The Captivate™ Series is a new Atlona product family for video conferencing and hybrid meetings – meeting sessions between in-room and remote participants. Captivate is designed especially for small to medium-sized meeting rooms, and flexible gathering spaces that are being adapted to allow hybrid meetings and collaboration.
Why we created the Captivate Series
As workers began returning to offices in the wake of the shutdowns in 2020 and 2021, we’ve received numerous requests to help make it easier for them to conduct meetings with their colleagues participating remotely.
The business world has gradually accepted that remote work will remain part of the corporate fabric for the foreseeable future. That means ensuring that both physical and out-of-office workers have the tools they need to collaborate. The corporate meeting space is ground zero for making changes and upgrades that improve productivity and bridge the two worlds.
It wasn’t long ago when everyone was in one physical space for meetings. The presenter knew the audience was keeping up with the talking points. The presenter could see the audience, and the audience could look right back while absorbing the information in real time.
The corporate world must now think differently. We are now presenting to remote audiences outside the meeting space. The inability of the remote worker to see and hear an in-room colleague effectively reduces the communication by half and raises frustration. If there’s video and audio of the presenter at all, many hybrid team members use built-in laptop cameras and microphones. In the office, that little webcam and mic are woefully inadequate to cover the meeting space. Without proper equipment for video and audio, the other side gets only half the experience.
The Captivate Series is our new product family that aims to serve the requirements for today’s working environments in two important ways:
- Deliver a high-quality video and audio experience for everyone, especially in hybrid meetings with workers from home. This is the principle known as meeting equity to ensure those attending remotely are just as engaged as people in the room. Remote workers should be able to easily see and hear their local colleagues.
- Satisfy the ever-increasing demand for corporations and businesses to provide high-quality, yet cost-effective and easily scalable AV solutions in a variety of gathering spaces that facilitate hybrid meetings.
Let’s take a look at two newly launched products as the initial members of the Captivate family.
4K ePTZ Auto-Framing Camera
The AT-CAP-FC110 is an enterprise-grade ePTZ camera ideal for use in video conferencing, distance learning, and other applications. This camera offers a 110° wide horizontal field of view and features electronic pan, tilt, and zoom capabilities, as well as an auto-framing functionality that reframes the camera based on detection of up to 6 participants.
- Features, specs, and price appropriately suited for huddle rooms and small to medium-sized meeting spaces
- High quality performance and imaging of a full-sized PTZ camera, but in a discreet device
- USB-C® interface for video and audio, as well as device powering
- Automatically detects and re-frames camera for up to 6 participants
- Fast, responsive ePTZ (electronic pan, tilt, and zoom) camera functions
USB / Bluetooth Speakerphone
The AT-CAP-SP100 is a speakerphone in an elegant enclosure featuring USB, Bluetooth®, and analog audio connectivity. It is equipped with a 6-element microphone array for 360-degree voice capture, as well as the ability to concentrate audio pickup on individual talkers while suppressing background noises.
- 360-degree coverage captures voices in up to a 16 foot (5 meter) radius
- 6-element microphone array focuses audio pickup and suppresses background noises
- Sophisticated acoustic echo cancellation and noise reduction
- Elegant metal enclosure suitable for conference rooms, executive offices, and home offices
- Battery supports 8-hours of operation, with charging available through USB and Qi wireless
About the Author
Perry Sun is a Product Marketing Manager for Atlona, focusing on AV over IP, wireless BYOD, and commercial HDBaseT products. In his free time, he enjoys blogging, creating videos for his YouTube channel, learning web development, cooking, and basically anything related to Japanese culture (especially food).