Rudimentary voice amplifiers were used in Ancient Greece so that politicians could be heard in arenas. A half-century ago, the TV and movie industry created a mechanism to remotely shift fixed cameras, to better track action sequences.
Today, AI is pushing audio and video to new heights, leading to the creation of some impressive systems that are capable of doing the work that would take a TV production truck full of technicians.
Two companies have harnessed the power of AI to create a new electronic media system. Electronics giant Sony, and Nureva, a leading provider of audio-conferencing solutions, have teamed up to create a large-room audio and video reference bundle. Sony Electronics has brought its SRG series pan-tilt-zoom and AI-powered remote cameras to integrate with Nureva’s HDL410 audio conferencing system. The result is something that captures video and sound in a way that has not been done before in corporate and educational environments.
“Audio and video need to work harmoniously to help elevate a live production with minimal complexity,” said Rich Ventura, Vice President, Professional Display Solutions at Sony Electronics. “With this integrated solution from Sony and Nureva, we’re jointly enabling users to streamline a previously complicated process. Consultants, design engineers and integrators benefit from a pre-engineered solution that is easy to spec and deploy with confidence. In turn, the corporations and educational institutions they serve are empowered to create a unified, simplified and automated way to make collaboration and presentations even more impactful, using the tools and providers they already trust and employ.”
Whether a person is at the lectern or in the back of a large room, Nureva’s “Microphone Mist” system can pick up, isolate and amplify their voice. That works in conjunction, or in synch with, Sony’s 4K PTZ cameras, which feature built-in AI analytics to “automatically and consistently track and naturally frame presenters, regardless of movement or posture.”
AI is being applied to a broad range of AV, from intelligent lighting control to automated sound mixing, and natural language processing which allows users the ability to use voice commands. Virtual Reality and augmented reality can also be incorporated into AV systems. Advanced speech recognition is another AI benefit, with the capability to transcribe comments in real-time, freeing up note-taking duties and providing an accurate written transcript of meetings.
Eddie Williams, the AV Project Engineering Manager at Infinite Networks, a San Jose, Ca.- based tech company that installs AV conferencing systems, said the advent of AI has opened up a lot of possibilities and will continue to revolutionize how organizations conduct meetings.
“Meeting analytics is a really big thing,” Mr. Williams said in a conversation with Techstrong. “Sometimes we forget to highlight points that are raised in meetings, but with AI, the entire conversation can be broken down into usable data with transcripts.” He said that cameras can automatically deliver a more personal experience, that instead of using a wide lens to have everyone included in the shot, and staying with it for the entirety of the conference, cameras can shift from one face to another, and zoom in and out depending on the flow of the conversation.
“It’s becoming easier to install and use the equipment, like with the Nureva products, which we use, it looks like a soundbar, you can put it on the wall in a large room and it will capture everything. The microphone technology is exceptional,” Mr. Williams said.
Companies are also using AV technology to train sales teams. AI can highlight the mood of the conversation, and can count keywords. “They are using the technology to refine their strategies on how to pitch to clients, such as with keywords, teams will have a target number of times to say keywords, to integrate them into their sales pitches, and AI will allow them to go back as a team to evaluate what type of effect their pitch had on the mood of the customers through analysis of audio and visual.”
