A Guide to Choosing the Best Video Conference System for Telecommuting

Video conference system is a kind of remote audio and video communication system through network technology. It allows people in different places to communicate with each other in real time at the same time, so as to realize the application scenarios such as remote conference, remote education, remote medical treatment and recently more emerging live broadcast.

The Composition of Video Conference System

A video conferencing system usually includes hardware devices such as cameras, microphones, speakers, display devices, network connections (such as switches), and video conferencing software (such as Zoom,Microsoft Teams). Through these devices and software, users can make real-time video and audio calls with others at any time and any place, and can perform screen sharing, file transfer, whiteboard presentation and other functions.

Video Camera

Video cameras are used to capture and transmit video images, and high-definition cameras can bring users a better, flexible and secure collaboration experience. FS video camera is divided into Webcams for personal use and conference cams for small, medium and large meeting rooms according to different use scenarios. According to the product form or installation method, it can be divided into clip, vertical and strip cameras.

Here are a few features of video cameras:

• Lens focal length: Short focal length to see a wide range, but the effective line of sight is close, the picture seen on the monitor feels that the object is far away. The range of the long focal length is narrow, but the effective line of sight is far, and the picture seen on the monitor feels that the object is closer. Zoom cameras are commonly used in spacious environments, and fixed cameras are commonly used in narrow environments.

• Resolution: Display resolution is the number of pixels displayed on the screen, such as 1920*1080 , the horizontal direction can have 1920 pixels, the vertical direction can have 1080 pixels.

• Optical zoom: Zoom is achieved by adjusting the focal length of the lens in a way that it does not lose image quality.

• PTZ: It stands for pan-tilt, pitch and zoom, respectively. Pan tilt refers to the ability of the camera to rotate horizontally, pitch refers to the ability of the camera to rotate vertically, and zoom refers to the ability of the camera to adjust the focal length of the lens. Through PTZ operation, the full range of the target object can be captured and monitored, and the monitoring effect and range can be improved.

Smart Features of the Video Camera

• Automatic box selection: It can analyze the position of the participants, constantly adjust the screen, and always keep the figure centered.

• Human tracking: By selecting a target, the camera will automatically track the target person.

• Voice tracking: When the speaker speaks, the camera automatically tracks the speaker and takes close-up shots

Microphone/Headset

The conference microphone is a very important equipment in the conference room deployment, which is used to capture and transmit sound and play the voice of other participants. It generally integrates sound pickup and speaker, and has an obvious effect on the sound effect of the whole video conference system. Headset is the integration of headphones and microphones, suitable for personal home office, online learning, live broadcast, etc.

Video Conference Software

The top three video collaboration platforms with global video collaboration platform market share in 2022 are ZOOM, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Microsoft has fully connected the Al magic device GPT-4 to Office, named Microsoft 365 Copilot, covering ChatPPT, ChatWord, ChatExcel, and bringing people a new way of working. Copilot in Teams also helps users hold more effective meetings, speed up conversations, organize key discussion points, and summarize key actions. The main functions are as follows:

• Accurately summarize the main points of the meeting, refine the main points, and automatically generate the minutes;

• Be able to answer the discussion results directly according to the questions discussed in the meeting;

• Can follow up the meeting process and prompt the issues that have not been discussed in the meeting;

Video Conferencing Software Features

The existing cloud video conference software easily realizes the remote collaboration and communication in the conference, which is very important in the video conference system. At present, FS video conferencing products are compatible with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, BlueJeans, Cisco WebEx and other mainstream video conferencing software.

The functions of video conference software mainly include: real-time multi-person video communication, voice call, screen sharing, cloud meeting room, document sharing, recording and playback, security guarantee.

Display VS Collaborative Large Screen

The conference room is generally a large-screen TV as a monitor, and then connected to the PC. The display screen in the video conference system is mainly used to display the video picture of the participants and the shared documents, as well as display the conference information, which is widely used in enterprise internal meetings, customer communication, remote training and other scenarios.

The collaborative large screen integrates a touchable display, operating system, and audio and video modules. It does not require PC access, comes with Android system, people write on the large screen as easily as pen and paper. Because of its high integration and good collaboration ability, it is widely used in enterprises and education industry.