Introduction

This page is designed to take you step by step through important considerations to make when designing a room for video conferencing, using a model room (pictured below) 

Please note this page is still under active development, and the contents may change over the next month or so. If you have any suggestions, please post in the room design discussion forum or email us via our helpdesk.

An emerging use for video conferencing in New Zealand is to facilitate distance learning, or for bringing in specialist to talk to class rooms from abroad. To do this effectively, lecture theatres are beginning to have video conferencing units installed, allowing speakers to remotely communicate with large numbers of people in real time with a level of interaction close to them being in the room/

This page outlines in detail a number of things to consider while designing a lecture theatre for video conferencing.

This page will look practically at equipment you should consider installing, then explaining how these items effect sound and video quality etc. For a more general overview of these core principles, visit the Room Design - Overview page.

1. Room, Walls and Decor
   
2. Lighting
3. Camera Positions
4. Presets for Cameras
5. Other Camera Considerations
6. Microphones
7. Feedback Monitors

Room, Walls and Decor

Generally, the same principles apply as with other rooms for video conferencing, although they are not as critical in a bigger room. As most sound transmitted will be through either lapel microphones or wireless microphones, reverb is not so easily picked up, however in general lecture theatres should not sound too live anyway.

Walls should be painted neutral colours with greys being ideal. Carpet will help insulate a room against reverberation and is therefore recommended over vinyl or other hard coated surfaces.

Lighting

As a general rule, keep light levels high for cameras is a good idea. If you are sending images of your audience to a remote presenter, leave the primary house lights up.

For lighting a presenter, leave the front lights up and try to add some spot lighting to the area where they will be speaking. It may be worth positioning some of these lights to the side of the lectern to allow a speaker to side away from it. The main idea here is to produce even lighting on the face, without creating harsh shadows. You can test this a bit as you go to see what lighting set up best suits your needs.

Camera Positions

Generally for lecture theatres, 2 cameras would be recommended as a minimum to set the room up in such a way that it has multiple uses for video conferencing.

The two most important shots you want in a lecture theatre is one of your presenter, for streaming out local speakers to far sites, and your audience, to provide a remote speaker with an image of their listeners. Modern video conferencing systems will allow you to swap between these two cameras very easily with a remote meaning simple training can be given to lecturers or course coordinators on how to 'direct' video conferences.

Presenter Camera

This camera should be set up in the centre of a theatre at a height just above eye level (suggestion pictured in yellow to the right). The idea is to place this camera in a position which would generally get a lot of eye contact with a presenter even if they were presenting to a local audience only. In the example pictured, the camera has been fitted in an existing theatre and has replaced the desk space originally used by two seats. This allows the camera to occupy a prime position in the theatre.

Audience Camera

This camera should be in a position with a view of as many of the seats in the audience as possible (suggestion pictured in green to the right). Ideally, this camera would have good sight lines to every participants eyes, allowing them to make eye contact with the camera if they wanted to address a presenter from a far site.

There are no explicit rules on camera positions for a theatre, however certain principles are worth following. In particular having the presenter camera directly facing the lectern will certainly deliver the best experience for a far site watching someone speak. It is much harder to concentrate on a speaker for a long time if the aer being filmed from the side, and consequently less frequently making eye contact with the camera. Below are views that each camera might typically send from the room modeled for this guide. Having an audience camera directly in front of the audience may be more useful also, however often projector screen set ups may not allow this. In the model for this page, a camera to the side was used for the audience.

Presets for Cameras

Modern Video Conferencing units also allow for preset positions to be memorised for each camera connected to a unit. Configuring several for each camera, then documenting them and training end users how t operate these acn greatly improve the performance and ease of use of these systems in such large environments.

An example of how to use these may be if you have 2 or more presenters in a theatre. Rather than having them take turns occupying the spot behind the lectern, you might have them seated and have presets set up which allow fast switching between each of them.

Other Camera Considerations

Zoom

Cameras available with Video Conferencing systems vary in many ways, one of the most important of which is zoom levels. While cameras with higher zoom levels are typically more expensive, in a large room such as a lecture theatre they are recommended for achieving full head and shoulders shots of presenters, and for their ability to zoom reasonably close to audiences members should they wish to speak to a far site presenter.

A camera with about 14x zoom is great for this kind of environment.

Cable Runs

As most cameras for video conferencing hardware use proprietary connections for their cameras to transmit data to the unit, check in advance of purchase that the manufacturer you are buying from has solutions for running long cable lengths, and check the additional cost involved. It is typical in theaters to need around 50-70 metre cables to connect cameras to their units. This will of course vary greatly depending on the size of the theatre, the position of the main unit, and the position of the cameras.

Audio/Microphones

There are a vast number of solutions for microphones and other audio input in a theatre. Generally you would run your existing desk into and audio input in the Video Conferencing unit, and then allow the user to switch inputs via your existing system. Items you may want to be able to send to the Video Conferencing unit include:

• A wireless lapel microphone
• The lectern fixed microphone
• Audio output from a DVD player/computer (this is useful if a user wants to share a video with sound via their primary video channel)
• A wireless hand held microphone, for passing to audience members should they wish to speak to the remote presenter

Feedback Monitors

Generally, it is useful for a presenter to be able to see their audience when speaking, even if this is simply a wide view where individual faces are not recognisable. Additionally, if they can see their content they are sharing as it is being viewed by far sites it allows them to monitor that things are looking as they should.

In a normal lecture theatre, the projectors at the front of the room are the only video output. This is problematic for video conferencing when a speaker is broadcasting to a remote site, as while they face the back of the theatre to be seen by the camera, they must turn around to see the projectors to monitor the meeting.

For this reason it is a good idea to consider placing  'feedback monitors' in view of the presenter which simply replicate the output of the left and right projectors. These monitors allow the presenter to glance at the meeting, without upsetting the flow of their presentation.