Apple TV in Conference Room - Challenge

[Southern Dad]

I am an Apple person. Yes, I suppose I am clearly an Apple Fanboy. My IT department seems to love Windows computers and Surface tablets. I buck that trend. In my office suite, I have my MacBook Pro with a Apple Lightning Monitor. Of course, I have the Apple Watch, iPad Pro 12.9", and iPhone 7 Plus which I use at work.

Here's the challenging part. I have a conference room. Right now it is kind of boring. It isn't kind of boring, it is boring. Truthfully, most of the time I do not even use it. At home, I have several Apple TV 4th Generations, and a couple Apple TV 3rd Generations. Putting up a television is not really an issue, I already have one in my office, next door. This room has its own WiFi, there are Ethernet ports. If they aren't in the right place, I can ones wired. I'd like to mount a television with an Apple TV 4th Generation either above or behind it. Here's where the problem comes in, what would I use for a camera?

 

[Poontaco]

What would the camera be used for?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Assuming you are wanting some kind of virtual conference calls for the group at the table, many TVs have the add-on option of a camera and there are countless third party devices for this sort of thing. Just do a search for terms like "Business Conference Room Camera" and the resulting list will be long.

If you are thinking you want some kind of camera that connects to the TV and maybe makes it a FaceTime device, I don't think there is any such thing (that directly connects). You might be able to rig up something using a retired iDevice and Airplay to the TV but that's probably about as close as you'll get if you want the TV involved in this virtual meeting concept.

 

[Southern Dad]

What would the camera be used for?

The camera would be used when we need to have a video conference call with another site.
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Assuming you are wanting some kind of virtual conference calls for the group at the table, many TVs have the add-on option of a camera and there are countless third party devices for this sort of thing. Just do a search for terms like "Business Conference Room Camera" and the resulting list will be long.

If you are thinking you want some kind of camera that connects to the TV and maybe makes it a FaceTime device, I don't think there is any such thing (that directly connects). You might be able to rig up something using a retired iDevice and Airplay to the TV but that's probably about as close as you'll get if you want the TV involved in this virtual meeting concept.

That may be the course of action that I use. Just put an old iPhone and a bracket above the television.

 

[Poontaco]

Does anyone know if you can use the screen mirroring function of an iPhone/iPad while Facetime chatting?
That could be a simple solution.

 

[noah82]

Does anyone know if you can use the screen mirroring function of an iPhone/iPad while Facetime chatting?
That could be a simple solution.

Yes, as of right now this is your only option for video chatting using FaceTime on a TV. I really wish Apple would release some sort of FaceTime TV solution with face tracking, but that doesn't seem very likely.

 

[randomplaydo]

As an alternative, you might want to just use a Mac mini instead of an apple tv. If your goal is display, you can still easily use airplay from another device. And it fulfills the need for easy video conferencing by connecting a usb camera and using Skype, Google hangouts, or pretty much any program since it's a full computer.

You don't have to worry about it being underpowered because it's pretty much just operating as a wireless dongle at that point. Processor speed and ram are almost irrelevant for your purposes. And you can grab one for $400 refurb from the apple site, or $200-300 on macofalltrades.com

 

[Shawn Parr]

The camera would be used when we need to have a video conference call with another site.

What platform(s) do you use for your conferencing? You mention having an IT department, do you have a standard system you use for meetings?

If you use Cisco Call Manager or WebEx just any webcam hooked to a random device probably won't work. If using consumer software (Skype, FaceTime, Hangouts, etc), you could do a computer/iOS device mounted about the TV, but that would still be weird to get calls started.

We are a Cisco Telepresence and WebEx customer. What we do in rooms like this is put a room telepresence system (Cisco SX10 has become very popular due to size and cost), and attach an Apple TV to the content sharing input. That way you can dial into a call or conference then turn on sharing on the endpoint and use Airplay to the Apple TV for wireless content sharing. This tends to work better than Cisco's own Proximity feature, unless you have PCs involved.

Either way, can you say with 100% certainty that there will never be anyone with a PC that wants to display something? You could use AirParrot to get them on the Apple TV, but they have to be on the same network subnet (i.e. same wireless network, or same wired network) in order to find the TV. They also probably won't have AirParrot installed already. Macs will use bonjour and Bluetooth to find the ATVs. We use this in some labs, where the ATV is wireless, but the machines are on a wired network, and bonjour isn't available. If within bluetooth range the devices find the Apple TV, and as long as there are no firewall rules to block it the sharing works.

You might need to mount the Apple TV on the TV for your Apple devices, but then make sure to run HDMI and USB back to the table. That way you have an option to send non-Apple video to the TV, and can use the USB for a webcam if that will work with your software.

As an alternative, you might want to just use a Mac mini instead of an apple tv. If your goal is display, you can still easily use airplay from another device. And it fulfills the need for easy video conferencing by connecting a usb camera and using Skype, Google hangouts, or pretty much any program since it's a full computer.

We actually do this in a number of conference rooms. Ironically though we just boot camp them and run windows on them. At the time they were installed we though people would choose which OS they preferred, however most users of those rooms are the windows users. At the time they were one of the best options we could find for a small, quiet, low powered machine we could get on state contract with support.

Dell has some actual micro products now that would be a good competitor, however at the time the Mini was one of the best options out there.

But my purpose of quoting you was to say that, yes, in our experience the Mini can do an awesome job with this.

