¶ Integrating Microsoft Teams and Zoom in Professional Spaces
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Contec Podcast, Wired In. We have back with us, special guest, Jeff Howard, the senior UXUI system programmer talking to us again about UX and UI, like our last episode. But further clarification for MTRs, which are Microsoft Team Rooms and Zoom Rooms. Now, we have another episode on that where we talk with Marcus about the importance of thinking about MTRs, but we wanna dive deeper into these details because they are very important.
When you are thinking about designing a space and all the use cases that you have for a conference room for your team, especially if you're a Microsoft organization or you use Zoom for your videos, it's extremely important to think about these things ahead of time because there's a lot of technical details you have to get right. And they're more expensive if you don't do them right the first time. So that's what we're gonna talk about today.
So Jeff, tell us about the, uh, differences between when you are setting up a room that's, you know, it's ProAV, it's gonna be a great room, it's gonna have great conferencing, but you need, uh, a, an MTR room specifically and the differences between those two different rooms, and then we'll go from there.
Yeah, sure thing. So I think what customers are, are used to when they think about, uh, Microsoft Teams room or a Zoom room is smaller spaces. And then they're larger, more complicated, you know, conference rooms or boardrooms. Uh, that's when they usually think about ProAV. And I think the transition, uh, for the industry's move towards mic- supporting Microsoft Teams rooms and Zoom Rooms is that those two can be one and the same.
Uh, so if you have a large space and you're already a Microsoft Teams house or a Zoom Rooms house, uh, you can start that conversation very early in terms of wanting a fully integrated ProAV system, but also having it run a Microsoft Teams room. Uh, a lot of users are comfortable with the Teams interface or the Zoom interface and, uh, hybrid meetings are just the way we do business now.
Yep.
so if you can start that conversation early and, uh, really drill down on what are the users going to be doing in, in a room, in a system. And, uh, we are all kinds of sclu- solutions, you know, very scalable solutions for, uh, your small huddle spaces all the way up to your, to your large boardrooms.
Okay. So when you're thinking about designing a space and you're programming it and thinking about how all the hardware and software connects and the cabling and so on, there are, you know, certain PCs that you can use that would do a great job, but then there's the, okay, I need, I'm actually a Microsoft team, that's a different PC or a different way that you have to program that. Like talk to me about those kind of differences.
¶ Purpose-Built MTR and Zoom Room Systems
Yeah, absolutely. So, um, MTR or Microsoft Teams Rooms, like you said, are purpose-built PCs, uh, that can, uh, ingest, uh, content to be shared in a Teams meeting. Um, they are, uh, completely integrated, uh, into the Teams platform, uh, which comes with all the bells and whistles that Microsoft has in terms of, uh, room scheduling, in terms of AI annotation and, and note-taking.
Um, so it really, uh, gives you the full power of the Microsoft platform in, in a purpose-built MTR PC uh, and the same thing with Zoom. You know, if you're a, a Zoom Rooms, uh, house and you can record or have AI note-taking on that platform, um, then the purpose-built Zoom Rooms PC is gonna do the same thing. And that's a really powerful tool that you have rather than just a, a, a PC running Zoom software or Teams software.
Uh, you're not gonna get that fully integrated user experience, uh, if you're just using something like that, which is why when we design, um, Pro AV systems with, uh, MTR or Zoom Rooms in mind, um, that is always gonna be the heart and soul of the user experience.
¶ Budget Impact and Early Planning
Talk to me about like the cost differential between doing, we'll call it a regular room and then doing an MTR. And then something you, you mentioned before we were recording was that, uh, if you don't do the MTR first, but then you realize you need an MTR, that gets way more expensive. Like te- tell me a little of the nuts and bolts of the budget thinking through that.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, uh, before we really had this full-scale integration, um, if you needed to do conferencing, uh, in sort of an old school ProAV system, uh, there was just a lot of hardware required for transporting camera video and, uh, microphone audio and, and, uh, audio DSP mixing. Um, a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of equipment required to really make that, uh, conferencing experience, uh, a positive one.
