Polycom’s new take on Camera Auto Positioning

During a recent visit to Polycom’s offices in Slough WVN staff had a demonstration of their new camera automatic positioning system, Polycom EagleEye Director, which can be used with the Polycom HDX range of CODECs. The major change to the way it operates is the resulting video being sent to remote participants at the receiving end. It uses an extra camera which sits in a docking system with the primary camera, which when combined, forms the EagleEye Director package.

The result of using the product is quite impressive and at the receiving end feels like there is a television director picking between wide and telephoto camera shots and switching seamlessly between them. The initial view of the room is provided when the call connects. When a person begins to speak the second camera will identify the speaker and then, if necessary, pan/tilt/zoom the camera. The view then switches to the view from the second camera. When a second person begins to talk the view switches to the whole room view, then the second camera carries out the same process and the CODEC sends the second camera view as soon as the shot is set up. A short video showing the system in use can be found here.

A key element of the system is that local users and remote users never see the second camera view while it is moving or zooming in or out. The dock in which the two cameras sit has built in microphones to help track the current speaker in the room (the microphones are for the sole use of positioning and cannot be used in place of conference microphones), and it also uses some form of facial recognition to increase the tracking accuracy.

Automatic camera positioning is available in WVN studios where the base CODEC is a Polycom IPower 970 or Polycom VSX 8000. The use of the system in these studios can work well but there are occasions where the camera will erroneously focus in on an audio source other than a person talking, participants also see the camera view as it repositions. The new EagleEye Director is an evolution of the legacy automatic positioning systems.

During the demonstration we did try and find some limitations in the few minutes we had. We found a couple of issues, however, the product is brand new to the market and the issues we found would undoubtedly be addresses in coming software updates. For more information about the Polycom EagleEye Director please visit the Polycom website, here.