Deploying Nureva Audio with Mago Room
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Mago Room software gives a common interface to your meeting room solution, ensuring that users have a standardised experience, regardless of the hardware in the room.
By enabling One Touch To Join functions for over 30 UC clients, Mago simplifies the process of joining, and saves time when launching a meeting.
Mago also supports collaboration tools, including interactive screens, liberating users from the meeting room table and driving collaboration away from the centre of the room. In order to ensure remote users continue to hear the in-room audio clearly, we recommend installing of the Nureva HDL series with it's patented Microphone Mist technology, filling the room with virtual microphones and giving consistent audio pick up throughout the room.
Nureva HDL includes a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), that tests the audio and removes unwanted noise, focussing on the human voice. Many other audio systems also include a hardware DSP.
Increasingly, many UC clients also include software DSP functions.
If you operate both a hardware and a software DSP, they will both try and perform the same functions and rather than getting double the benefit, they will clash with each other and dramatically impact the quality of the voice.
You can tell if you have 2 DSPs running as you will experience one or more of the following issues
- Audio out of sync with video (latency)
- Choppy or cut out of audio
- Dramatic drop in audio volume
- Remote participants sounding "hollow"
In addition, a software DSP is using the processing power of your PC to analysis and modify the audio stream in real time. Your PC processor is already pretty busy doing lots of the other things - and you are in a video call, which is very demanding on your processor.
So, by changing some settings in the UC client, not only will you improve your audio quality, you will also remove one load from your PC processor, freeing it up to ensure your video feed remains consistent.
Let's look at 2 of the most popular UC clients and what to look out for.
Microsoft Teams
1. Have a specific Teams account for each Mago Room
It is strongly recommended that you log into Teams using an account specifically for the Mago Room.
If you log into the Teams account for the Mago Room using your personal credentials, you will have to change the settings every time. Plus, when you next use your Teams account on your PC, your audio settings will not be correct.
By having a specific account for the Mago Room, and always using it, you can ensure that you have good quality audio in every call.
2. Set up the audio preferences
Open Teams
Go to Settings - Devices
Check that the HDL system is selected as both speaker and microphone
Turn off 'Automatically adjust mic sensitivity'
Set 'Noise suppression' to 'Off'
Zoom
1. Set up your Zoom account
If you want the Mago Room to be able to host Zoom calls, then you will need a full paid account (unless you are happy with meetings ending after 45 minutes). But for the majority of instances, you can set up a guest account by inviting the POD to a Zoom call and downloading the client onto the PC.
Either way, you should only need to change the settings on installation (unless people log onto Zoom using their own account. This is not recommended for the reasons outlined above).
2. Set up the audio preferences
Open Settings - Audio
Ensure that the HDL system is selected as the speaker and microphone
Turn on 'Show in-meeting option to enable 'Original Sound' '
Open Advanced tab
Set 'Signal processing by Windows audio device drivers' to 'Off'
Set 'Echo Cancellation' to 'Auto'
Increasingly UC clients are introducing software DSP functions. Please be mindful of these functions when you configure Mago and your audio will remain consistent on all platforms.
If you would like a deeper dive into audio issues, please read our Knowledge Base article exploring audio issues.
