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Microsoft Teams Room for Windows Gets Remote, Far End Camera PTZ Control: Quick Demo


Recently Microsoft has added a setting to TeamsMeetingPolicy that appeared set to allow "TeamsCameraFarEndPTZMode". On January 13, 2022 a Microsoft Teams Rooms for Windows update enabled the long awaited "multi camera support" and apparently FarEndPTZ as well.

How It Works

  • Enable the "TeamsCameraFarEndPTZMode" = AutoAcceptInTenant
    • The values of this setting can be:
      • Disabled
      • AutoAcceptInTenant
      • AutoAcceptAll
  • Schedule meeting with an end point that supports providing a FarEndPTZ
    • Joining a scheduled meeting is important as you can only add Meeting Apps to scheduled  Teams meetings
  • Now join the meeting from a Microsoft Teams Room for Windows with a PTZ camera
    • a Logitech Meetup, for example, supported PTZ in my test.
  • Now join the meeting from a PC Teams Client & "Add an App" | and then select the camera
    • It appears a PC Teams client can control however many rooms with PTZ cameras that are joined to a meeting
    • A Meeting Room can turn on PTZ camera control and revoke control for this meeting.

Multiples Cameras in one Meeting & Multiple Users Controlling

What if there are several participants in a meeting that can provide a PTZ camera? On the "PTZ Camera Controls" side there will be several options under "Select a participant" as shown below.


What happens when one user is controlling a camera and another attempts to control a particular camera?

  • The user that was controlling the camera will get a message "Someone else has taken control of the camera" (as shown below)
  • On the user/room who's camera is being control it will show the new controlling user as controlling the camera.


What happens if a user/room with a PTZ camera that is being controlled, for some reason, become no longer available? The controlling user will get a message that "The persons camera is no longer available". (as shown below)




What PTZ Cameras work with this?

I expect that Teams Certified PTZ cameras work with this feature, but there isn't a published list that I'm aware of. Below are some I tested that do work.

  • Logitech Meetup
  • Logitech PTZ Pro 2

A question is if cameras that allow ePTZ work? not sure at the moment.

Video Demonstration



Some Observations

This is an interesting new feature that might indicate the direction Microsoft is thinking in relation to PTZ camera control. Some Microsoft Teams Rooms vendors have made plugins to control PTZ for Microsoft Teams Rooms (Yealink, Poly Studio X30/50) but this could be an alternative way to think about controlling room cameras.

I could see it being interesting to be able to set presets for each camera. (Poly Studio x30/50 has camera PTZ presets built into their Poly TC8 controller and I've used this.)

This is a new feature and I am still learning how everything works, so let me know any corrections or additions.


Sources:

TeamsMeetingPolicy:
Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy (SkypeForBusiness) | Microsoft Docs



Microsoft to Integrate Canon AMLOS with Microsoft Teams: One Camera in the Room, Many Videos Views with Simple Hand Gestures to Guide Camera

An interesting announcement at CES 2022 is that Microsoft Teams will be integrating Canon AMLOS.

Canon AMLOS was built to be "Single. Simple. Seamless." A single camera in the meeting room that creates multiple video streams, with simple to use hand gestures to guide it within the room, and seamlessly integrated to platform.

Let's take a look at it a little. (from CES Cannon press video)

Below is the AMLOS web app user interface. (Notice the hat tip to the Microsoft Teams UI.)





Showing one camera show both presenter and white board. The user can zoom into a detail on the white board with remote control. 


3 views: Presenter, room, and white board.



Remote users (source) can drag and drop views to see what they want to see. Local people in the room can control the meeting entirely with hand gestures. Can guide the camera to bring things to the attention of the remote users. CANONPRESENTER opened his hand in front of something and it zoomed into it and showed it. (what appeared to be a still?) (Matt's note: It appears that with a high quality PTZ camera you can use open hand to zoom in with video as well.)

A hand in the air can end the meeting.

AMLOS was built to be "Single. Simple. Seamless." A single camera in the meeting room that creates multiple video streams, with simple to use hand gestures to guide it within the room, and seamlessly integrated to platform.



Microsoft Teams is the first to integrate AMLOS technologies. By this spring (Spring 2022) will be able to take advantage of AMLOS.

Matt's Observations & Comments


This is an interesting development.

The Canon landing page notes: "The AMLOS solution utilizes Microsoft's Azure Communication Services (ACS), which requires out-bound connections to ACS servers." So the integration is likely a fairly tight integration with MS Teams, and not "in name only".

It is interesting that the Canon cameras specifically called out as working with AMLOS & MS Teams are the Canon CR300 & CR500, which are NDI HDX cameras. Does this mean that Microsoft Teams client and/or Microsoft Teams Room Systems (for Windows) will get (is indirectly getting?) official NDI HDX support as a camera? (The MS Teams client can already output NDI HDX streams) 

It seems the way the remote user changes their view of the remote AMLOS based Teams caller is by going into a AMLOS cloud User Interface? I think so.

I could see it being useful for the AMLOS remote view changer user interface showing up on a Teams Room System controller or mobile phone app. I don't know if there are plans for this though.

I'm still doing more digging (and have signed up for a Canon AMLOS live demo), so let me know if you have any more comments or clarifications.

VIDEO REVIEW: Using Microsoft Teams Walkie Talkie with the Klein Valor Speaker Microphone

For some front line workers a walkie talkie is a necessity and having a physical mic can make using the Teams Walkie Talkie even more efficient and useful.  Below is my video review of the Klein Valor Speaker Microphone for Microsoft Teams.



Klein Valor Speaker Microphone for MS Teams

Pros

  • Makes using Teams Walkie Talkie very convenient, even if Teams app doesn't have the focus or the phone screen is powered off
  • Very rugged
  • Configuration is absolutely no fuss: just plug it into the Android audio/mic jack.
  • Microsoft Recommended. See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/walkie-talkie

Cons

  • There is a bit of "talk permit tone" feedback (Teams on Android does this as well, but not as pronounced
  • No physical volume knob/buttons on device
  • no battery charge level indicator
  • battery seems to drain even without use
  • A charging cradle might be nice

https://kleinelectronics.com/valor-speaker-mic-for-3-5mm-pin-samsung/

$136 USD