Wow, the world is changing and it’s changing at a pace that’s tough to keep up with.

We’re hurtling towards a world of driverless cars, artificial intelligence and greatly enhanced communications that’s going to change the way we work, play and live our lives.

In the future, some jobs (and whole companies) will disappear, new ones will be created and technology will continue to change the way in which most of us do everything.

Can you remember the day’s when a phone was just a phone and you paid for things using something called cash!  The fact is that, if your business is going to stay ahead of your competition, then it needs to stay ahead of the curve in terms of communications technology.

One example of this change is in the conference room.  It’s time for the 1980s technology of the old pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) camera to be put to its final resting place and to welcome in its successor, the PanaCast 2 Intelligent Vision System.

Watch this short demo of how the PanaCast 2 can help to improve the quality and professionalism of your meetings:

If you want to know more simply call us on +44 (0)1992 878312.

We would like to thank everyone who joined one of our two recent PanaCast 2 Video Camera webinars.  The webinars included a live demonstration of the outstanding PanaCast 2 Video Camera showing how the PanaCast technology can improve your online meetings.

Javed Tufail, Director for Global Sales and Business Development from Altia Systems, did a fantastic job explaining and demonstrating how to use the PanaCast 2 Camera, including the remarkable Intelligent Zoom and PanaCast Whiteboard features which improve the quality, professionalism, and effectiveness of online meetings.

We had lots of great feedback after the webinars from the globally based attendees and many questions from them throughout.  For those of you who couldn’t make the webinars we have collated a list of the most popular questions asked below:

• Will the PanaCast 2 Camera work in different size rooms?

The PanaCast Camera is perfect for small rooms as well as large rooms, including auditoriums.  In fact, it is currently being used by more than 130 universities for both their huddle room deployments and lecture theatres.

• Does the whiteboard feature also work with an electronic whiteboard?

Yes, it does.  The PanaCast Whiteboard application will capture an image displayed on a smartboard display.

• Do I need to download any software for the camera to work with my PC?

There is no need to download any additional software or drivers.  The PanaCast 2 Video Camera is UVC compliant and connects to any computer (including Google Chromebook) via standard USB (either USB 2.0 or 3.0) for up to 4K plug-and-play operation.  HDMI connection is also possible via an adaptor.

• Is it best to have a desk stand or a wall mount?

It depends, but 70% of our sales have been for wall mounts for permanent installation.  The desk stand version is useful if you need to move the camera between rooms.

• How quickly can I receive a Panacast 2 Video Camera?

We have the cameras and accessories ready in stock in the UK.   UK orders will be shipped within 24 hours for next working day delivery.  Most European destinations will be reached within 2-3 working days.

• How can we purchase a PanaCast 2 Video Camera? 

For customers in the USA, cameras may be purchased from Altia Systems.  Details can be found by clicking here.

For customers in the UK, Europe, The Middle East and Africa, cameras may be purchased from Intermedia Communication Solutions.  Details can be found by clicking here.

Please keep an eye out on our website for further webinars that we will be running in the future.

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…