The Scenario:
As travel costs rise and environmental concerns grow, more organizations seek to conduct meetings between employees, customers, clients and satellite offices via teleconferencing. An example of this, Home Properties (a Real Estate Investment Trust) based in Rochester, New York. Home Properties approached AV Solutions, a provider of teleconferencing system, with a challenge, provide a teleconferencing system that:
Allows groups in different locations to communications as naturally as they would if they were in the same room.
Is simple to use
Works every time
Does not get in the way of other meeting activities
Does not affect the comfort of the meeting room
Supports audio function beyond conferencing like the playback of other audio sources
The Challenge:
Many teleconferencing systems require unsightly equipment and cords, expense setup and maintenance, constant fiddling and tweaking plus a steep learning curve to configure and use. These factors do not provide an image of elegance and transparency that is often desired. What most organizations want is a robust conferencing system that provides power, flexibility, reliability and extraordinary sound quality combined with a look that compliments their meeting room and blend into the background.
This was the challenge put to AV Solutions. Home Properties simply wanted what many other businesses have been asking all along: Form, features and functionality in an environment that suit business and aesthetic requirements.
The Solution:
After reviewing Home Properties requirements and surveying the meeting room, AV Solutions recommended a system customized to meet their needs. This system consisted of low profile table microphones, ceiling mounted loudspeakers, a gooseneck microphone at a podium, a wireless presenter’s microphone, and a custom programmed touchscreen control system.
Equipment included:
ClearOne Converge Pro 880 Professional Conferencing System
ClearOne Converge Pro 8i Professional Conferencing Input Expansion System
ClearOne Converge Pro TH-20 Professional Conferencing Telephone Interface
Shure Boundary Microphones
Shure Wireless microphone
ShureGooseneck Microphone
Crestron Control System
The Reason:
AV Solution’s choice for the audio system came from many years of experience. ClearOne product’s were selected by them due to repeated success in using them, even in the most difficult of acoustic spaces and the innovation and quality of the Converge Pro systems. Other key factors included:
Excellent technical support available by phone and by region Field Engineers from the equipment manufacture.
Online Resources – manuals, technical documentation, software, white papers, training and forums all available and up to date at www.clearone.com
ClearOne Training that not only covers how to program their systems but also audio conferencing system design fundamentals.
The Integration:
A corporate board room conveys an image. Even from a thousand miles away that image must be heard and seen. AV Solutions had the task of making sure Home Properties’ image came across.
System setup was easy. The audio conferencing equipment includes an internal database of configuration setting for audiovisual objects like microphones, DVD/CD players and video conferencing systems. The equipment type and model to be connected to the audio conferencing units is simple selected from this database to configure the input and output channels. Once they had the system in place it was merely a matter of making finely-tuned adjustments to the installed equipment: a process that could have taken hours was reduced to minutes, thanks to the simplicity of the Converge Pro configuration software.
The audio system also has the ability to perform a self-test that includes verifying that microphones, loudspeakers, amplifiers, telephone lines and network connections are working properly, another great time saver.
Interfacing the audio components to the touch panel control system was simplified, due to an intuitive control interface, internal programming with macros, USB, Ethernet and RS-232 control ports.
During the initial tests, the system provided superior audio the first time activated.