And, um, what we see now with the Teams and Zoom platforms is that, um, those are incredibly powerful platforms that really handle a lot of the nuts and bolts of it, uh, internally. So, um, we can really slim down, um, what the other equipment and, uh, the other program required, uh, to make that a positive user experience.
Um, and that's what I was talking about earlier in terms of, um, clients who are more used to these larger rooms just being these massive, uh, uh, price tags where you have to have a lot of, uh, video transport equipment, you have to have a lot of microphones, you have to have a lot of these other peripherals, uh, to make it into a usable space. And with MTR and Zoom, we can really slim down that.
We, it can only be a few pieces of equipment, um, a little bit of configuration, and because the, uh, manufacturers in, um, the AV industry have gotten so good about, um, integrating with Zoom and MTR, it can be a very light touch, not a lot of equipment, um, not a lot of configuration. And, um, if we know that at the beginning of a project or the beginning of a design, uh, you can really slim down and, and create a fully functional space, um, without a lot of equipment.
Have you done it the other way where you come in and it, you know, it's a, it's a f- fully fledged AV, beautiful conference room, everything's great, and they're like, "We wanna make this an MTR specifically." And you're like, "Oh, okay.
that's,
is that like? Wow.
¶ Challenges Upgrading Existing Systems
you will typically have an existing system that has, uh, you know, a, a control process and a touch panel from, uh, from another manufacturer and, uh, you either have to try to integrate, uh, MTR or Zoom controls into that space. Um, sometimes it's not even possible if it's an older system and the equipment is not compatible. Um, so it ends up being, uh, a redesign from a, from a UI and UX standpoint, but also sometimes from a, from a hardware standpoint.
Um, a lot of times clients won't wanna go through the trouble. They'll say, "Oh, well, well, we have a PC in here, or users will bring their laptop in here, and they can just launch Teams or launch Zoom, uh, from their PC or laptop, and that'll get the job done." And, and it will.
It is just not a, a, a positive user experience because, um, with an MTR deployment or a Zoom Rooms deployment, you have that, that control surface that's purpose built for that, and it's a one button to join a meeting. The meeting is already there on the screen, you walk in, you hit one button and off you go.
If you're asking users to come in and log into a PC or connect their laptop and then launch the software and then find the meeting, and it, it, it just becomes really cumbersome you know, time is money and pe- if people have to spend, you know, five, maybe more minutes to go into a room and get everything set up and, and get the camera right, and they're just not gonna wanna use the space.
And then it becomes just a wasted system, uh, it's a, it's a negative experience, and people are just gonna have those meetings at their desks with their laptops, and that's really not gonna be utilizing, um, the, the full power of a, of a fully integrated MTR or Zoom system.
That makes sense. And I, and I can imagine the, the AI note taking, if you will, which I know is super popular. Everybody does that now because you can create all kinds of docs after the fact. Um, it, th- that doesn't work as well if you were to have your PC come in, you kinda connect it or do whatever, and it's not a purpose-built MTR. Is that, is that fair?
¶ Audio Quality and AI Features in Modern Meeting Rooms
Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the value add of having, um, multiple people in the space with a, uh, professional level microphone and, and speaker system, um, you're gonna get that clarity of speech that, and the AI speech recognition and note-taking is just gonna be that much better.
And, um, you know, we've seen some really cool products over the last few years in terms of, um, wireless microphones and, um, tealing mic arrays or table mic arrays where they are, um, designed to, uh, pick up multiple speakers in different zones and really provide that clean audio that you're just not gonna get with, you know, a laptop microphone.
Um, so the more that we can sort of increase the value of these platforms and just create a positive user experience, a room that people wanna use, um, with not a lot of extra bells and whistles, um, that's really the goal when we're integrating, uh, with Teams rooms or with, uh, Zoom Rooms.
I like that. Okay. That's very helpful. Uh, what, is there any kind of, um, recommendations you would make if somebody is like, "Hey, I'm thinking I need to build a nice space and I know I'm gonna use Microsoft and we're a Microsoft shop. I just know that. Um, is there anything that they need to think about like the size of the space that matters or, um, you know, any kind of planning, forecasting, budgeting that's gonna, that's kinda impacts that decision
¶ Design Considerations and Content Sharing Logistics
for them?
