When your users walk into a meeting room do their hearts sink at the thought of sharing content from their mobile device?

Would you like to be able to offer them the ability to present their smartphone, tablet or PC content to their colleagues in seconds without cables or hassle?

Would you like to offer them this productivity advantage from anywhere on your premises not just in designated meeting rooms? 

Read on…

No cables from the user’s device to the AV equipment – get your meeting up and running in seconds.  Connecting any mobile device is via your enterprise wi-fi or via Huddle Hub One’s optional (secure) wireless access point.  No hassle with finding/connecting/touching common cables, wrong sockets, display set to wrong source etc. etc. 

Shared Content on All Logged-In Devices – the shared content from the sharer can be streamed back to other participants’ personal devices (PC, Mac, iOS, Android) so you are not relying on everyone having to see the room display (in fact there doesn’t even have to be a display in the room).

No USB dongle required – enterprises regularly disable the USB ports on laptops to guard against data loss plus no problem with lost dongles!

No Client Download Required on PCs or Mac’s – Apps are available for all major platforms but, for PCs, the HHO also supports a superb sharing experience just through your usual browser – no admin rights required.

Simple BYOM Video Calling – the room AV (display, camera, speakerphone, all-in-one USB device etc.) can be connected to the HHO making a BYOM (bring your own meeting) connection to the AV in the room completely wirelessly.  The current sharer simply makes a video call using their preferred video client (e.g. MS Teams/SfB, Zoom, Cisco Webex, GotoMeeting etc)

Multi-Session Smart Room Support – the Huddle Hub Enterprise model can support up to six separate and isolated sharing sessions called “Smart Rooms”.   So a group of users who need to meet, say, in a room without a Huddle Hub One or for ad-hoc gatherings in casual huddle or rest areas, for example, can grab a Huddle Hub virtual room and immediately start sharing content between their devices.

Huddle Hub One Touch-free Wireless Content Presentation and Sharing Solution

Every Meeting Needs a Huddle Hub One‏
‎

Contact us for more information

or complete the form on our contact page and we’ll get back to you

Not the kind of “huddle” experience you had in mind?

The falling cost of hardware and the growth in cloud video services has led to smaller and smaller rooms and spaces being equipped with video collaboration facilities.
This trend, referred to as the Huddle Room market by industry analysts, in turn has led to a problem around camera field-of-view (FOV).  Standard pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) cameras or low-cost, fixed webcams typically have a FOV of less than 90° which, when deployed in small rooms with the participants close to the display, means that some participants will always be out-of-shot.

The Revolutionary PanaCast 3 Camera

The PanaCast 3 camera meets and overcomes this challenge by employing three horizontal, miniaturised cameras, each with a more modest FOV and stitching these live video streams together in the camera.  The resulting UHD (4K) resolution output stream delivers a stunning, natural-looking image of the room.

The ultra-wide view of up to 180° ensures that everyone is in-shot, even in a small group sitting close to the display.  Even so, the undistorted view delivered to the far end belies the closeness of the local participants to the camera.

Intelligent Zoom

Contact us
for more information

Collaboration is key to success in today’s competitive landscape.  The easier it is for team members from every background to work seamlessly together in an enhanced collaborative space, the quicker you’ll achieve incredible results with every meeting and conference.

New, innovative technologies are being created for small or “huddle” rooms at an astonishing rate and these cost-effective solutions are making it simpler for organisations to bring the right team together for the most creative brainstorming and meeting sessions possible.  Huddle Rooms allow users to redefine their meeting experience by introducing next-level collaboration where attendees can design, sketch and share their ideas.

The question is can you take your Huddle Room video meetings experience to the next level?

Download our latest tips and ideas guide containing a few key steps that you can take to enhance the video meeting room experience and unlock your team’s true potential.

Download the guide now by filling in your details in the form on our contact page.

For more great blogs click here.

To learn more about huddle rooms click here. 

Professional Web Meetings could be an answer…

Recent research has discovered that long commutes to work can cause depression, obesity and money worries. The research was undertaken by Vitality Health and its partners – the University of Cambridge, RAND Europe and Mercer*. They surveyed over 34,000 workers and identified links to health and well-being, obesity, money worries and even depression.

Spending two hours commuting each day is a reality for many workers in the UK, with lots of people travelling much further and longer.  The office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that 3.7 million workers travel for two hours or longer every weekday (compared to 2.8 million in 2010). In 2015, the average daily commute lasted 57.1 minutes. Long commutes – particularly into London are blamed on stagnant wages, high property prices and rental costs.

On a positive note, with today’s technology, non-driving commuters can now make the most of the downtime by catching up with work and personal tasks on laptops, smartphones and tablets to and from work.

click here for more about the research

For commuters who are looking to reduce the amount of time they spend in the office and have negotiated some ‘working from home time’ with their employer but don’t want to miss any important meetings, the revolutionary PanaCast 2 Camera System with Intelligent Zoom is the answer.

