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Explore moments made possible with DM NVX® technology.

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The New York Giants Draft Room presented by Crestron

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Explore moments made possible with DM NVX® technology.

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GREAT TEAMS OWN THE MOMENT

The New York Giants Draft Room presented by Crestron

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A Flexible, High-Impact Space in Action with Automate VX
This space showcases the perfect solution for any organization’s hybrid meeting needs
September 25

There’s a Crestron satellite office in Cypress, CA — a town roughly halfway between Anaheim and Long Beach — that features a very special room. Initially outfitted with a single camera and a large display, it’s now updated with 10 Crestron 1 Beyond cameras and the Automate VX multi-camera speaker tracking solution.

That update was born of necessity, says Crestron’s Director of Technical Sales Matt Olsen: “With meetings regularly involving 10 to 30 participants in various configurations, a single camera was only able to capture a broad overview of the room. Details and context of the in-room conversation were lost on remote participants. Now we have comfortable shots for every chair in the room, allowing all participants to follow the conversation.”

What makes this room particularly special is its flexibility. It’s excellent as a training or presentation space, in which meeting attendees are seated in a traditional classroom arrangement, but it can also be quickly — and very easily — converted into one of five other seating configurations to suit the needs of the meeting or demonstration within the space.

A Flexible Space

“Those five main furniture layouts adapt to different meeting types, including a large U shape with presenter tracking, a U shape with gallery and presenter tracking, a classroom with presenter tracking, a boardroom, and what we call a ‘hollow square,’ which closes off the top of that ‘U,’” says Olsen.

“The biggest surprise was how easy the system made it to change configurations and adapt to different meeting styles,” he adds.

In any application, everyone in the meeting — both those attending in-person and those attending remotely — can see and be seen, hear and be heard. A combination of the right cameras, microphones, speakers, and software creates what’s come to be known as “true meeting equity,” helping to foster and maintain engagement for everyone in a meeting, regardless of their physical location.

All these configurations, from training/presenting to collaboration/board meetings, are examples of “high-impact” or “high-value” spaces. These are rooms where critical information is shared, and decisions of utmost importance are made — in short, spaces vital to any enterprise, government institution, or university.

And a big part of the success of each seating arrangement is the Automate VX speaker tracking solution.

What’s in the Room: A Breakdown of This Complete Crestron Solution

Crestron Technical Director Joe Hernandez describes all the features of this total solution:

Intelligent Video

“The front of the room has two 1 Beyond p12 cameras on either side of the 165" video wall. There are two 1 Beyond p12 cameras on the left and right side of the room that are used in the ‘Hollow Square’ and ‘Boardroom’ configurations to capture head-on shots of participants who are conversing with people in the room instead of looking at the display. At the rear of the room, a 1 Beyond p20 camera is mounted from the ceiling to capture participants who face the rear of the room in the ‘boardroom’ and ‘hollow square’ configurations. Next to that camera is a 1 Beyond i20 camera, which does double duty: It tracks the presenter or multiple presenters at the front of the room and is also used as a PTZ camera for room configurations that do not have a presentation area. All 10 cameras feed into an Automate VX Pro Series 2 System.”

Video Conferencing

“The space is a Microsoft Teams Room utilizing Crestron Flex Custom Integrator’s Kit with a wall-mounted touch panel to drive everything. Content input is provided via Crestron AirMedia system with three AirMedia Connect Adaptors as well as a DM Essentials HDMI and USB-C wall plate transmitter.”

Audio

“There are two ceiling-recessed Sennheiser TCC2 microphones which are not only used to provide audio pickup within the room but also provide the Automate VX with positional data, allowing the system to identify where people are speaking from in the room. The mics feed a Shure P300 DSP. The audio system is rounded out with a DM NAX Audio-over-IP amplifier and nine Crestron Saros 6.5" ceiling speakers. Additionally, we have installed a DM NAX Audio-over-IP streaming preamplifier to play background music in the space during social gatherings with local partners.”

Content Distribution

DM NVX AV-over-IP is used to distribute audio and video within the space. The primary display is a large 165" video wall at the front of the room with a small confidence monitor at the rear.”

Control

“The room is controlled by a Crestron 4 Series processor. The Crestron Flex touch panel allows for advanced controls of the space behind the "Room Controls" button within the Microsoft Teams Room UI (but that really only gets used to change room configurations and overall demo purposes). For the most part, users walk into the room and join calls via one-touch join, and the Automate VX system turns on based on the call status. The displays themselves turn on and off via a Crestron occupancy sensor mounted on the ceiling.”

Environment

“The technology in the room is rounded out with a Crestron lighting system and Crestron shades. The lighting system is triggered via room occupancy, and the shades are tied to an astronomical clock and raise and lower depending on where the sun is in relation to the windows.”

A Broadcast-Quality Production — Automatically

“The key to this solution is the manner in which the system mimics the kind of close-ups and cutting you’d find in a broadcast — automatically,” says Cara Shannon, Crestron’s senior manager of product marketing. “'The system switches cameras based on signals from the microphones without showing any camera movements in the room for a seamless experience from the far end.”

