Small Meeting Room Video-Conferencing

Hi all,

I've been asked to configure a video-conferencing solution for a small-ish (max 25 people) meeting room. We're an NFP that has monthly meetings and like everyone during COVID we conducted meetings via zoom and fell in love with the convenience of it.

Now we're back face-to-face it would suit some of our members who have to travel quite far for the meetings to continue to dial in.

Our current set up is a large TV that connects very nicely to a laptop and an NBN connection so we could easily have a zoom meeting running with the president present but dialled in; and others dialled in and displayed on the TV so the room could see/hear them. I'm presuming what we'd need is some kind of area camera and decent microphones so the people dialled in could see and hear the discussions in the room (they'd get the usual up-the-nose shot of the president through his laptop).

Challenges are:
Cost. As mentioned we're an NFP so while we do fund-raising we sure aren't rolling in cash. Money spent on this would have to be justified
Knowledge gap. We're pretty handy and can install/configure stuff - but we just don't know what we're doing in this space

Any suggestions for small meeting-room video-conferencing equipment and set up would be very gratefully received.

Comments

  • +2

    We use these in the smaller meeting rooms and it's very very good.

    https://www.logitech.com/en-au/products/video-conferencing/c…

  • +1

    We are using this at our work and is brilliant. Not sure if it falls under your cost definition.

  • Last one had google affiliate link. Try this again

  • Thanks notyou and netjock. $2k is starting to get a bit exy and the eyeball camera might not be quite big enough, unfortunately. But interestingly, you both went straight to Logitec - can I assume they're going to be a safe bet for any products in this area?

  • Ah, Hybroid - you also picked Logitec. Significantly cheaper on the US site!

    • Logitech are a safe bet in pretty much every product category they produce.

  • I was wondering if I could get a decent camera and mount that on the wall so it could take in the whole room; then play the remote people through the TV; and have some kind of central microphone (or a couple, possibly mounted on the ceiling?). Although even as I think of this it sounds like it'd take a dedicated machine to drive the conference software.

    • A normal web camera is designed to be 1 or 2 feet away. Take a look at this camera, microphone solution, it basically still powered by your desktop /laptop but it is designed to capture more picture details and has some filter on sound to make it sounds OK even the participants are seated at the back of the room. It also has smarts to focus on the participants and look for participants around the room.

      https://www.amazon.com.au/Logitech-Bluetooth-Meetup-Conferen…

  • +1

    Go for IT recyclers, when I was working for a big Corporate all of these conference devices mainly Cisco were thrown in a "bin"

  • We use one of these at work https://www.kandaovr.com/kandao-meeting/

  • Thanks all, I appreciate your suggestions. I think as 777 suggests someone else's old kit might be the solution. I'll grab any Logitec by preference but have to keep an open mind, I guess!

    Thanks for your help.

    • I have the bcc950 in my meeting room. Works well till about 10 people max IMO

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