How to choose the right video conferencing solution for your conference room?

Video conferencing and collaboration could unlock new levels of productivity in teams.

Nowadays, more and more companies rely on technology for connecting and collaborating day-to-day and admit that they are struggling to effectively connect their workforce virtually.

To help, here are the two most important parts in choosing the right video conferencing solution for your room, which can turn your room into a video conferencing space in minutes for more reliable and creative communication.

Define Your Room Size

There are lots of workspaces and rooms of different sizes so you must make your needs clear enough. Actually, only one video conference room solution can’t fit all sizes of your rooms. Depending on the number of participants, your rooms can be generally divided into five types including Focus/Mini Rooms, Huddle Rooms, Small Rooms, Middle Rooms and Large Rooms. Your room size will affect your budget, your choice of room solution, your time to prepare the room and so on. The range is wide, so knowing what you need before you start looking can save a lot of time.

Select the Right Room Solution

This is the most vital part if you want to turn your room into a video conferencing space in minutes. Then how to get the right video conferencing solution? There are two ways to achieve your goal: one is to select separate video conferencing equipment for respective requirements, and the other is to take advantage of the all-in-one conference room device that integrates camera, speakers, microphone, codec and software together. Compared to the first choice, the second one is much more convenient, easier and affordable.

No matter what way you choose, you should consider the following aspects for each component:

• Codec: The best room solution should support powerful processing (encoding + decoding) ability with built-in codec
• Display: Depending on the room size and presentation requirements, users may choose from a variety of displays including monitors, plasma screens, projectors and even dual screens.
• Camera: Your camera should be of high enough quality to clearly capture all who are present when you host a video meeting or webinar. Some users may also consider the rotation angle of the camera or whether it has far-end control feature based on their own needs.
• Microphone: Among the microphone options available, you need to compare their pick-up range, audio performance, microphone arrays and etc. according to your room size.
• Speaker: Is your video conferencing device equipped with speakers that are sufficient for your event hosting? For larger rooms or more complex requirements, additional speakers should be also taken into consideration.

Here’s what you should also keep in mind when searching for a solution:

• Ease of use: Feel difficult to host a video conference? Nowadays, more and more all-in-one room solutions are reachable on the market to empower people and organizations to work, meet and collaborate with others in a hassle-free way.

Actually, time is money. More and more people adopt all-in-one devices to conduct their meetings, online webinars or other virtual events as all of them mentioned above are designed for simplicity to enable you to install your device in a hassle-free way with no on-site technical support required. More importantly, they provide a series of useful features to satisfy each user. Let alone complicated cables starting with selecting the powerful and systematic all-in-one solutions.

• Cost-Effective: Before investing in a particular video conferencing solution, you need to know the ROI – will the technology pay off? Besides, ask yourself: Is the price reasonable for this value? Does it fit in your budget? Will it be worth the investment over the span of its expected useful life? In a word, don’t spend money on a solution if your answers to these questions are negative.
• Features: Do not just purchase a tool that becomes obsolete in the following year. It should be able to perform a number of functions. But if you have two similar choices and one is more expensive as it has more features, it is wise to evaluate them as per your needs. For example, if all you want is to make an occasional video call with only one participant, you don’t need to pay for a tool that allows you up to 20 video attendees. Here we suggest thinking of all the possible uses you will have for a video conferencing tool first, write these down and look for a video conferencing solution that will cater to that. This will help you find something that will fit your purposes perfectly, and you won’t end up paying for features that you don’t need.
• Security: Security is critical no matter what the technology you consider. You must be insistent on the question of security. Hacking is omnipresent. Do research before asking your vendors questions- you need to understand the types of encryption codes and other security features that are available with the devices that you’re planning on purchasing.
• Connection: It would be much better if your room solution supports both Ethernet and wireless connection. There is no doubt that wireless option can eliminate the frustrations that come with trying to connect to a fragmented conference room. This can also bring convenience and simplicity to each user when building a conference room.

Companies are growing and consequently, offices are expanding across the world. Under this situation, a well-designed, well-equipped meeting space provides exceptional collaborating experiences that can increase knowledge-sharing, encourage problem-solving, capture creativity, and accelerate innovation.

With the help of the right video conferencing room solution for your corresponding room size, you can not only turn your room into a video conferencing space in minutes, but also boost the higher user productivity and business value!