“Cameras are strategically placed where participants are likely to be looking — at the display or behind other in-room attendees with whom they will be naturally conversing,” says Olsen. “The idea is to capture the best shot wherever an active speaker happens to be looking.”

“One of the key features of Automate VX is the ability to composite multiple live cameras, images, or text together to create the desired shot,” says Hernandez. “We use this for multiple things within the room. We have a layout called ‘Q&A’ that allows the focus to remain on the presenter while students asking questions appear as a small window in the corner of the screen. We also use lower-third graphic overlays in the room to include a blue banner with a Crestron logo if we want to brand our outbound video. Lastly, we even use compositions to create the room setup shots that allow us to show the person setting up the room where the furniture needs to be placed.”

“Composition allows for multiple cameras to be shown at one time, in whatever layout you want, in the video frame,” says Shannon. “The most common use case for this is ‘picture-in-picture’ with a wide shot of the room and a close-up of the person talking, but this can be accomplished with multiple cameras in any layout you need to capture what is happening in the space. ‘Conversation mode’ can show not only the person talking but also the person who spoke before them, creating a dynamic viewing experience that follows the conversation.”

A Better Experience with Visual AI Framing

We covered the benefits of this technology previously on the Crestron blog, notably when the software underwent its most recent update, which included speaker tracking with Visual AI:

Simply put, the artificial intelligence that drives this update makes for an even better experience for those collaborators who are joining a meeting remotely. It’s the latest step in our ongoing efforts to create true meeting equity in the hybrid work environment. 

Visual AI extends the power of Automate VX's speaker tracking by auto-framing the speaker, centering them in the frame even if they move from a position where a microphone has been sending location data. This frees collaborators to move naturally about the room as they speak — an especially common occurrence in longer meetings — without participants having to concern themselves with “staying in the frame.” 

“We use Visual AI in some of the room configurations in this space to allow people to get comfortable and lean back in their position without the fear that they will move out of their camera shot,” Hernandez notes.

Switch between Multiple Room Configurations with Ease

Crestron has created a tool called the Intelligent Video Room Designer software that easily configures the Automate VX system. The concept behind the software is very simple: As Shannon explains, “You upload a floor plan of your space, drop and drag visual representatives of the cameras and microphones on top, and then specify which camera to use when someone speaks from locations in the room. With this tool, you can design how the system will work in your space — without any special coding required.

“Then you can pull up another one of those room designs by simply hitting a button on your touch panel that triggers a different configuration,” she adds. “When you press that button, it will automatically pull up the specified design file and switch the cameras based on that.”

In addition, settings for how fast the system switches between speakers or whether there’s a default shot when no one is speaking can also be embedded in these configurations. Composite shots can also be saved and recalled with a single tap on the touch panel.

When Furniture Placement Changes

The obvious caveat here is that the Automate VX technology can’t move furniture on its own. “For furniture placement in each configuration, the user can call up a ‘scenario,” says Shannon. “A scenario pulls up an image that shows where the furniture should be placed,” she says. “What we recommend is that the installer or tech pro take a screenshot of the room set up the right way and make that image somewhat transparent so that then you can see the actual video underneath. It'll go to the same preset that you took that picture, and then you just match the furniture up with where it is. When you press that scenario on your touch panel, you'll be able to see the output with the camera in the same spot the picture was taken, and you can just realign the furniture correctly.”

“To put it simply, whether furniture placement is indicated by a transparency or the function that creates an outline of the tables, Automate VX includes everything you need for an effective solution,” says Olsen. “If you want to take it a step further with enhanced visualization or on-screen instructions, the tools are there. With the power of this software, the only limit is the imagination.”

When it comes to reconfiguring the furniture, Automate VX makes it a snap,” adds Olsen. “Simply line up the furniture to the onscreen trace in real-time to ensure perfect precision every time without messy marks on the floor, tape measures, or counting ceiling tiles. Anyone who can move the tables can do it.”

The Result

Ultimately, the room’s greatest feature is the overall experience that it provides, “An end user simply attends or conducts their meeting as if no cameras are in the room,” says Olsen. “They simply start the meeting and collaborate. The system handles getting the best shot for remote participants without the attendees needing to think about it at all.”

And visitors who have seen the room in action echo that sentiment, says Olsen. “Guests are consistently blown away by the production-quality results and how little they have to think about the technology — all they have to do is meet naturally.”

featured products

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Automate VX

Automate VX employs multiple optical zoom cameras and voice-activated switching to ensure remote participants enjoy a clear, crisp view of everyone in the room and in-person participants never have to think about where to look to follow the conversation.

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New 1 Beyond Cameras - Clearly capture everyone in the room.

Crestron is introducing a new line of 1 Beyond™ cameras, each designed to perfectly capture every participant in the room — even those up to 60 feet away from the lens.

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