1. Room Design Considerations
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Flooring, Walls, and Ceilings
A room where the floor is carpeted, the walls are composed of drywall, and the ceiling is
suspended typically provides the best acoustics. Of course, you can select a room with different
surfaces (such as tile floors or concrete walls), but these are often more reverberant, and therefore,
may affect the sound quality.
A cost effective way to improve acoustics is to add carpeting or rugs if your floor is not carpeted.
You may also want to consider adding acoustical sound panels to the walls.
Noise and Temperature
When selecting the room in which to install your VidyoRoom, keep these noise and temperature
considerations in mind:
The room where the VidyoRoom is located must be equipped with Heating, Ventilation, and Air
Conditioning (HVAC) equipment. Remember, however, that HVAC equipment can raise the
noise level in the room.
You should consider which rooms are nearby and try to select a room that is not adjacent to
frequently noisy areas, such as cafeterias or reception areas.
Acoustics
The quality of the sound is just as important as the quality of the video. You want the dialogue
between participants to sound like everyone is in the same location, which means that you need
quality microphones placed in the right spots. You may choose to hang microphones from the
ceiling, embed them in the table, or place them on the table.
Microphones pick up sound reverberating off hard and flat surfaces in the room. You can dampen
reverberations by installing noise-dampening ceiling tiles, fabric-wrapped acoustical panels on the
walls, or a combination of both.
Room Color
The color of the walls within the camera field of view can impact how the far-end participants
perceive the video quality. If you want the far-end participants to see higher quality video, ensure
that the wall at which the camera is pointing is non-textured, non-patterned, and not reflective.
Painting the wall a muted color, such as beige or blue-gray, looks better on video than bright white
or dark colors. As a general rule of thumb, the brighter the room is, the darker the walls should be.
For example, if your room has no windows, dark carpeting, and the overhead lights are not
extremely bright, you should consider painting your walls a lighter shade, such as pale blue or light
beige. If, on the other hand, your room gets a lot of natural sunlight, has light-colored carpeting,
and has bright overhead lights, you should consider painting your walls a slightly darker shade,
such as tan or medium gray or blue.
If you want to test colors before painting the walls, try hanging fabric of various colors on the back
wall to see which color looks best on video.
