Inavate
From touchscreen terminals to opinion voting, congress
systems are more sophisticated than ever before. Inavate explores the options
available to integrators.
When delegates fly in from all over the world for a high
profile meeting they expect to get the most out of their precious time. The
meeting environment must be of the highest standards: intelligibility must be
optimal, confidentiality should be guaranteed and the conference equipment is
expected to perform without a glitch. The goal of having any congress system is
to improve the meeting experience.
The end-users of a congress system are most likely delegates
of local or governmental institutions tiering up to delegates from
national/international summits.
Since delegates have to concentrate and focus on the
discussion, the first function of a delegate conference system unit has to be
usability. “A typical unit should have an intuitive interface, where no IT
knowledge is necessary and be a simple to handle tool for speech
intelligibility and structured discussion,” says Robert Pekar, facility
management director at Munich-based CS Congress-Services. Jubilee Bao, engineer
from Taiden agrees, “End users of conference systems are not usually highly
skilled, but almost all of them have the experience of operating a PC or
smartphone. Conference system terminals are designed to be simple so normally
users wouldn’t have too much trouble.”
Intuitive interface
Within local government skill levels can vary dramatically,
reports Simon Druce of CUK Audio, which represents Televic in the UK and
Ireland. “Primarily this is because the variety of users across departments
bring different requirements to the room so being able to offer training is
paramount to successfully helping a client adopt it. It’s not necessarily a
user having zero experience, it’s more a case of them understanding how the
technology benefits them.”
“The user of congress systems doesn’t care at all about IT,”
is the no-nonsense message from Kain Audio’s Franz Werner. “The skills level
for the equipment is most of the time quite limited, therefore the
congress system should be as easy as possible to use,” he suggests. “The
user quite rightly just expects it to function properly.”
For special conferences where additional information/materials are required,
content there are high-end delegate units, such as the Bosch Dicentis, which
enables participants to collect all meeting related documents on one device and
in any format including JPG, PPT, MP4 and XLS.
“It is possible with such devices to show actual speaker
images by automatic camera control on the devices, to enable media-sharing from
the presenter on the device or to have special apps which helps support
conference information,” explains Pekar.
More and more users are looking to utilise voting to ease
the democratic process and aid transparency to the outside world; “Some venues
like it sophisticated, some are still voting by raising their hands,” notes
Werner.
“A simple yes/no/abstain will usually be suitable but those
systems that can customise the voting process and really tailor the user
experience will always be the chosen solution,” says Druce. “Customisation can
mean anything from polling delegates on which food they want for lunch or
adding in ad hoc votes. Assigning the right total congress solution always
means working from the end user needs back up the chain.”
Aside from the required voting options - YES/NO/Abstain -
opinion polling can be introduced with ++/+/0/-/-- or special country-specific
voting functions and demands. Modern conference systems feature touch-screen
delegate units where voting can be set-up for individual topics on the agenda.
“This has the advantage that no dedicated hardware per type
of voting is needed,” says Pekar. “It can be simply configured by software.”
BYOD integration
The prevalence of BYOD has increased dramatically over the
last 12-18 months, even down to local government level. This method of working
can give the user the ability to have a singular workspace yet take part in all
major collaborative aspects. The rise of BYOD hasn’t gone unnoticed by
manufacturers of congress systems. “Integrated systems are becoming more
and more popular. Products should be compatible to third party equipment and
all products should comply with a public protocol or standard. By so doing,
they should be able to work together.” says Mike Gu, engineer, Taiden.
Televic has a range of ways of bringing BYOD into its
products, as Druce outlines, “With PLIXUS in/out boxes, any video is injected
onto the Plixus Core and then becomes one of the six available HD streams.
Using our own encoding process, we ensure all the streams use minimal bandwidth
yet retain the integrity and quality that is required to view the finer details
- of Excel or Powerpoints, for example. This can then be selected from any
connected device as a source to view. Individuals can choose the source they
want making the user experience totally tailored.”
With the Bosch Dicentis conference system it is possible, via a simple link to
the main conference server, to show content management on BYOD. It is also
possible to connect applications like Barco Click-Share to share the
presentation of a delegate from their laptop with a simple click.
“The trend to BYOD is increasing and might become standard
in the future,” suggests Pekar. “For this to happen, however, a lot of data
security and safety restrictions have to be obeyed as the content of a
conference is really sensitive.”
Security essentials
Ensuring secure communications is paramount especially at
high-profile government / United Nations level where delegates must be assured
of confidentiality and security: what goes on in the room stays in the room.
Professional conference systems can encrypt the audio
protocol as protection against tampering. Wireless conference systems can also
comply with WPA2 encryption.
Televic use a closed network in which the Plixus core can
stand alone and offer fully secure communications. “When networking and
integration of other tools are introduced, the individual security of those is
managed separately before they enter the Plixus core thereby maintaining the
simplicity and strength of Plixus,” says Druce.
Taiden’s security measures include offering a full system
backup, dual main unit hot spare backup, dual power unit backup, dual PC server
backup and also a daisy chain connection between microphones which can be
circled back to main unit. If it’s a paperless multimedia congress system,
Tadien offers GMC-STREAM technology which ensures the transmission of important
data such as voice, voting and control information. Paperless multimedia
congress system is also based on Taiden's own proprietary platform, so it is
free of virus attacks.
