit of Kaptivo processing magic, and convert the content into an HDMI friendly format. The power of Kaptivo is in its simplicity. From a faculty/staff/student perspective, you don’t need to learn anything new… just write on the wall. But, that image can now be shared with our lecture capture system or any AV system you can think of (WebEx, Skype, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). It’s also worth noting that Kaptivo is also capable of sharing the above content with their own Kaptivo software. While we didn’t specifically test this product, it looked to be an elegant solution for organizations with limited resources.

The gotchas: Every new or interesting technology has a few gotchas. First, Kaptivo currently works with whiteboards (sorry chalkboard fans). Also, there isn’t any way to daisy chain Kaptivo or “stitch” multiple Kaptivo units together for longer whiteboards (not to mention how you would share such content). Finally, the maximum whiteboard size is currently 6′ x 4′, so that’s not all that big in a classroom environment.

At the end of the day, I could see this unit working well in a number of small collaborative learning environments, flipped classrooms and active learning spaces. We received a pre-production unit, so I’m anxious to see what the final product looks like and if some of the above-mentioned limitations can be overcomed. Overall, it’s a very slick device.

Logitech DDMC Session

December 18th, 2017

On November 30th, Warren Widener of Logitech visited the Technology Engagement Center on Duke’s campus to showcase three pieces of technology ideal for small and medium-sized conference rooms.

We all know Logitech for their webcams, keyboards, and mice, but over the past few years, they have expanded into small, and not so small, business environments as more organizations move toward small bring your own device (BYOD) meeting spaces. Logitech has achieved this by integrating their various devices into flexible and cost-effective offerings highlighted below. While they may be careful not to take on “the trons” of the industry, it’s clear they are looking to move up the food chain.

First, Warren provided a demonstration of the Logitech Smartdock. The Smartdock is essentially a dock for a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 with expanded I/O, designed to interface with Skype for Business and in-room Logitech hardware (cameras/mics) to simplify the process of launching an audio or video conference to the push of a button. The device is intended to live in the meeting space and act as the meeting scheduler and AV bridge. While not a perfect fit for Duke due to our deep enterprise WebEx integration, for businesses that rely on Skype for Business, this device makes one-touch video conferencing one step closer to reality.

Also highlighted at the session was the Logitech Meetup. The Meetup is an $899 MSRP wide-angle webcam, three-element mic array and tuned speakers, with build in acoustic echo cancelation, that ticks a number of boxes in small huddle room design. Unlike some of Logitech’s previous all-in-one designs, the Meetup is designed to be permanently mounted above or below a monitor and comes with a wall-mount bracket. The super-wide 120-degree field of view from the camera ensures everyone in a small conference room will be in the shot.

Finally, the session briefly touched on Logitec’s GROUP offering. We’ve seen previous iterations of this device, but Logitech promises that they continue to improve upon the overall audio quality and features from this device. Ideal for larger BYOD spaces with a pan tilt zoom camera, high-quality mics and speaker and open nature (it works with WebEx, Skype, Google Hangouts, Facebook Live, etc. etc.), the lack of integrated voice over IP (VoIP) makes it a more difficult sell in some of our more robust and demanding spaces.

Elgato Link Cam

October 10th, 2017

I’m always a little surprised when an inexpensive piece of AV ~~that I’ve been secretly lusting after~~ actually delivers on the audio and video goodness I seek. Elgato was nice enough to send us a demo unit of their Cam Link that I mentioned in a previous post. The Elgato Cam Link has one core function, and if you understand what it’s designed to do, it performs that function exceptionally well. Oh, and did I mention it’s cheap!

Every AV technician has been asked, “Why can’t I use my fancy new [insert $500+ camcorder or DLSR (with HDMI output)] with WebEx, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, GoToMeeting, etc.? Simple… because you need an HDMI to USB converter… and it’s not as simple as adding a $4 cable from Monoprice (for now). Until the Cam Link arrived on the market, that conversion process was either rather expensive at $300+ or complicated by the requirement of special drivers or software. The Cam Link is considerably more consumer focused in both price and ease of use.

So, what does Elgato’s device do?
In essence, the Cam Link takes an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) signal and converts it to a UVC (USB Video Class) friendly output. So, you can connect an HDMI output from a higher end video camera, AV system, gaming system, laptop, etc. to this device, and the Cam Link will output the video and audio over USB to a computer. And because the Cam Link is UVC compliant, it functions without additional drivers with Windows, Mac, and Linux. Now, this functionality has been around for some time, but at a price… both financial and technical.

There have been a number of articles written about this device from a consumer electronics and gaming perspective, so I’ll focus on how the Cam Link could be used in higher education. I see this device being ideal for:

Improving your WebEx, Facebook Live, YouTube, Skype Sessions
If you are looking to upgrade from a webcam, this is your device. You’ll be able to connect many consumer and professional cameras to the Elgato Cam Link (anything from a GoPro to a $5K+ Sony camera should work wonderfully). You will immediately notice an image quality improvement. Also, depending upon your camera, it may improve and/or simplify your audio capture options (I’ll leave that for another post).
Simple Video Conversion
Yep, occasionally AV techs are asked to make backups (with permission) of VHS cassettes for use in a classroom. If you can find a VHS cassette player with HDMI out (a few now have 1080p upscaling built in). You may be able to throw away that old clunky capture device for good!
Content Capture
I actually used the Cam Link to capture an iPad and iPhone signal for demo purposes, using a dongle, to my MacBook Pro. While not the primary reason to buy the device, it was nice that it had a number of alternative uses. But the Cam Link could also capture connect from a document camera, microscope, gaming system, etc.
AV Testing
Many AV technicians regularly find themselves needing to connect an AV system for testing (“Are we receiving a signal?”). Lugging around a monitor and looking for power isn’t awesome. So, a technician could simply use the Cam Link, connected to their laptop, to check an HDMI output.

I should mention that the device is dangerously ultra portable, resembling a oversized USB thumb drive, so the “walk off” factor is high. It has one HDMI input, one USB output, and a single LED light that indicates that it’s receiving power from the USB drive (so no external power needed). Second, the device only works with a few of the most common HDMI resolutions, so not EVERY camera that supports HDMI will work with this device. ‘d say that about 80%+ of all video cameras should be compatible, but may require that you adjust the camera’s HDMI output. Finally, this device won’t capture High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protected content, so if you think this is the perfect device to copy Blu-ray movies (or even a MacBook Pro in some situations)… think again. You’ll simply get a blank screen.

The Fine Print
The only gotcha I noticed is that the Elgato Cam Link crashed once (technically lost signal) in the 4+ hours of testing (a quick reboot resolved the issue). Not a critical concern, but something to consider.