Group 500: Content on monitor 1?

[Anonymous]

Have a new Group 500/720.

I'm having trouble figuring out how to get content up on monitor 1, seems to only want to be on monitor 2. There's no place in the settings that I can find to check off what I want or don't want on each monitor. Like shutting off content for monitor 2.

Typical use on my 8000s and 7000s is to have far video on a larger upper monitor 1, near video on a smaller lower monitor. 2 As soon as one side puts up content, content goes to the big monitor 1, far video drops to the lower monitor 2. When content is dropped, far video come back up on monitor 1.

Can't figure it out. No "display" button.

[Polycom_Video_E]

Thanks for the inquiry. 

The current software on RealPresence Group Series assigns the displays in a goal to make it easier for deployment of the systems.  Since users would not want the system icons covering up content the content is assigned to the 2nd display in a dual monitor configuration.   Currently there is no way to change that.

Polycom would be interested in the use case of using Monitor 1 as the content display.  Can you let us know the configuration of your monitors and the need to have content on the primary monitor and how you handle the icons in that configuration.

Polycom will continue to enhance the RealPresence Group Series to offer, and surpass the HDX, feature sets.  

[Anonymous]

One of my rooms:

-Large open, multipurpose room, 65" tv on the corner wall, camera in the opposite corner of the room on a vaddio extender. The room is used to watch cable TV, DVDs, do computer presentations, and once or twice a week there's a medical CME class originating from the room. That's on a bridged video conference and webcast via a MediaSite server. The MediaSite is connected via the bridge. It's an HDX-7000, and all the equipment is in a large media cabinet under the TV.

Monitor 1 is the large screen, and monitor two is a 22" LED screen that lives in a drawer. When there's a Polycom event, the monitor 2 comes out and hangs on a bracket and plugs into an HDMI port on the side of the cabinet.

Monitor 1 is far video sometimes, but mostly content for the local room full of people. The monitor 2 is for the camera operator only. The crowd mostly can't see monitor 2, as it's angled to the opposite front corner and down fairly low.

I moved in the HDX-7000 from another room about 4 months ago. It hasn't happened yet, but there will be occations that the room will be a recieving room for a class. In that case, I will plug in a 37" TV into the cabinet side as monitor 2. It will be below and to the side of the larger monitor 1.

Far video will be on the big screen, the person giving the class. When the speaker turns on the Powerpoint/content, content goes to monitor 1, and the far video goes to monitor 2, the smaller 37" to the side. In that case there is no local near video, but it doesn't matter. An HDX-8000 with a second cam would have been better, but we had what we had.

[Anonymous]

Another room in another dept:

Large classroom-small auditorium with stadium seating. All the equipment is up in the back. There's Crestron, Ektron, a Polycom Vortex and various sundry other items in a rack in a cabinet. In the podium below, there's computers, VGA ports and one Creston screen. This one has an HDX-8000, front and back cams, and monitor 1 is a very large projector.

For a larger event, a monitor two in the back (a small Dell LCD) is used by the camera operator, who follows the speaker if he/she roams, and/or switches to the front cam for the crowd as the situation diictates. For other events, monitor 2 is shut off in settings, and things are run from the podium by the speaker. Like for a more interactive meeting with a far site, or with several via the bridge. In that casr there may be various combinations of near, far and content.

[Anonymous]

I have the same problem and would like the feature similar to how HDX and VSX had. Allowing you to display what you want on which monitor. Very limiting in that regards. I have 3 techs that monitor meetings. We do not have space for dual monitors for each of them. We need the ability to confirm that the far ends are sending and receiving content.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to chime in on this thread, as we are experiencing the same issue at our large research university in the US.

Our standard configuration is to have Polycom units on carts. This unit can then be rolled into a classroom or meeting room to provide a VC connection when needed.

Each cart has a 60" flat panel on the top with a 24" flat panel underneath.

The behavior to which we are accustomed (and which fits our needs for teach, research, and administration) is that the large monitor shows the distant partner, while the lower monitor reflects back our own feed. This is useful for creating & updating camera presets.

When content is shared into the connection, the large monitor then displays the content so that it can be see properly. The small secondary monitor would be completely inadequate to this task. The face of the distant partner then switches to the lower monitor, allowing the local participants to maintain a psychological connection with the distant partners, see their facial reactions and body language, etc. (the reason we use videoconferencing). We are happy to give up seeing ourselves while the content is being shared and, generally, by this point in a connection, we really no longer need to see ourselves.

When content is turned off, the upper large monitor (most easily visible in a classroom or conference room) switches back the distant video feed and the lower monitor resumes showing the local room.

This was easy to configure in the HDX series and provides the functionality we really need.

I see that this request was first submitted to you some years ago and yet you have not made any move to restore this useful functionality in the software being offered up for the Group series.

Shall we assume that you have chosen not to restore this functionality? I will say in all honesty that your competitors' products do offer this functionality. We are not wedded to Polycom through any sort of infrastructure choices, so we are free to take our business to the OEM that produces the products we need. I say that not as a threat, but simply as an honest fact. Dumbed-down interfaces drive away customers who need to be able to manage their systems thoughtfully. The dumbing down of interfaces on the LifeSize product line (Icon model) frankly drove us away from them for some of our purchases.

It's plain that we're not alone in needing this functionality back. We hope that you will seriously consider this now-repeated request and restore this functionality to the Group series of codecs.

Thanks for your time.