An inclusive meeting experience for everyone in any room with Microsoft Teams Rooms
Published Aug 15 2019 09:13 AM 75.6K Views

In today’s modern workplace, teams come together from around the world to get things done. Microsoft Teams Rooms helps those teams keep everyone engaged and creates an inclusive experience for people in the room and remote viewers. Today’s update of the Microsoft Teams Rooms app brings a new content camera feature that enables users to intelligently include a traditional whiteboard into their Teams meeting. Powered by Artificial Intelligence in the Microsoft cloud, a dedicated content camera intelligently detects, crops and frames the in-room whiteboard and shares its content with remote meeting participants. Even when a presenter moves in front of the whiteboard remote participants will be able to see the content right through them.

Work like you are in one place, with Microsoft Teams Rooms



 

Content camera with intelligent capture
The room user experience is simple: during a meeting, a presenter uses the console to select the Content Camera and from there the app can intelligently detect, crop. and frame the whiteboard. Content drawn on the board is shared with remote meeting participants.

Start content camera in the roomStart content camera in the room

 

Remote attendees get a clear view of the whiteboard even when a presenter moves around in front of it, which makes the presentation easier to follow and keeps everyone engaged.

Remote attendee viewRemote attendee view

Easy to Deploy
IT Admins can add a certified content camera (using a USB 2.0 cable or extender) to a free USB port in the Microsoft Teams Rooms system. After the content camera is connected to the Microsoft Teams Rooms, the admin can select the respective camera for content input in the app’s Device Settings menu.  You can find more details on the setup here: https://aka.ms/contentcameraguide.

A select set of Logitech and Crestron cameras are certified and available on the Teams devices showcase*. You can add a content camera to your existing Microsoft Teams Room(list here)**.
Supported content camerasSupported content cameras
*Additional cameras will get added to this list over time.
** The update for Surface based Microsoft Teams Room devices will start to rollout in the next few weeks.

Microsoft partners offer mounting systems that allow camera placement in your meeting spaces that gives the best results for whiteboard capture. The Logitech and Crestron camera and mount bundles are the first available, others will follow soon (Link to bundles)

Introducing solutions for special spaces with certified DSPs and ceiling tiles
We are also pleased to announce that our certification now includes DSPs (digital signal processor) and Ceiling tiles, a more flexible option for customer rooms. Solutions from industry leaders such as Sennheiser, Crestron and Biamp will soon be available through your AV Integrator channels and on the Microsoft Teams Devices Showcase in the US and Canada.

With a combination of a Microsoft Teams Room, a DSP, one or more ceiling tiles or mics, and a range of powerful cameras, you will also be able to cover diverse space types such as large meeting rooms, multi-purpose rooms (MPRs) and auditoriums, all with a consistent user experience across the full spectrum of spaces.

What else is new from our partners?
We are excited to announce the availability of several recently certified Microsoft Teams Rooms and peripherals that provide great meeting and call experiences for your conference rooms.

Logitech Tap is now available globally as pre-configured small, medium, and large meeting room solutions with everything you need for video meetings with Microsoft Teams Rooms

  • Crestron released a set of products including their newly certified Crestron UCC160-T Integrator Kit to build solutions for extra-large rooms, MPRs and auditoriums, the single display systems UC-M130-T, UC-B130-T and UC-B140-T, and the Flex UC-B160-T including the Crestron Soundbar with integrated camera.
  • Yealink expanded their portfolio with their new MVC-500 and MVC-800 Microsoft Teams Rooms bundles that now support the Yealink wireless USB dongle-based projection fully integrated with their Microsoft Teams Rooms systems.
  • Sennheiser successfully completed the SP30 speakerphone Microsoft Teams certification for Microsoft Teams Rooms.
  • Jabra today is releasing the Jabra PanaCast, a plug-and-play camera Certified for Microsoft Teams, designed to improve meetings in huddle rooms using three 13-megapixel cameras and patented real-time video stitching to give a full panoramic 180° view so users can enjoy a natural, inclusive human perspective, with no blind spots.

These great additions to our Microsoft Teams Rooms systems and peripherals give our customers choices for small huddle to large conference rooms across all our Microsoft Teams Room system partner.
Microsoft Teams Room partnerMicrosoft Teams Room partner

Simplified user interface
As announced in our July Microsoft Teams Room update we aligned the Teams calling and meeting experiences and made the UI consistent across Teams clients for all your users. With this recent update we did some additional improvements to simplify the user experience and moved the settings option into a new side bar that is accessible via “More” on the console.

