VIDEOCONFERENCING AVer VC520
A keenly priced professional videoconferencing solution, with a quality camera that’s ideal for big meeting rooms
PRICE £827 exc VAT from pcpro.link/275aver
Aver’s VC520 is designed to be permanently installed in a large conference room, and it shows: everything about it is big. The camera weighs in at a hefty 1.5kg, and comes with a sturdy metal bracket, allowing it to be firmly fixed to a desk, wall or ceiling.
It’s also big on versatility. The camera has fully motorised pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) capabilities, and an impressive 12x optical zoom, so you can easily set up the perfect frame for your meeting. Low light performance is great too, thanks to a wide f/1.8 maximum aperture.
Then there’s the speakerphone, which adds another kilo to the weight. It incorporates triple directional microphones for 360-degree coverage over a 9m diameter, along with a 10W internal speaker. We found this was capable of really pumping the sound out, making it a great choice for large rooms. Noise suppression and echo cancellation technologies are built in, to help keep things clear.
You can also add a second optional speakerphone, to extend the range even further. The only drawback is connection is made over an 8-pin mini-DIN cable – a wireless connection over Bluetooth or DECT would have been neater.
Everything is brought together by a small powered hub, which provides two mini-DIN sockets for the camera and speakerphone, plus a USB port for connecting to a host Mac or PC. The components can be spread out over a wide area as Aver includes generous 5m mini-DIN and USB cables.
We tested the kit in our 6.5m-long conference room; setup took less than ten minutes, helped along by the colour-coded mini-DIN plugs. The supplied Velcro pad, to hold the hub in place, is a thoughtful touch, as the camera cable loses its connection if it jiggles even slightly out of the socket.
Before connecting hub to host, we installed Aver’s PTZApp utility, which provides firmware update facilities and a Skype plugin that enables the call accept and end buttons on the remote control handset. It also offers tools to modify camera settings and run diagnostics.
The rest was easy. After plugging the USB cable into our Windows 10 host, all drivers were loaded automatically and PTZApp offered an immediate firmware upgrade. It was the same story on our MacBook running macOS Sierra; the camera and speakerphone were picked up as soon as we connected the cable.
“We had to crank the volume down, as the maximum setting proved far too loud for our modest meeting room”
The VC520 excelled during our Skype and Cisco WebEx tests: the camera delivered pin-sharp image quality with great contrast and colour balance. The speakerphone impressed our participants with its clear sound quality too – although we had to crank the volume down, as the maximum setting proved too loud for our modest meeting room. We were able to do this using the touch buttons on the base, and the mic can also be muted from here. The mics worked well: callers said they could hear us clearly, even when we were seated 5m from the base.
We doubt you’ll ever need to use the camera’s full 12x zoom capability, but even when we zoomed all the way in, the image remained sharp and focused. Up to ten preset camera angles can be programmed into the remote; position the camera and choose the button number you want assigned to each one.
We were also happy to note that, compared to previous Aver cameras we’ve tried, the PTZ functions are much more zippy. Older models took a plodding 22 seconds to pan across their 260-degree field of view, whereas the new model achieved this in ten seconds.
In all, the VC520 is a very costeffective VC system – as long as you have a spare host to hook it up to. Video and audio quality are exceptional, even at a distance, making it a top choice for larger conference rooms.
SPECIFICATIONS Motorized PTZ camera f/1.8-f/2.8 lens
1080p 12x optical zoom speakerphone with three directional mics/10W speaker
H.264 hub with camera/base/USB 2 ports external PSU 5m camera/ speakerphone USB cables remote control
3yr RTB warranty