We have 5 conference rooms that hold anywhere from 10 - 20 people. Each room already has a wall mounted TV and HD webcam. However, the webcam isn’t the greatest and the built-in MIC makes it almost impossible to hear anyone unless they are speaking directly into the MIC.
We use a laptop connected to the TV and GoToMeeting to facilitate our video conferencing needs…for now.
I am looking for recommendations on a quality HD Webcam (wide angle for the room) and Microphone (perhaps something that could sit in the middle of the table).
Can anyone make any recommendations on equipment to meet our needs?
1 Spice up
I know someone who just bought the Logitech C920 for that exact purpose and said it works great for their needs, and for under $100…1080p video.
For audio, if the mic on that one doesn’t work too well, I’d look into the Polycom SoundStation Connect. It looks very similar to the device they are using on the Polycom RealPresence devices now, and those things are amazing. Two people whispering in the corner of the room and it’ll pick up the audio. I don’t know what the cost is on that one, but I’d guess it will cost more than the webcam 
iteched
(Ed6179)
3
Subscribed. I’m doing the same thing with our main conference room and have run across the same issues.
I’m using a Shure microphone mixer along with some hanging microphones to cover the room. However, the hanging mics are a bit of an eyesore and may replace them with table mount mics. The mixer does a fantastic job. My biggest problem is connecting the mixer to the phone. The phone (Samsung iDCS 28d) is digital but has a microphone input. However, when plugged into the mixer I get a lot of static on the line. There is no static when I plug the mixer into a computer so I know the connection has some type of issue. I may change to an analog phone to see what happens.
No luck with webcams yet…we have a typical one mounted on a computer equipped widescreen TV. It does the job but doesn’t look professional. We plan on eliminating the TV and using a projector instead. The camera will have to be wall mounted.
Hopefully someone will have solved this problem and can give us both some ideas.
Cheers!
Ed
psaini
(Paul3215)
4
We use skype in our conference room that is connected via blue-ray player and HD cam with built in mic.
I stopped on this site as I am searching for a hardware solution as well. Options I see are the Logitech BCC950 Conference Cam. I like the all in one solution. Also saw a speaker/Omni-directional mic combo called switch from Native Union, it is supposed to help with the echo that other participants can hear, if I used this option I would use the Logitech C920. The switch is blue tooth enabled but I understand that it uses a older Bluetooth software. I have not bought either one yet.