 

New UINew UI

 

New sidebarNew sidebar

Microsoft Teams Rooms brings an easy to use and consistent experience to all your meeting spaces, and Artificial Intelligence helps to keep everyone engaged and included.

Let´s get started today and modernize your meeting rooms and check out our certified bundles at office.com/teamsdevices

- Christian Schacht, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Teams Rooms

49 Comments
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Nice. Really excited to test the whiteboard capture out!

Brass Contributor

This is really great for organisations that can't justify the expense of a touch screen / digital whiteboard. At Inspire (and in the preview video above) 'digitising' the content was mentioned. Is this still on the roadmap? Is the digitised version going to be saved to Microsoft Whiteboard in the Teams Meeting?

Copper Contributor

Looks great, can't wait to try it! I note that the video though, shows a free-standing whiteboard on a stand - from the documentation, it sounds as though the solution is really designed to work with a permanent, fixed ceiling mounted content camera which has been properly located and 'aimed' at the whiteboard.

Iron Contributor

Will Logitech Meetup, Group and Rally support content camera function?

Microsoft

@Peter Johnson yes at EC we demoed taking a captured image from the content capture camera and pasting it into the Microsoft Whiteboard in Teams and then converting it to digital ink. This is possible today, but with multiple steps (snip the analog image, start the digital WB, paste the snipped image, convert it to digital ink). We will simplify this to a "one button" process on MTR in the future.

 

@PTaylorDorking actually this should work well for fixed whiteboards, free-standing / stand whiteboards, and paper pads on easels. Anything with a good defined border should work well. 

 

@Pavel Aivazov mechanical PTZ cameras such as the ones you mention are both overkill (ie. too feature rich and expensive as a second MTR camera for content) and can cause some issues in this application due to the PTZ.  They are also bigger and thus harder to mount pointed at a whiteboard. They make great primary video cameras for MTR, but for secondary content cameras we recommend simpler and smaller cams, such as the first 3 mentioned above.

Brass Contributor

Is there any version number on "todays update"? Reason I am asking: I connected a Logitech Brio to our new TAP, but it doesn't give me the content camera section in the settings. So is this rolling out in waves again? Or am I missing something else?

Steel Contributor

Another great solution from Microsoft! Can't wait to test it.

Copper Contributor

I love all these new features and also the integration capabilities coming to make this a video/collaboration standard across the Enterprises!!! Keep it coming guys!! Great job!!!!

Brass Contributor

Hi All,

 

Please be aware that the content camera feature is not functional on the first generation Surface Pro based MTRs including the Logitech Smart Dock. 

 

We were unable to get this to work, so I turned to Microsoft who informed me that this was the case, see thread:

 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/Introducing-Microsoft-Teams-Rooms-Update...

 

Hope this helps!

Alex.

Microsoft

Content camera support will be coming to Surface Pro based MTRs in a future update.

Brass Contributor

How can we force the Teams Room app to update? Running on a NUC/Tap. Sitting here with a content camera we can't use yet.

- Scratch this. We just ran the update manually.

 

One other question. Why doesn't the whiteboard capture sync to Whiteboard? Now there's the content camera's whiteboard, and whiteboard's whiteboard.

 

@Michael_Wesoly Today I noticed on my device it was updated with the new UI side bar plus the content cam option.  Build number is 4.1.22.0

 

mtr01.pngmtr02.png

Copper Contributor
@Ilya Bukshteyn: is there any beta / preview program for MTR to apply for our few test devices to get any new MTR release the soonest, before any normal production devices?
Brass Contributor

How can I force update to new version ?

Brass Contributor

@Michal Kuna I updated ours by manually applying the update via PowerShell as detailed here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/room-systems/room-systems-v2-operations. 

Couldn’t get the app to update via the store at all. 

Copper Contributor

Does the content camera only work with Teams Room systems? If so, are there any plans to add this feature to the normal Teams app? 

 

We tried the Room system in the past, but we settled on a PC with peripherals and individuals logging in and running Teams. We run mostly developer meetings with board and code reviews, and some RDP sessions thrown in. In essence, we like the flexibility of the desktop access.