Yeah, absolutely. I think right off the jump, you're gonna be wondering about, um, the physical size of a space and, and audio. How are, people gonna be sitting in the space? And you need, you know, like I said, you need, uh, microphones to cover all of the speakers and, um, you also need to worry about, um, how people are gonna be sharing content. think, uh, one of the biggest, uh, questions we have for clients is in a, in a large space is how are people gonna be sharing content in a meeting?
And, you know, a lot of clients don't want just loose HDMI cables on tables. They don't want a wall plate or a floor box that people have to connect to.
So in terms of sharing, you can share wirelessly through a number of devices that are out there on the market today, or you can, if your users are more comfortable with this, they can bring in their own laptops and join the Teams meeting or the Zoom meeting, um, and just share from their laptop, um, for content purposes, but still have those, uh, professional level microphones and cameras to create, um, sort of a more, uh, positive, uh, meeting experience.
Um, so those are the type of questions you would really wanna ask at the beginning of a project in terms of scaling up, um, from like a huddle space or a small conference room, um, is the logistics of, um, getting audio and content into these meetings and what their users are comfortable with.
What do you tell, or is there any advice, wisdom, benefit of being a superior organization and using Google Workspace like me? Or is that What, what do we, what do we do? Do we get any benefit of this? Do we have a special room that we can build?
Unfortunately, no. I think,
Oh, man. All right.
this is where the AV industry needs to catch up because, uh, after COVID, you know, Zoom became so popular that that was kind of
Yeah.
the, the leading edge of where technology was going. And, um, a lot of the AV manufacturers were, were very quick to bring some products to the market that integrated with Zoom, and then as Microsoft sort of c- caught up and started integrating the full weight of their, uh, various platforms, um, they've kind of been running neck and neck since then. And Google hasn't had, uh, the level of exposure, uh, to the AV industry. But, um,
It's a shame.
we, we, uh, we have some good partnerships with some, uh, developers at, at, uh, some of the AV manufacturers. So next time we meet with them, I'll bring them up. I'll be like, "Hey, guys, we've had some, uh, had some Google, uh, clients come up and, and they wanna get in on this party. They want full integration. What can you do for me?
I'm sure that's, that's not the, the kind of folks that you typically work with. Those are, like, design shops and agencies or whatever, but, um, does it matter whether you have a PC or an Apple?
Is that something that you think about or, or, uh, you know, any kind of, like, OS operations just for people in the room, you know, because I know a lot of people have mixtures, especially, like, if you're on a, uh, you have some creative team members or, or, you know, folks that come, maybe like head of marketing or something that needs to be in these rooms, they typically would have, like, a, you know, kind of an Apple product or anything like that.
¶ Platform and Device Compatibility
100%. I think, uh, along with, uh, what platform are you using, I think the, um, Windows or, uh, Mac conversation needs to happen early in, in the project. Um, so, uh, Apple Macs are notorious for having issues with, uh, recording and capture. Um, they
Yeah.
uh, a special flag on their, on their video output. I won't get too technical on it, but basically, it, it makes it difficult to record. And, um, where we come in is that when we design a system saying, "Hey, users are gonna be bringing in, in Mac laptops or, um, you know, we're gonna run this Zoom Rooms instance off of a Mac."
Um, we can, um, design and, uh, configure those systems, uh, to, to work, um, whereas, you know, in the old days, you would have these, um, uh, hardware codecs Uh, Cisco was like a leading manufacturer of codecs and then people would try to plug in their, their Mac laptop and you'd just get a gray screen. It would, it would actually kill the video signal and like, "Why can't I plug this in?
So we have been down that road before and, uh, so the, the earlier we know that there are gonna be Apple Macs in a system, the better, and we can, we can design around that and make sure that that content gets through, uh, to your meetings.
Okay, this is helpful. I wanna zoom out a bit for this, this last question, but just to think, like, it seems pretty, I will say, daunting, to think about all the edge cases that you might have for a room, because you just never know how these meetings are gonna shake out, especially if it's two, three, four, five years from now, and you need, you want this room to last, you wanna do it right the first time.
