The Most Important Conference Room Technology Investments for 2014
With 2014 upon us and a whole host of new conference toom technology continuously being released, we thought it would be a good idea to look at some of things you should be thinking about for your business conference rooms.
HDMI ready
Many clients have the infrastructure in place for VGA (HD15) cables. However, many if not most, laptop manufacturers are no longer adding VGA connections to their laptops. It’s going to be important to have a way to connect these new devices to your existing AV system. Typically for short cable runs (under 35’) we can pull a plenum rated HDMI cable. For longer runs we recommend an HDMI over CAT5/6/7 video balun system. These systems use a special transmitter to convert the HDMI signal to a CAT cable and then a matching receiver back to HDMI at the display.
A wide assortment of adapters
Lately, we’ve been seeing mini HDMI adapter cables, Display Port, Mini Display Port, DVI and even the need to connect iPads. Fortunately these adapters are fairly inexpensive and readily available if purchased ahead of time, so consider them when evaluating conference room technology purchases this year.
A dedicated Video Conferencing System
Using a web based “conference” may be okay for one-on-one meetings. However, for a professional conference or boardroom they are totally lacking in video quality, audio quality, bandwidth allocation and reliability. There is a reason one service is free and the other is several thousands of dollars. What is your image worth to you? There are many AV manufacturers getting into this specialty which will really help you find something in your conference room technology budget.
Collaborative sharing software/hardware systems
The next step in meetings is a shared “desktop”. By using systems available like these from Crestron, Boxlight and Mersive, multiple users can control or work on the same desktop or screen. You can now easily live share your personal device and files on a temporary basis to a shared viewing screen. This is what we consider the next step up from PowerPoint. With this conference room technology, an “I present to you” format can easily become a shared discussion. This is something we really think is going to take off. Here are the links to a few of the better products.
Higher quality speakers
There are two reasons for using better speakers. One is a situation where you need the spoken word to be extremely intelligible. For example an emergency paging system. There are new government standards and building codes regarding this very example. The other use is to make a presentation sound more musical. With younger generations growing up in an audio video enabled world, their expectations are higher. No longer are the typical poor quality speakers behind the cheap stamped steel grill acceptable. Clients expect their presentations to make people sit up and listen. Marketers want to know how a commercial is going to sound to the end user at home that will be watching their commercials on a living room home theater system, no longer a TV with mono audio. Here’s a few of our current favorite ceiling speakers for music.
So, as with everything technology related things get better and the experience gets more real or involved. Our job as AV designers/installers is to help you get your message across to your clients, staff or audience. These are the things we think you’ll want to know about to do this.