 

We would love to have the content camera feature in our setup.

Microsoft

@Dave1200 this entire post is specifically about Microsoft Teams Rooms, and the content camera capability in Teams Rooms. We can't comment on future potential roadmap items for Teams Desktop.

That said, its unfortunate to hear you decided against Microsoft Teams Rooms; we don't recommend running Teams desktop on a shared PC in rooms in the configuration you describe, as its just not designed for that environment (its designed to be logged in by a specific user on their device). 

Copper Contributor
@chrisbuesold : I tried to update the SRSv2 / MTR app offline using the URL you provided. Your link is broken, it contains a typo: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/room-systems/room-systems-v2-operations I logged into the SRS using the admin user, downloaded the MSI, and extracted the content on the SRS machine, under a new folder c:\temp\SRS After that, I tried the powershell example, looked like this: Add-AppxPackage -Update -ForceApplicationShutdown -Path 'c:\temp\srs\$oem$\$1\Rigel\x64\Ship\AppPackages\*\*.appx' -DependencyPath (Get-ChildItem 'c:\temp\srs\$oem$\$1\Rigel\x64\Ship\AppPackages\*\Dependencies\x64\*.appx' | Foreach-Object {$_.FullName}) But it failed, as expected: the add-appxpackahe could not update the SRS app, as it found it not installed. As I was running the PS command under the admin user account, that is no surprise: the SRS app is normally running under the "Skype" user. But the example above does not tell you how to target the "Skype" user instead of the currently logged on user. Does anyone have any idea about this?
Copper Contributor
Is everyone on late-summer holiday? If you managed to force SRS/MTR app update via the Deployment Kit, can you give a reply on my previous question? Docs.microsoft.com is entirely useless here troubleshooting that non-sense Add-AppxPackage error message. @Ilya Bukshteyn: I am trying to chase you regarding SRS/MTR insider program membership, maybe you will read my post here.. So, does such program exist, and how can I enroll devices in that? Would greatly greatly appreciate if you could answer either in public or in private. My team manage 800+ SRS, if that counts in giving a call back anytime soon...
Microsoft

@Richard Pasztor sorry, I was out of the country on business last week and must have missed you "chasing" me (not sure if you had reached out in other places / channels?).  Yes we have a TAP program for MTR. If you send me email I can connect you with the folks who run our TAP.  I'll PM you my email address. 

Brass Contributor

Has any one received this update on an HP Slice Teams room?

Have one set up for testing and its not updated yet.. Really want to try out this feature and see if we will use it in some rooms for a new office fitout.

Otherwise if anyone can provide instructions on how to manually update, that work, that would also be fantastic.

@yankeedoodlegandy It should not matter on the vendor of the MTR.  The device will get the update. I plugged in two units in today and it updated straight away, so it seems nearly all systems are getting the new update. 

Brass Contributor

is anyone experiencing "cannot fetch Calendar " Since the latest update - had it with the July update and we changed out ADFS agent string to resolve it but seems to have happened again after Aug update ? 

Brass Contributor

Hi @Ilya Bukshteyn, is there any time scales for the content camera support for 1st Gen Surface-Based MTRs?

@gerry862 Not seeing that issue, but not using ADFS here

 

@amoller It was mentioned on twitter yesterday that it is coming soon https://twitter.com/ilyabu/status/1170795043025608705

Brass Contributor

we are getting legacy blocks again in ADFS since the latest update :( @Ilya Bukshteyn  have the development team changed the agent names yet again ? 

 

our issue was specific Agent labelled as version of firmware , it changed so legacy blocks started again - so we have labelled it 4.1* so it only stops on a major release 

Brass Contributor

Ever since the upgrade to this latest version, we have been experiencing on one of our Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500s the following.....

 

Periodically, content that should be displayed on the front of room display is displayed on the Hub 500.  This is both the meeting session and any content presented via the local HDMI cable.  The front of room display shows a gray background.  The only resolution is to reboot the Hub 500.

 

Anyone else seen this?

