Where are the outlets???

March 13, 2013 2:09 PM

Company wants to group skype, and everything is working great Except the main conference room, which is about 8x bigger than the others.

Now they want a wireless webcam for video and a wireless mic for the middle of the room. Best suggestions? I find great stuff for small areas... but we're talking about a 2800 sqft (at least) area and they want to see and hear everyone. Limitations beyond wireless are... lack of power outlets, lack of hdmi (audio/vga ports available... in certain places only). In my head... it's not possible without serious equipment. Linking two rooms the size of my kitchen to a room the size of 4 of my apartments... I'm not saying it's not doable but I'm thinking money... and more than skype. So... best wireless skype compatible cams and mics... humor me or prove me wrong...

posted by one4themoment to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

at this point you're not really looking at "webcams" as much as "serious digital video cameras"

and "separate audio solutions"

do you have the budget to hire someone to do this?

because this is a wee bit outside the normal IT department stuff.
posted by Oktober at 2:19 PM on March 13, 2013

You should consider putting power outlets in the floor and running power up the conference room table legs (pedestals, whatever you wanna call them)

As for mics, our conference table (seats 20 or so) has two mics. Pretty professional grade stuff.. Not sure how it is wired up. Our speakers are in the ceiling and there's an audio controller box (which IT tells me DON'T TOUCH)

Sorry I can't give you the specifics... I just wanted to toss in my bit about running power in the floor and into the table. We have a table that has three "wells" where power and Ethernet and mics come out of. It really makes the space look neat and tidy.

Good luck. Feel free to me mail me.
posted by p1nkdaisy at 1:15 AM on March 14, 2013

Yeah. You're approaching the realm of needing "Serious Videoconferencing Equipment." Coincidentally, we occasionally feed the A/V from our Tandberg VTC unit into a PC with a video capture card when we want to do Skype from that room.

One microphone is not going to be remotely adequate or desirable for a 2800 sq ft space. You will either end up hearing *everything* (and I mean, everything... feet shuffling, papers rustling, feedback), or nothing at all.

I can make some recommendations, but you really need to hire a proper A/V integrator at this point.
posted by schmod at 8:15 AM on March 14, 2013

Thanks for the answers so far. I thought it might get complicated.

It's also not ours (we rent it out for a few hours every Wednesday) so I'm not sure exactly what we would and would not be allowed to have professionally installed.
posted by one4themoment at 8:47 AM on March 14, 2013

There are professional firms that do this all the time. We have large meetings all over the country, these are the guys we hire to come out and do AV where ever we are:

CCR Events

They bring all of their own equipment and fly to meet us.
posted by Oktober at 12:05 PM on March 15, 2013