You’ve Bought a Screen for Your Meeting Room – Whats Next?

Whether you purchased an interactive touchscreen, or a 65-inch 4K UHD display, there is a plethora of technology solutions on the market that will help you to get the most out of the focal point of your meeting room.

Back to Basics

The obvious first question – which you will have considered prior to purchasing your screen (what do you mean you didn’t? Quick read our guide on choosing the right display for your meeting room here) – is where is the screen going to go and how will you install it?

Most flat-panel displays in meeting room can be installed with a mount and there are plenty of options to suit your needs, from flat wall mounts to tilting wall mounts, articulating wall mounts, and mobile trolley mounts – which you select will depend on how you intend to use your screen.

If your flat-panel is designed to be a permanent fixture and the focal point of your meeting room, then a flat wall mount, such as the ones listed here are a great design for larger screens, catering well for for 52 to 98-inch displays.

If your installation isn’t quite as simple as ‘a big static screen at the front of the room’ you might want to look at the different types of wall mount in a bit more detail. A huddle room, for example, tends to be a more dynamic space and the way in which your screen is installed can add to the room’s flexibility to cater to different teams, requirements and styles of working

A tilting mount, like the BTech BT8432-Pro offers more options for movement, enabling teams to easily adjust the angle and location of the display. This is useful for moving the display around to offer some people a better view or passing it between contributors if it’s a touchscreen.

Finally, if your display screen is designed to serve multiple rooms, it will need to be portable; no simple thing for such a valuable and large piece of tech! Fortunately, there are mobile trolley mounts available that have been designed to keep cables hidden and tidy and allow for quick changes between connections and power points..

To understand more about the available screen mount options, take a look at DisplayPoint’s full range, here.   

Sounds Good?

A screen like the 4K Sony FWD-100ZD9501 turns heads. But head-turning visuals need top quality audio to create something that’s fully immersive. With a host of speaker solutions to create the ultimate in AV experiences, where do you start?  

If it’s stealthy, hidden speakers you’re looking for, consider in-wall and ceiling options such as the Polk RC65i In-wall speaker and the Polk VS255CRT In-wall centre speaker. They seamlessly blend into a room’s décor but amplify dynamic sound effects and flawless dialogue to be the perfect accompaniment to showcase film projects or advertising campaigns to clients.

Alternatively, for something a little more low-key for a meeting or a huddle space, versatile and simple-to-use speakers such as the ConXeasy SWA-401 are a perfect solution. They can be controlled with a remote or their in-wall amplifier and control surface by even the most non-technical of meeting room users. Dialling it down for smaller-scale meetings or turned up to accompany a impactful presentations in a larger conference room has never been easier.

Don’t forget that to operate at peak performance a professional AV setup needs an AV receiver to centralise all audio visual components and ensure they’re working together. The Yamaha RX-V479B is a popular option and should tick most people’s boxes.

The main things you’re looking for here are:

• Multiple HDMI ports so your teams don’t need to worry about swapping devices around manually.
• And a receiver that is compatible with 4K; even if you haven’t bought a 4K display screen this time round, chances are the next screen you buy will be at least 4K and as receiver technology moves relatively slowly, it’s worth investing in the right one now to see you through future changes and developments in your other meeting room technology.

Stay Connected

If you’ve invested in a display screen, you better be damn sure your teams can use it (otherwise it’s just a massive hassle for you!). A lot of meeting rooms opt for wireless connectivity to enable people to collaborate from pretty much any device. Which is a good idea … until it doesn’t work.

When it comes to sharing and collaborating on large file sizes often in high definition formats, wired connections are more reliable and your teams will thank you in the long run for providing them with the adaptors and connections they need, from USB and HDMI to the less common DisplayPort and Apple’s Thunderbolt and Lightning. Get these sorted and you can then provide a wireless option as well; multiple quick-to-access connectivity solutions means teams spend less time trying to solve the problem themselves and go straight for the options they’re comfortable with and you’ve pre-prepared, leaving them with more time to collaborate on the project at hand.

The thing to remember with connectivity is to ensure that everything is actually accessible; it’s no use having six HDMI ports on the back of your display screen that’s attached to the wall at the front of the room and no means of reaching them. Faceplates are the answer here; these connectivity solutions essentially replicate the connections available on your screen and allow you to install them at a convenient point in the room, perhaps under the main table or in the centre of the table where everyone can access them if needed.

DisplayPoint stock a wide range of TechConnect solutions to solve connectivity problems in this area. You can view the products here or get in touch for more information to help find a solution that suits your space.

Little Things Make a Big Difference

Finally, if you have control over the meeting room technology, here are some tips and tricks to make your team’s lives that bit easier … and save yourself time solving the same old problems time and time again.

Basics

It’s seems obvious but it’s amazing how many meeting rooms don’t have a sign or a print out somewhere with the network name and password on it to enable in house team members and guests to log as soon as they get into the room. Don’t join this club; post the network name and password in the room where people can see it easily and remember to keep it updated.

Do periodical checks.

Schedule some calendar time every three months to check the meeting rooms to ensure the connectivity solutions are all still present and in good working order. Are the remotes still in the room? Do any batteries need replacing? Has an adaptor gone missing? Little things like this keep the rooms running smoothly and avoid confrontation from employees.

Standardise

It isn’t always possible, but in an ideal environment meeting room collaboration tools should be standardised so that each collaboration space from huddle room to board room and conference space has the same connectivity options available. Your team will get used to the Barco Clickshare system or DisplayNote, switching between the two in different rooms will waste unnecessary time as teams get used to the change in technology and how to use it. If connectivity options are standardised too, you can work towards educating people on which personal devices they can and can’t connect to the AV equipment with, rather than causing queues because ‘that one huddle room on Level 2 has a Lightning port for my iOS device so I’m only going to book that room’.   

The display is the big focal point of your meeting room. But take the time to install the right complementary technology and you’ll get even more out of your investment in terms of team productivity, stress minimisation and work satisfaction.