Video Conferencing in Science City York Meeting Room (B/K157a)
The Science City York Meeting Room is a 20-seater meeting room with the following facilities:
- Biology Computer and dataprojector display
- Video conferencing facilities (IP based conferencing only)
- Network points
The standard lay-out is board room style.
Priority for the use of this room is for meetings that involve external visitors and collaborators or where video conferencing facilities are required. If available, it can be used for internal meetings but it can only be booked three weeks in advance – multiple booking of regular meetings will also not be accepted.
If you are proposing to use the video conferencing facility, you are strongly advised either to ensure that you have been trained beforehand or to request one of the technical experts to be available to help you with the setup. Please note that our equipment does not currently support multi-site conferencing or ISDN connection. Both of these can potentially be delivered via the JANET network. Charges may be levied for technical support. Other university departments will be charged at the standard rates set by the Audio-Visual Centre).
For technical support, contact Biology IT support services not Audio Visual.
Staff can book using the
Please Note. Our videoconferencing systems are NOT compatible with Adobe Breeze, Yahoo Messenger, Netmeeting, Skype and other software solutions
The facility provides a full screen display and a window which can be switched to near or far end viewing by use of the remote control. Cameras at both ends can be zoomed, panned or tilted as required (dependant on compatibility). The near end camera can be set to move to the speaker in the room, and pre-set camera positions can also be saved prior to the conference.
The equipment is extremely easy to use. A short 15 minute introduction to the equipment by a biology technician is all that is required to be able to use the facilities of the equipment.
Booking form and User guide
The cost of booking the room for external users is £110.00 plus VAT for half
day or £215.00 plus VAT for full day.
The cost of booking the room for internal
users is £95.00 for half day and £180.00 for full day (no VAT for internal
users).
Online booking form (Biology Staff Only)
Contact details
The video-conferencing facility uses a network connection to provide IP connectivity up to 2Mbps. The unit is compliant with ITU-T H.323 and T.120 standards.
- Internet IP Address - 144.32.85.67
- Ordinary telephone in video conferencing room - +44(0)1904 32 8771
There is no call charge for IP (internet) calls.
Multi-site conferences
If your conference will have more than 2 sites participating, then the services of an MCU will need to be booked. For academic business, JVCS operate a service which is available for our use, this will need to be booked by one of the participants. Please inform us when you are booking if this is the case. We can book the MCU for you, for which we will need details of the other venues, or you can book it yourself, you will need to specify the venue name - info-centre@york.ac.uk . For external clients, BT Conferencing can provide a similar service.
Presentations
If your conference involves a powerpoint presentation, we recommend that you display this on a separate screen so that you can see the presentation and the presenter at the same time.
This results in the best quality for the presentation. A second plasma screen and biology departmental PC are available in the room - non-biology staff please contact the biology technician if you require access to the PC. You will need to ask the presenter to indicate when they are changing slides.
Alternative solutions involve switching between the powerpoint and presenter at the presenting end, or, if the remote equipment is DuoVideo capable (most modern Tandberg systems are), then both the presentation and the image of the presenter can be transmitted down the link.
During the Videoconference
Self view
When you first make the connection with a remote system, you will see the image of the view they are seeing in a window on the main screen. You can move this around the screen by pressing the "Selfview" and "Layout" buttons on the remote.
Microphone
The microphone is set to be muted at the start of a dial in conference. Press the yellow "mic off" button on the remote to switch the microphone on. This can be toggled on/off at any time during the conference to allow private conversations.