 

[techwarrior]

Yes, as of right now this is your only option for video chatting using FaceTime on a TV. I really wish Apple would release some sort of FaceTime TV solution with face tracking, but that doesn't seem very likely.

Ditto. Given the IBM collaboration, it seems logical ATV could someday take on some Enterprise functionality, maybe;

• Join Enterprise WiFi (802.1x\Radius authentication)
• Conference with up to 4 other parties using USB Camera. Maybe interoperate with other video conference solutions.
• Create a WiFi hotspot, routable or not depending on admin's preferences
  • Hotspot could allow participants to mirror content on iOS or Mac using FaceTime as a listen only participant. Maybe even a Windows\Android client.
  • Participants can download presentation materials
  • Participants can send text questions and answers to presenter
• Device Management so IT can control above.
• More?

I think ATV could help Apple expand their Enterprise and Education footprint with some\all of the above.

 

[noah82]

Well, Apple just removed the USB-C port from the Apple TV 4k, so that pretty much eliminates a hard wired video camera.

 

[Shawn Parr]

Ditto. Given the IBM collaboration, it seems logical ATV could someday take on some Enterprise functionality, maybe;

• Join Enterprise WiFi (802.1x\Radius authentication)
• Device Management so IT can control above.

I think ATV could help Apple expand their Enterprise and Education footprint with some\all of the above.

The first one you can do. You either create a profile with Apple Configurator, or use DEP and profiles to add the 802.1x profile if they are 4th gen. The profile method also works with 3rd gen (maybe 2nd, but I haven't tried those). We have a few dozen Apple TVs on campus, and all the 4th gen are working pretty well in our Jamf Pro MDM setup.

The second also exists, but there are not many options for the Apple TVs. Mostly WiFi profiles, certificates for the WiFi profiles, and forcing them into conference room mode. I think 11 added more Airplay option controls. We only have a couple test devices on iOS 11 and our MDM needs upgraded before supporting the new options, so I haven't played with those yet.

 

[Southern Dad]

We pretty much use Zoom or Skype currently for calls where video is used. Using video is actually new to us, we've used that big conference room phone for so long. We use way too many PowerPoint presentations, too.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

You really should buy some colorful paintings or pictures, and put them up on your walls.

 

[priitv8]

We pretty much use Zoom or Skype currently for calls where video is used. Using video is actually new to us, we've used that big conference room phone for so long. We use way too many PowerPoint presentations, too.

You may want to try Wire instead.

 

[Southern Dad]

You really should buy some colorful paintings or pictures, and put them up on your walls.

Those are the plates from 9-11 from three of our products on the one wall. Newspapers aren't known for colorful paintings and all that creativity.
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You may want to try Wire instead.

I will check into it.

 

[kg90]

Those are the plates from 9-11 from three of our products on the one wall. Newspapers aren't known for colorful paintings and all that creativity.
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I will check into it.

I am very curious if you found any good solution to use a Apple TV 4th Gen as conference room display and also got it to work with a camera so you may have nice conference calls on the TV?

/KG

 

[cjbryce]

I am an Apple person. Yes, I suppose I am clearly an Apple Fanboy. My IT department seems to love Windows computers and Surface tablets. I buck that trend. In my office suite, I have my MacBook Pro with a Apple Lightning Monitor. Of course, I have the Apple Watch, iPad Pro 12.9", and iPhone 7 Plus which I use at work.

Here's the challenging part. I have a conference room. Right now it is kind of boring. It isn't kind of boring, it is boring. Truthfully, most of the time I do not even use it. At home, I have several Apple TV 4th Generations, and a couple Apple TV 3rd Generations. Putting up a television is not really an issue, I already have one in my office, next door. This room has its own WiFi, there are Ethernet ports. If they aren't in the right place, I can ones wired. I'd like to mount a television with an Apple TV 4th Generation either above or behind it. Here's where the problem comes in, what would I use for a camera?

View attachment 721569

In our conference rooms we have ATV for screen mirroring from laptops (native macOS and AirParrot for Windows).

In our boardroom we have the same plus a Mac Mini/Logitech conference camera for video conferencing via Zoom and Skype. HTH.

 

[Southern Dad]

I am very curious if you found any good solution to use a Apple TV 4th Gen as conference room display and also got it to work with a camera so you may have nice conference calls on the TV?

/KG

Unfortunately not. IT has installed a large television with a camera above it, but it’s not using the Apple TV.

 

[techwarrior]

I am very curious if you found any good solution to use a Apple TV 4th Gen as conference room display and also got it to work with a camera so you may have nice conference calls on the TV?

We can hope the next ATV (maybe announced 9/12) will support USB cameras. With the Group FaceTime being added to iOS and macOS, it would be a natural to add Group conferences to ATV.

 

[priitv8]

We can hope the next ATV (maybe announced 9/12) will support USB cameras. With the Group FaceTime being added to iOS and macOS, it would be a natural to add Group conferences to ATV.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it will support iPhone and iPad cameras only.
Would work for me, actually.

 

[guzhogi]

Kind of necromancing this thread. Considering the whole COVID thing, find anything good? The school district I work for uses these webcam/soundbars + tablet controller from Neat that work okay. A bit expensive, but works with Zoom and eventually Microsoft Teams. You can add the webcam/soundbar to a TV or they also sell TVs with the builtin webcam, which is even more expensive (over $5,000). They have HDMI-in so you can share something from HDMI (like an AppleTV).