The PanaCast 2 camera delivers a professional web meeting and is a class-leading 180° field-of-view ensuring everyone in the room is visible to the far end.  The Intelligent Zoom feature automatically adjusts framing to make sure that no participant is ever out-of-shot making it perfect for small/huddle rooms making home-workers feel part of the meeting rather than being just a remote, passive observer.

The PanaCast 2 Camera, is the world’s first 180° 4K plug-and-play video camera for personal and room-based video communications that could help say goodbye to lengthy commutes and in turn improve health and bank balances!

For more details about the fantastic PanaCast 2 Camera, to watch a video of the camera in action or to contact us please click here.

We are delighted to announce that PanaCast 2, the world’s first 180° 4K Panoramic Plug-and-Play video camera along with its ground-breaking Intelligent Zoom feature, has been shortlisted for an AV Award in the Collaboration Product of the Year 2017 category.

Now in its 19th year, the AV Awards were established to recognise excellence across the Audio Visual Industry.   The aim of the AV Awards is to reward innovation and best practice, whilst encouraging others within the industry to raise standards across the board.

PanaCast 2 – 180° 4K Panoramic Video Camera

PanaCast 2 with Intelligent Zoom has been recognised for providing a new and innovative solution to meeting the challenges created by modern huddle room and classroom deployments where a much wider field-of-view is demanded than can typically be achieved using legacy PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) cameras or low-cost webcams.  WIth PanaCast 2, everyone in the room is always in shot with whiteboards or flip-charts being clearly visible thanks to its industry-leading 4K (UHD, 4 megapixel) resolution.

And PanaCast 2 can capture a best-in-class 180° field-of-view without the excessive fisheye-type distortion typically created by single-lens, wide-angle cameras.

The Not-So-Dumb Light-Gatherer

The video meeting camera is changing its role from a dumb light-gatherer into the intelligent heart of the meeting room.  In-camera video processing capability (the PanaCast 2 has nine on-board processors) presents opportunities for new functionality based on advanced video analytics and processing algorithms that can greatly enhance the user experience.

Intelligent Zoom

Intelligent Zoom, recognised in this shortlisting, is a case in point.  Intelligent Zoom (IZ) detects participants in the room and automatically and dynamically zooms and pans to present the most appropriate framing.  If additional people arrive or someone leaves the room, IZ will adjust silently and unobtrusively in the background without the need for user intervention of any kind.

PanaCast Whiteboard Application

The just-announced PanaCast Whiteboard app extends this concept of camera intelligence even further to automatically capture a standard whiteboard (or wall), correct for keystone and radial distortion, enhance contrast and brightness for improved readability and present that image as a separate source that can be sent as shared content in a video call.   In many cases, this can obviate the need for an expensive interactive “smart” board, an important budget consideration especially when large numbers of huddle rooms are planned and where a Microsoft Surface Hub™ or a Google Jamboard™, for example, would be expensive overkill.

For more information about PanaCast 2 please click here 

For more information about the AV Awards please click here

If you are at InfoComm 2017 or thinking of heading there, then today is the last day of this fantastic event.

The Exhibition Hall closes at 4pm today, so there is still time to pop along to the Altia Systems Stand – Booth No.3770 and watch the PanaCast team demonstrate the PanaCast camera.

You can also take part in a live webinar from the InfoComm show floor, which starts at 1pm local time. Altia Systems CEO, Aurangzeb Khan, will be providing an update and new announcements using and demonstrating the outstanding PanaCast 2 Panoramic-4K,180 degree USB camera.

But, if you can’t make it to InfoComm 2017 for the last day, then you can still join the webinar via the details below – registration is not required.

• 1pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)
• 6pm BST (London/Edinburgh)
• 7pm CEST (Paris/Amsterdam)

Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device:

Please click this URL to join. http://go.getpanacast.com/e/311861/s-926601416/cmc4/16051449

Join by phone: +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) or +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll)

Webinar ID: 926 601 416

Join by H.323/SIP room system: Dial: 162.255.37.11 (US West) or 162.255.36.11 (US East)

Webinar ID: 926 601 416

For a list of the events where Altia Systems will be at for the rest of this year,  please click here.

If you can’t get to the show but would like to see this unique camera in action or for a personal demonstration please click here.

If you are off to InfoComm 2017 next week at The Orange Country Convention Center, Orlando, then please schedule a visit to the PanaCast team at Booth No.3770.

The show is open at 9.00am on 14, 15 and 16 June.

Visitors to the PanaCast Booth can take part in a live webinar from the InfoComm show floor, where there will also be demonstrations, special giveaways and prizes on offer too!

