How To Optimize the Audio and Video Quality of Microsoft Teams Rooms

Enhancing video and audio quality in Microsoft Teams Rooms

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How To Optimize the Audio and Video Quality of Microsoft Teams Rooms
Meeting Rooms and DevicesUnified CommunicationsInsights

Published: March 13, 2023

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

For today’s business leaders striving to empower both in-office, and remote workers, Microsoft Teams Rooms offers a phenomenal opportunity to unify the workforce. Built on the flexible Microsoft Teams collaboration platform, Rooms delivers an end-to-end solution for setting up, managing, and using conferencing devices for scheduled meetings, ad-hoc discussions, broadcasts and events.

Offering easy access to a host of crucial Microsoft Teams features, from video and audio conferencing, to messaging and file sharing, Teams Rooms ensures business leaders can host successful meetings with minimal effort.

However, while Microsoft is embedding new functionality into its platform, such as echo cancellation and AI-powered screen optimization to make meetings more advanced, there are still steps for business leaders to take. Here’s how companies can ensure they’re optimizing the audio and video quality of their Teams Rooms meetings.

Step 1: Choose the Right Teams Rooms Plan

Microsoft Teams Rooms, and Microsoft Teams provides companies with a comprehensive collection of all the software tools they might need to create immersive video and audio experiences. Once companies install a Teams Rooms solution, they can leverage the platform to turn any shared space into a meeting room, with the devices of their choice.

Microsoft Teams Rooms comes with end-to-end functionality to keep devices and rooms secured, inclusive, and interactive. However, the functionality companies can leverage might vary depending on the plan they choose. As standard, Microsoft Teams users can leverage the “Basic” plan for Teams Rooms for free, which supplies access to real-time conferencing options for all attendees, wireless sharing, and one-touch meeting room joining.

However, for companies looking to truly take advantage of the full Teams Rooms solution, the “Pro” package may be more effective. For $40 per room, per month, this allows users to leverage AI-powered video and audio device experiences for more immersive meetings. The Pro plan also comes with AI-powered solutions for automating updates, and detecting problems with audio/video quality.

Step 2: Implement the Correct Hardware

While a Microsoft Teams Rooms plan will provide businesses with the software, they need to manage their conferencing and collaborative experiences; it’s still important to leverage the right hardware. The good news is Microsoft Teams already partners with a range of leading hardware solution providers, creating a range of room options.

Certified webcams, speakers, microphones, and all-in-one room kits, designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft Teams will offer a more advanced experience for business users. Leveraging pre-certified solutions from brands like AudioCodes, Poly, Jabra, Yealink, and Konftel will ensure employees can instantly access the functionality of Teams without complex configuration.

Microsoft’s partner network offers a range of hardware solutions and setups intended for different sizes and styles of meeting spaces. For instance, companies can leverage standalone video bars specially intended for focus rooms and individual users, as well as comprehensive kits for medium and large meeting room spaces.

Some even come with built-in AI solutions which can help to enhance audio and video quality, by automatically updating resolution, blocking out echo, and reducing distortion. There are even tools available with built-in active speaker tracking, and sensors which can monitor the health of the room.

Step 3: Monitor Teams Rooms Analytics

Once companies have the right hardware installed, and they’ve configured their Microsoft Teams Rooms accounts according to their specific needs, they can begin to dive into useful insights. Microsoft Teams, and Teams Rooms both provide access to analytical tools for tracking call quality, disruptions, and other issues within conferencing spaces.

The “Call Analytics” section within the Microsoft Teams admin environment provides detailed insights into Teams calls and meetings for each user in an Office 365 instance. It can include insights into network connectivity issues, call quality problems, and device performance. Users can find this information within the “Meetings & Calls” tab of the Users section in the admin center.

Alongside Call Analytics, Microsoft also has its own dedicated CQD solution, for tracking client-based metrics relevant to meeting rooms. During each call, the Teams Rooms ecosystem will automatically collect telemetry data for the conversation, and submit a report to the Teams admin account. These metrics include overviews of setup failure rates, and poor stream rate quality.

The stream rate analytics offer an insight into both inbound and outbound calling quality for video and audio, highlighting the areas where organizations can take extra steps to improve customer experience. Users can find guidance on how to set up the CQD features here.

Step 4: Take Advantage of Advanced Features

Finally, one of the easiest ways for business leaders to ensure they’re getting the most out of their Microsoft Teams Rooms experiences, is with the use of advanced features within the platform. For instance, Microsoft offers users the option to turn on background noise suppression, within the Teams settings section, or a meeting window. This suppression feature uses deep neural networks to filter out noise and retain speech only, for better audio quality overall.

Within Microsoft Teams Rooms, users can also leverage AI-based video and screen-sharing optimization features. The AI-based video optimization technology will adjust to network conditions and bandwidth restraints in any business. This solution helps to deliver a consistently smooth visual experience, even when businesses are dealing with high packet loss levels.

Users can even leverage built-in Quality of Service solutions within the Microsoft Teams meeting environments. The QoS features allow users to prioritize delay-sensitive network traffic such as video and voice streams, allowing this data to cut in front of other, less sensitive traffic. There’s a full step-by-step guide from Microsoft on how to implement QoS solutions into an internal network when rolling out Microsoft Teams Rooms here.

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