 

Bryan

Iron Contributor

@Bryan Callicott , I would replace the cable between SRS and FoRD

Brass Contributor
@Graham Walsh So I am back from my vacation (@Richard Pasztor) and the device is now also on version 4.1.22.0. So going on vacation sometimes DOES solve problems. I have also tested out the content cam functionality on a flipchart. I was worried with the documented positioning of the camera, because it is kind of hard to place it one foot front center of the writing space. I couldn’t see me squeeze in between. But placing it on the table pointing upwards also does the trick. So in my temporary setup, the Brio sits on the desk about 1m away from the flipchart. Camera is on level with the base of the flipchart paper (about 1m down from the top of the paper). And it works - beautifully! Thanks for this new functionality. If I get the cabling figured out (from the cam to the NUC), I will definitely include this in our new meeting room.
Brass Contributor

I now have the 4.1.22.0 update.

Its rolled out to all our Teams devices. We have hybrid environment, and now any on-prem Skype meetings are no longer recognized as being skype.

20190909_124401.jpg

Brass Contributor

I Resolved the above - looks like there are stricter requirements around certs in this new version, and so all of our devices needed more certs added for on-prem to work.

Brass Contributor

@Bryan Callicott Yes, we have the same issue with one of our Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500's and Logitech Rally system.

 

@Pavel Aivazov The Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 system is an AIO so it doesn't have a cable to replace. It's why we went with the Hub 500 as it is a sturdy base for the FoRD and provides easy access for any maintenance requirements.

Iron Contributor

@Scott_Baitz let me explain what I mean. Sometimes SRS application is not able to match screens properly - which one if touch panel, which one is room TV. This happens when connection between SRS and TVs is lost. Root cause could be - poor HDMI cable between SRS and room TV, HDMI extender between SRS and TV, TV was off and users turned it on manually.

Brass Contributor

@Pavel Aivazov @Scott_Baitz In our case, I believe the issue was the "TV was off and users turned it on manually."

Brass Contributor

@Pavel Aivazov thank you for the further explanation. Yes, often the TVs are off and the users wait for the HDMI CEC signal from the SRS system to turn the TVs on, other times they will turn the TVs on first. I think our case is more likely HDMI CEC is sending the signal through the Logitech Rally system which is only triggering one TV to power on, however the Rally is reporting both TVs are on so the video display meant for TV 2 is not actually get sent to TV2 and instead then configures onto the Smart Hub.

@Bryan Callicott  

Brass Contributor

Where can I find the certified DSPs list?

@Alessio There are 2 DSPs that will be certified, Biamp and Crestron.  The Crestron one will be this one https://www.crestron.com/Products/Audio/Audio-Processors/Digital-Signal-Processors/DSP-1283.  Not sure on the Biamp model

Brass Contributor

Thanks!

I see the biamp Tesira available since yesterday on the list. No crestron yet

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/room-systems/requirements


Anything coming from others (like Extron 128 plus, now partering with logitech tap) as far as you know? 

 

Microsoft

Nothing in progress right now with Extron for DSP sorry.

Copper Contributor

Hey all,

 

Looking to grab screenshots of the new UI to create training material. I'm using the Logitech Tap panel (VU0053) for Skype/Teams. I'm not sure whether I can remote into the NUC or if the assets are provided by Microsoft somewhere. Sorry if it's a dumb question :)

 

Hi @Lane_Jacobs A few options with the Tap that I can think of. You could RDP or Team Viewer as an example to remote in do the screen shots and then remove or disable again.

Copper Contributor

Thanks @Graham Walsh , looks like we're struggling to establish an RDP connection for whatever reason, and I'm hearing it's possible that the NUC isn't set up for a remote connection. Looking for other ways, too. Thanks though!

I've been meaning to write a blog on how to enable it  Give me 10 minutes :) 

Brass Contributor

We have our devices on the domain and SCCM installed - we use SCCM remote to get to the devices it shows both the touchpad and the screens connected and can use snipping tool to take screen grabs 

Here is a blog post on how to enable RDP on the MTR - purely for taking screenshots etc and advise reverting back.  As gerry862 advises, if it's on the domain, then SCCM remote is a better option. https://www.graham-walsh.com/enabling-remote-access-for-microsoft-teams-room/

Copper Contributor

Awesome, I will explore these options soon, thank you so much!

Brass Contributor

Are there any user manuals or PDF guides with screenshots? I need to create something to guide the users through creating and ending a meeting and would like to use existing screenshots rather than taking a crappy photo with my phone.

 

Brass Contributor

Thanks @Graham Walsh .

I will check these out.

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‎Aug 15 2019 07:19 AM
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