If you can’t get to the show but would like to see this unique camera in action or for a personal demonstration please click here.

For more information regarding the show, how to register, how to get there and opening times etc. please click here.

For details of future events where Altia will be demonstrating the PanaCast camera please click here.

PanaCast 2, the ground-breaking video camera for Huddle Rooms, meeting spaces and lecture capture, has disappeared (well, almost).

Video adoption and high utilisation levels of video meeting-places depend on delivering the best user experience possible.  And a big part of that ideal user experience is making the video meeting technology disappear.

The PanaCast 2 – now available in black!

Already the smallest 180°, 4K panoramic camera available, PanaCast 2 in black now makes the unobtrusive almost invisible.

A range of mounting solutions (including a new self-adhesive monitor mount) together with a video inversion software switch, combine to allow flexible and rapid installation compared with bulky, legacy PTZ cameras.

Shane Morley, IT Manager, Turnitin
“We recently installed several of the PanaCast 2 panoramic cameras in our Zoom meeting rooms.  Prior to that, we’d been using an industry-leading PTZ-based conference kit but the camera just couldn’t cover everyone in the small rooms we’re using so we looked for a better solution and the 180 ° PanaCast solved the problem perfectly.

One big thing we noticed was how easy the PanaCast was to install.  The old, heavy PTZ kit took most of a day due mainly to the challenge of mounting the camera.  As we couldn’t invert it, we ended up having to engineer our own camera bracket!  The PanaCast, being smaller, lighter and able to be inverted, cut installation time to just two hours and resulted in a much neater install”

  Still also available in Silver!

For more details about the fantastic PanaCast 2 Camera, to watch a video of the camera in action or to contact us, please click here.

On average, 11 million meetings are held in the US each day! That adds up to 55 million a week, 220 million a month and well over a billion a year! This total is just for meetings held in the United States! Imagine what the global total would be!!

With so many of these meetings now being held at a distance over video, it’s increasingly important that we understand how to create the video meeting environment so that both the organisers and the attendees will gain the most from them. These days, getting people together for a meeting can be a task in itself, so they need to be the most productive that they can be.

Good participant engagement is key to video meeting success

Sadly, there is very little academic research out there about the human factors at work specifically in video conferencing calls.  However, we have managed to unearth two unusually relevant research papers that deal with the impact of non-verbal clues which, if accommodated correctly in the technical design of the room system, can greatly improve participant engagement and produce better video meeting outcomes.  Three important factors that the research identifies are:

• Establishing good eye contact
• Supporting spatially faithful eye contact
• Ensuring correct framing to properly present body language

So, while these two studies by the University of California, Berkeley are eight years old, we found them both really interesting and still highly relevant particularly to modern-day huddle room design.

MultiView: Improving Trust in Group Video Conferencing Through Spatial Faithfulness (David T. Nguyen, Accenture Technology Labs & John Canny Berkeley Institute of Design University of California, Berkeley)

This study looked at the difference in the creation of trust in participants between single-camera, single-codec and multi-camera, multi-stream views of the same room and assumes good eye contact in both cases.

Extract: “The (second) result shows that using a spatially faithful video conferencing system helps improve the trust formation process. Groups meeting through directional video conferencing cooperated more than groups who met through standard video conferencing systems and were more resilient in their cooperation in the face of temptation.

For all our measures of trust, there was no measurable difference in cooperative behavior between groups meeting face-to-face and groups meeting through (a spatially faithful) video conferencing.”

To read the research please click here

More than Face-to-Face: Empathy Effects of Video Framing (David T. Nguyen, Accenture Technology Labs & John Canny Berkeley Institute of Design University of California, Berkeley)

This paper studied the effect of framing in video conferencing and the impact on effective communication when excluding body language cues and presented guidelines for conferencing systems that preserve both gaze and body language cues.

Extract: “Non-verbal communication has proved to be a powerful framework for understanding the video medium.  Systems that are careful to preserve important non-verbal cues provide face-to-face-like experiences, while those that do not are measurably inferior to face-to-face.”  

To read the research please click here

The Panacast 2 Camera

The PanaCast 2 is the world’s first 180° Panoramic-4K Plug-and-Play USB video camera.  It creates a high degree of eye contact and maintains a spatially-faithful view to the far end but using only a single camera and single stream and, when using reasonably large format displays, gaze direction is communicated correctly.

The PanaCast 2 camera not only maintains a spatially-faithful view to the far end, but the new feature of Intelligent Zoom employs advanced video analytics to ensure that room participants are properly and automatically framed so that upper-body language cues are always visible.  Intelligent Zoom is a background, dynamic capability that adjusts automatically to participants moving position or joining and leaving the room mid-call.

read more…