Sound before vision: Audio for conferencing Features 07/06/2017 Without sound videoconferencing loses its ef?ciency. So why is more care not taken to ensure quality audio? Kevin Hilton looks at the issues.Without audio, video-conferencing is reduced to a mime show. Still, audio is a part of videoconferencing that is taken for granted or almost completely ignored. The steps to ensure quality audio begin with ‘product’ and ‘placement’. Tim Root, chief technology of?cer at Revolabs, comments: “The most common problem is the pick-up in the room. It’s a fundamental thing, not being able to hear a person because they’re at the whiteboard a distance from the mic or they’re a quiet talker. There can also be other problems, such as having air conditioning blasting out in the room. At the end of the day having mics as close to humans as possible is going to always improve the experience.†Wolfgang Fritz, product manager installed microphones at beyerdynamic, talks about how pickup can be improved by selecting the right type of microphone for the job: “For video conferencing applications, very often boundary microphones do a good job. They pick up from all directions but unfortunately these omni-directional microphones pick up every noise in the room. Therefore a good directional microphone helps to improve the sound quality.†Read the full article at InAVate Active.If you are not already registered then follow the quick sign up for your free subscription and immediate access to this article and the InAVate archive.