Audio intelligibility
If the congress system is to improve intelligibility and
reduce fatigue, there cannot be any compromise on audio quality. Yet, the whole
quality of speech intelligibility is only as good as the weakest element in the
sound creation chain. This starts at the microphone of the delegate unit, goes
through the electronics of the conference system with its limiters and
compressors as well as its DSP-functionalities and ends at the loudspeaker of
the units and/or the sound reinforcement installed in the venue.
“Intelligibility is always the goal… why would anyone settle
for ‘good enough’?” asks Druce.
Microphone arrays can allow more freedom to speak as they
have more speech distance (up to 60cm) to the speaker and are not as visible
(as goosenecks) in the conference.
According to Druce, “people have tried array mics now for
several years and they certainly have their place in the congress market but
the common problem is that of pick up. They are designed to pick up from wide
and far which, in many congress environments, isn’t what is required. Closely
whispered comments and private conversations can often be transmitted into the
system. In addition, due to the pick-up pattern, these system draw in more
background noise and this is not ideal for the hearing assistance solution.
Hearing aid users rely on intelligibility and when too much background noise is
introduced, the ability to distinguish between speech and noise becomes harder.
The old law of physics doesn’t change – place the source as close to the mouth
as possible – intelligibility wins every time over design.”
Pekar advises that choice of microphone is also dependent on
the acoustics of the individual room or hall. “Modern conference systems have
pluggable mics to ensure flexibility in mic selection,” he says. “Nonetheless,
for acoustical challenging rooms the gooseneck is preferred.”
When it comes to audio networking, Dante/AVB is by far and
away the market leader as it is a robust, reliable, time-sensitive and
industrial standard for Audio-over-IP communication.
Networking flexibility
That said, any form of networking makes a congress system
more flexible in the installation space. “Being able to pull off independent
mic streams via Dante, for example, makes multi track recording more simple and
maintains a higher level of audio quality,” explains Druce. “It also enables
routing of the external audio to breakout areas while debating chambers become
flexible and more manageable.”
“In conference applications the timing of a signal is
important as it has to be lip-synched with the video image of the speaker,”
informs Pekar. “This is important for the interpreters as, in order to deliver
simultaneous translation, they need to see the image of the speaker to
‘translate’ their words and gestures and mimic the correct interpretation of
the words
Professional conference systems work with audio bandwidth
which exceeds 4-6KHz which is necessary for speech only. For better sound
quality bandwidth from 20Hz up to 20KHz is needed – this is also important for
any outside broadcaster distributing the conference to the public.
For video, HD is important and standard. AV signals have to
be lip-synched (possible with the Bosch HD Conference Dome for example, which
has a special HD-SDI output to enable this). Televic’s Plixus Core can
run up to six full HD streams down a single network cable.
Testing testing
What is often overlooked is the huge incurred cost when a
meeting is delayed or when it simply can’t continue because of a system
failure. It is clear that conference venues are mission-critical environments
requiring equipment that offers performance, security and reliability.
Testing is “mandatory” for any rental company, states Pekar.
This includes off-site factory tests as well as in the conference venue itself
to test against additional challenges thrown up by the individual environment.
The more complex installs are generally worked on for
several years with prototypes and ideas sent back and forth several times. Once
an agreement has been reached, a small test system will always be built so that
all parties involved in the project from end user, designer and integrator can
understand the build and usage pattern of the overall system.
“The idea of a ‘proof of concept’ is nothing new,” suggests
Druce. “Integrators and consultants have been using it for years. But with the
onset of networking and especially Dante (where potentially multiple
manufacturers will be pulled together to form the perfect solution) it becomes
imperative to plot a smaller working model.
Without these working models, he adds, “onsite time which is
probably one of the most costly aspects of any project, would increase and
problems that occur would not be resolved as fast. Any opportunity to test
off-site reveals the potential pitfalls, pitfalls that can be extinguished and
dealt with prior to attending.”
IT fabric
Conference systems based on standard TCP/IP architecture are
simple enough to understand by IT teams and can be connected straightforwardly
to a venue’s existing network. In this case the conference system works in a
kind of VLAN and has the advantage that content can be simply connected to the
existing conference servers for exchange of information. Pre-meeting functions
like setting up a conference meeting with all delegates, permissions and
prepared voting can also be realized. What’s more, all post-meeting functions
like customized presentations of voting results (as PDF or Powerpoint) can be
done.
“In house IT teams are often reluctant to allow the congress
system to have external access into the network, although a good percentage of
our clients are happy to allow Televic products onto the network,” reports
Druce.
Televic’s Plixus network is a closed network: no third party
devices or connections are allowed on that part of the network that
interconnects delegates and chairmen with the central equipment or Plixus
Engine. Also, no device or system outside of the conference system has direct
access to the mission critical part of the conference network. In this way, the
vendor says not only performance and reliability of the system is maximized,
but also the security is guaranteed.
The vendor further explains that the Dante interface on the
Plixus Engine ensures an open communication to third party Dante enabled
systems creating a wealth of possibilities for signal routing and signal
processing. In this way, it claims, Plixus offers more bandwidth, better
quality and less latency than any other commercial network technology.
Most legacy equipment isn’t wholly compatible with the newer
congress system technology although manufacturers do work with end users to
ensure that all the features and benefits of legacy equipment is integrated
into their solutions. This may be via software or the ability to network legacy
equipment (via Dante) into the solution.
“The obvious challenge is one of cost,” notes Druce. “Everything
is possible for a price.”
