A debate here about where the camera should be in a video conference
room. Is there a standard for location?
Should it be above the screen/display, beside it, underneath it?
ST
--
Scott Tiner, CTS
Assistant Director for Digital Media, Classroom Technologies& Event Support
Bates College
207.786.6396 (office)
207.240.1154 (cell)
Thanks,
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Justin Rexing, CTS, ISF-C
Western Kentucky University, IVS
270.745.4266
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Ideally two cameras are used with one located at the rear of the room facing the lectern. A second camera in the front of the room allows audience members to be seen and participate.
Often a single camera VC system is installed in a compromise position, perhaps on a side wall or ceiling mounted. A cart mounted VC system and display can be repositioned depending on the current needs.
________________
Donald Newman
CTL - Classroom Support
University of Georgia
706-542-3456
It does depend on the install. We usually try for right over the far end screen if it is a multiple display room. We've also put them in between the displays, under, and to the side (especially with projection VC rooms.) It's never standard, unfortunately.
Elaine Mello, CTS
Distance Education & Streaming Operations Manager
MIT Libraries - Academic Media Production Services
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue - Rm 10-337
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel: 617-452-2172
Mobile: 617-719-5279
Call me on Movi: emell...@amps.ms.mit.edu
Hi All-
ST
--
You should put it as close to the centerline of the display as possible,
either above or below it.
If it is off to the side, the difference in angle to/from the
participants means that, to the remote parties in the VTC, your folks
will always be looking off to the side, and never will be looking
straight at the remote participants.
A lack of even *apparent* eye contact will destroy the illusion of
person-to-person communication.
JHS
John H. Steitz, CTS
Assistant Director
Classroom Educational Technology Services
121 ICC
Georgetown University
37th & O Streets, NW
Washington, DC 20057
(w) (202) 687-2509
(c) (202) 569-3119
(f) (202) 687-5879
ste...@georgetown.edu
http://cets.georgetown.edu
Most of our rooms have screen size requirements that force the camera up pretty high, which isn't ideal because sometimes the camera tilt range isn't up to the task, and when you tilt the mount, the camera's field of view becomes an arc when you're panning. In narrow rooms that's not a problem, but in a wide room you end up with a tilted image at the extremes of the panning range.
When there are two flat-panel displays I prefer to mount them one above the other, with the camera between them, and to allow swapping the signal to the monitors so far-end/near-end can be on either display as best suits the nature of the meeting. Either way, the camera is still on axis. Not always possible due to ceiling heights, and many end-users are addicted to side-by-side display.
Some years ago a contractor installed a system in a new building for us as part of the construction contract (two words that I've learned to define as "you ain't gonna like the results..."). The integrator put the camera dead center on the wall between two 60" plasmas. But they mounted the plasmas about 5 feet from each other, so the camera is about 30" from either display with nothing but empty wall space between them, and no matter where people are sitting they're always in profile view during a VTC, and everybody is always pretty far off-axis of one display or the other.
Harry
______________________
Harry Thomas
Academic Media Systems
Naval Postgraduate School
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Speaking of looking off axis, remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fRxO_Yx99I
K.
Keith D. Mills
Manager, Classroom Services
IT--Communications/Media
University of Calgary
MLB 26, 2500 University Drive, NW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Ph. (403)-220-6386 Fax. (403)-282-4497
E-mail kmi...@ucalgary.ca
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From: av...@googlegroups.com [mailto:av...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John H. Steitz
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 3:30 PM
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Scott:
JHS
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Harry
Sent from my iPad
> At Infocomm a few years ago, I saw a system w/ a horizontally mounted flat screen with a 45 degree one-way mirror above it. The camera was behind the mirror, shooting through it, so the viewers were looking directly at the camera when they were looking at the monitor image in the mirror. It gets rid of the "looking off-axis issue" but it's not terribly feasible in most situations.
I haven't seen that, but it sounds like an ideal solution. And why not...that's how we video types have been doing teleprompters for years! We don't do video conferencing on campus much anymore ("we're not that kind of University"). But with my own family spread all over the country I've been doing more and more with personal video conferencing and noticing how annoying it is that the camera is so far off-axis from the screen...and this is on my laptop and iPad with built-in cameras! It wouldn't be so bad in an auditorium, but distance is the key...sure, the camera is only 4" from the center of the image...but when you're only 2' from the camera, that little bit of offset is actually noticeable!
> Speaking of looking off axis, remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fRxO_Yx99I
Oh, yes, I remember that. If I remember correctly, an analysis given the next day pointed out that she was, in fact, looking directly at the live webcam, instead of at the television camera. The article suggested that she did it intentionally, knowing where her "real" audience was watching.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Capital University, Columbus, Ohio
Harry
Sent from my iPad