What, what advice would you give to listeners who are dreaming about this space, and they don't know all the edge cases that will come up and, and the exact needs that they might have, but, again, wanna do it right the first time. What, do you guys have, like, a process to kinda surface these kind of questions up front, or how, how do you, how do you help them think through these things in detail?
¶ Scalable Design and Future Proofing
Absolutely. So I think the, um, the way that we design for a solution is to think about the roadmap. Um, we can always build on something that is designed, um, sort of with a more slim design, you know, we can, we can add to it.
And I think that's where, um, the scalability of what we provide, uh, really benefits like an MTR deployment or a Zoom room's deployment is because a lot of clients wanna sort of have a couple rooms, like on a smaller scale, just as a trial, we wanna see, uh, how it works out, and that's great. And then they come back and they say, "Hey, we wanna add, um, to a system, uh, we wanna add inputs, we wanna add microphones, we wanna add two camera shots."
Um, and a few pieces of equipment, we can a robust system behind the scenes, uh, with a lot of automation, uh, a lot of features to add to it later, um, if they're having a good experience and saying, "Hey, we really wanna step our game up. We really want it to be a premier, uh, system, a premier space for our, for our organization."
Um, and like I said, if you have built sort of this, uh, bedrock of, uh, usability, um, with just a couple pieces of equipment, um, to handle control and automation, to handle audio, um, to handle, um, video, you can, it's, it's everything is scalable. And, you know, if you have the right pieces on the front end, then upgrading is not gonna be that much more expensive.
It's just gonna be, um, adding in the right equipment for the solution and then having, uh, our team come in with our expertise and just providing, um, the engineering behind the scenes to really give you that, that full scale, um, premier space that you're after.
That's what some people might call f- like, future proofing. Like, I, I
Exactly.
bit of work upfront, just a little bit will save you a lot of headaches in the future, though you can't catch everything, and there's always gonna be, you know, maybe additional edge cases that will be kinda funky, but do, do a little bit more work upfront, and that'll save you a lot in the future. Is that a fair summary?
Yeah.
Yeah.
just had a, a corporate client in, uh, in downtown Raleigh who had, uh, similar requests. We had done a number of, you know, small conference rooms, a couple, um, boardrooms, and then one, uh, sort of big, uh, event space, and they wanted to add some extra microphones and some extra video capability, and it was just a couple pieces of equipment, and then, uh, the engineering time to, to integrate that into their system. Um, and they've had some great success there.
They've already had a couple events, and we've had some good feedback on that. So if you have, like I said, if you have that baseline of, of, of control, of audio processing, getting that clean audio into meetings, um, then we can always build off of that. And, um, I think the, the biggest thing that contact provides is the, um, first year, um, warranty.
Uh, we have our support team come out and they're, they're talking to the clients, uh, they're doing preventive maintenance checks and, you know, at that point when we, when we are in the space with you and are seeing how it performs and getting that feedback, um, that's just an easy conversation to have of be like, you know, this is, this is working very well, but we would really like to add something else to the system.
We get that feedback from the support team all the time and then we can start that conversation again, being familiar with, with how the system was originally designed and then what their, what their ne- how their needs have changed or how their needs have grown, um, since that project.
Cool, that's awesome. Yeah, I love hearing that. I love hearing a, a actual use case of doing this recently, and just plugging up a couple extra things, because you did all the front end work of, of thinking through things really well. That's great.
absolutely.
Well, thanks so much, Jeff. Appreciate your time today. There's, uh, some other episodes for our listeners to check out. You can go to contact.com and you'll find other episodes on the UXUI that we just released, and then there's another episode on MTRs and Zoom Rooms, but there's a lot of other resources there if you guys are thinking about building a new, uh, you know, dreaming about a new space, and just all the details that go into that, and you guys are there to, to support.
But the number one thing I hear from everybody on your team is think about things as early as possible in the process and bring in a great expert like contact. So, Jeff, thanks so much, and hopefully we'll see you again on the show.
Absolutely. Thanks, Brandon.