Whether you are videoconferencing or updating your work environment, how you light the room is mission critical.
By Joy Zaccaria
May 01, 2013
slow educational process, both at the end-user level and with the architects, in specifying engineers to understand the need for good video lighting in these applications.”
Many rooms in question now are retrofits and initially were not made for videoconferencing. “We see people start shopping at the camera level and they skip the lighting because lighting is taken for granted,” says Katz. “Lighting is what makes people look good. We find that every integrated element in the videoconference is enhanced with proper lighting. Even to the point of the audio in that people can hear better if they have a better view of who is speaking.”
InfoComm and the Illuminating Engineering Society have committees now that issue standards to address lighting for videoconferencing. “We focus on controlling light,” said Katz. “The standards say that the lights should be dimmable. The content on whiteboards, plasma screens and projection screens will be wiped out if you light a presenter in front of them. Devices like screens need to be put in the aperture of the fixture so that the light is restricted from elements and the integrity is maintained. That increases the content retention within the videoconference itself.”
Natural light can create a big variable for videoconferencing lighting. If there is daylight in the videoconference space, it needs to be controlled. The goal is to keep one color temperature in the room. “If daylight is coming in, we match the color temperature to the daylight,” says Katz. “If there is more than one color temperature, it is going to degrade the picture image. If there has to be more than one color temperature, we try to keep it off the participants’ faces.”
Window shade controls are used to capture and make intelligent use of natural light for more than just videoconferencing purposes. Light harvesting helps reduce energy cost on projects across
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