Ask HN: What is the most cost-effective videoconferencing setup?

5 points by asianexpress 13 years ago | 4 comments

Situation: Our startup has two offices and we occasionally need to have meetings between the two (with another one or two people from another location). Google Hangout would suffice if not for the audio situation -- you'd have to have everyone crowd around the mic for it to work properly and this doesn't work well (comfortably) if you have about 15 people in a room. We have projectors so visuals aren't really an issue.

Is there a solution such that someone could talk from any part of the conference room such that the people on the other side will hear it properly? Goal is for it to be reasonably priced and easy to set up? Perhaps < $1,000? (if a really great solution exists for a little more, that's okay)

If there's a reasonable external mic (+accessories) setup we can use with a laptop and Google Hangout, that would be fine as well.

Another attempt that failed was using Gotomeeting and dialing in on a Polycom Soundstation -- people had to be close to the SoundStation for it to work properly.

PLaiN_sight 13 years ago |

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5592554

15 people able to hear and speak clearly from anywhere in a conference room? It's a lot harder than you think. For participants, poor sound quality "gets in the way"; good sound "just works." And a single piece of (expensive) office videoconferencing hardware is only a small part of the goal of minimizing distracting ambient noises and maximizing intelligible speech.

As you've discovered, sound quality is the hardest aspect of making video conferencing a good experience for speakers and listeners on both sides of the video link. It's easy to jack in a big-screen TV to a laptop for viewers at the back of the room. But the quality of the sound is shaped by the interplay of acoustics in both rooms. Reverberation within both conference rooms as well as noise captured by the microphones lead to poor sound quality.

Here's what you're up against: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/telepresence/endpoint/misc/u...

So the solution to the problem is not a better piece of office conferencing equipment, and it's not DIY acoustics management - it's a sound professional who has the skills necessary to tailor a solution for your specific office environment.

Large corporations hire an audio design consultant. But for your budget, ask an experienced local sound technician--someone who works with natural sound for a living--to come by and offer their advice. Inspect the office location together and review with him/her the specifics of how you intend to use the space. A good soundie will: consider all the factors that shape the room's acoustics, including floor, wall, ceiling dimensions and materials; evaluate all sources of ambient noise; decide on choice and placement of wired/wireless mic(s) and speakers, an inexpensive (automatic) mixer. Sound recording pros - whether on an indie movie set or at a local radio station - routinely make the best use of the available budget; an experienced soundie will get you better sound, usually for less money, often with a mix of more creative solutions that can include inexpensive, low-tech sound modifiers for the room's acoustics.

asianexpress 13 years ago | |

Thanks for the input! Any idea how much a local sound technician costs?

We were thinking we might just get mixers + mics (such as http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATR2100-USB-Cardioid-Dy...), with the mixer able to plug in via USB (I personally have used this set up for recording my own music). This seems like the cheapest setup -- downside is the wired mics and the need to have people grab a mic, but we can mitigate this with a multiple mic setup -- 3 mics. One for the main speaker (if there is one), and then two to pass around as people talk back and forth, or ask questions.

In terms of the sound itself, we can just plug in some speakers to whatever machine that is in the Google Hangout.

As an added bonus: we have our own parts for a Karaoke machine

greattypo 13 years ago |

Sounds like you need the expandable brand of Polycom designed for consistent audio quality in large rooms: http://www.officemax.com/technology/phones-headsets/conferen...

asianexpress 13 years ago | |

Thanks for the heads up -- if only they weren't so expensive and if only we already had the expandable ones.