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Interactive media specialist Jeff Humphrey at the Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority (INCOLSA) needed an affordable and simplified method to videoconference the organization’s annual board meeting–as a way to reach its 720 member locations in real time. The solution he sought would provide live video and audio for interactive videoconferencing to the outlying facilities, while also providing presentation support to those on-site.

INCOLSA is a statewide library consortium serving academic, public, school and special libraries, and attendance for these meetings at multiple sites was expected to be substantial. Budget constraints and scheduling issues, however, made this annual session more of a challenge than in the past, as Humphrey had neither the budget to bring in experienced help for setup, nor access to the auditorium until 7 a.m. the morning of the meeting. Onsite engineering needed to be simplified for the volunteer help he would be using.

There were numerous considerations for audio, video and conferencing.

For audio, house sound had to be audible in the auditorium, patched into a Polycom VS4000 unit for the receive sites, and run to a recording device. Sound from a video player also had to be audible in the auditorium and patched into the Polycom unit.

For the video side, a camera would have to be set up so receive sites could see the presenters, and video from the receive sites needed to be seen in the auditorium. There was also a promotional video to be shown in the auditorium and sent to the receive sites. PowerPoint presentations had to be seen in the auditorium and at the receive sites, as well. A video mixer was needed to mix the various feeds.

For videoconferencing demands, two-way interactive connections were necessary at all five meeting points for discussion and voting. The conference center had no permanent videoconferencing equipment, but multiple ISDN lines were available. A videoconferencing unit had to be set up in the conference center control booth, with the ISDN signal from the conference center converted to an IP signal and distributed to multiple points. The IP signal from the receive sites would be converted to ISDN and sent back to the conference center.

The VS4000 was ISDN-capable, but none of the receive sites were equipped to receive a direct ISDN signal. Luckily, the Internet service provider for the event, Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System, had an Accord MGC 100 multipoint conferencing unit to handle both ISDN and IP calls–as long as Humphreys could get a call out from the conference center and registered on the MCU, everyone could be connected.

In evaluating video solutions, Humphrey sought out something similar to the NewTek VT Integrated Production suite, with which he had prior experience, but he wanted something simpler for video novices. NewTek’s just-launched TriCaster, a portable multipurpose presentation system with simplified live production and recording, fit the bill. TriCaster is a self-contained appliance that weighs 10 pounds and outputs simultaneously to video, projector and Internet.

TriCaster’s six hours of integrated video storage would allow Humphrey to record the event on the internal hard drive and, at the same time, play back edited video clips. “I realized it would allow me to replace the video switching system and add the ability to play videos without engineering in either a VCR or a DVD player,” Humphrey says.

“Dual video output options would allow feeds to both the house A/V and the videoconferencing unit, further eliminating the need for a distribution amp. Most importantly, the straightforward interface and well-labeled buttons on the TriCaster VM external switching device would make it easy to operate with very little training.”

TriCaster’s emphasis on simplicity brings with it some system limitations, including audio. The integrated audio mixer only allows for two unbalanced microphone inputs and one unbalanced line input. Humphrey augmented this with a Mackie 1402-VLZ mixer. The final component was to record the video of the meeting, for which he connected a Panasonic DMR-E95H DVD recorder to the live video output. This particular model can record to an internal hard drive, so he did not have to concern himself with swapping tapes or DVDs during the session.

Humphrey says setting up the videoconferencing was simple, as he had already programmed the ISDN numbers and only had to plug in the ISDN lines, one S-video cable and one audio cable for the outbound signal. Inbound required one S-video and one audio feed to house A/V.

For video, a Canon XL2 was used to capture the auditorium activity. The house computer was used for PowerPoint and scan conversions, with both the camera and computer fed into TriCaster. An S-video out was run to the Polycom unit and a component video out was run to the house A/V.

For audio, feeds from the house and TriCaster were run into the Mackie mixer and sent out to the Polycom unit. A feed from the Polycom unit was sent out to house A/V.

TriCaster provided six hours of operation, switching between camera, computer and video clips. Humphrey used the product’s integrated titler to superimpose lower-third graphics identifying the presenters. He was also able to delegate switching to a volunteer so he could concentrate on other issues that came up.

The day of the event would not be without glitches. About an hour and a half into the session, one of the ISDN lines went down, dropping the feed from the video bridge for about five minutes. To restore the conference, Humphrey scaled down the signal, leaving the receive sites with slightly degraded video.

Knowing that INCOLSA is returning to the venue for 2006, he plans to work with the conference center staff to become more familiar with their A/V system. Videoconferencing would improve if an IP signal was available, he suggests, but the presence of a firewall and high traffic on the T-1 line make ISDN the safer alternative.

“I would have been able to be more active with correcting the house sound issues if I would have taken a few minutes to become more familiar with their A/V system the day I tested the videoconference signal,” he says. “The trouble with the ISDN lines emphasized the need for a backup system to the videoconferencing.”

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