Best TV for video conferencing??

No idea what happened there!! I honestly typed all this in>>> Hi all, we are looking to install a video conferencing room at work, we already have an online software solution, so just need a good quality TV to display it on. We have roughly £1000 to spend (less if possible) and don't need any extras such as a DVD player or the internet, as this will be connected to a desktop PC. We just need good quality picture for video calling and good sound if possible....

Cheers!

Jason

Having used the conference system at work (featuring a 20k camera), I can assure you you can buy any TV you like of the appropriate size and the experience will still be rubbish.

Get a Philips 21:9 screen. You can get more people in

Cheers, but doesn't really help me as I still need to buy the best display I can for the money.....

Would love to get one.... if we had a £2k budget!

Honestly, any of these TVs will do:

http://www.richersounds.com/products/home-cinema/lcd-and-plasma/all-tvs#4

Having sat in Mumbai at the other end of a very expensive enterprise video conferencing suite and tried loads of ways of doing it on the cheap to talk to my offshore developers, I can assure you that the display is the least of your worries: spend as much money as you can on video camera and audio equipment instead.

There must be some sort of memory bug on these forums that makes people  who are asking about equipment suggestions forget to say how much money they have to spend, you're only about the fifth person to do so in the last fortnight!

couldn't agree more.  TV is a tv for video conferencing.  Make sure you have a room dedicated for it.  Take special care with the light that comes in to the room as it can cause cameras to white out.  Also microphones, and microphone placement is about on million times more important than video, because without that you just end up looking at each other and can't actually conference.

That is spot on what I was after guys, thank you! That being the case, I can sort a TV out from the range you say and will look into Video Camera and micrphones / placement, I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions for equipment they have used? I reckon we could squeeze in another £1500 for the camera and microphone (maybe a little more)... not a huge amount I appreciate but we are only a small business and don't have huge budgets mores the pity!

Thanks for all your advice, it's much appreciated!!

Sorry, another quick question, do you think the sound from the set alone would be sufficient or would you recommend we go for a sound bar / speaker system as well? Sounds bars seem quite reasonable and we would opt for a decent one....

Thanks

Jason

first things first, don't think in hifi terms for this.  Soundbars, speaker systems are not needed and if you are not careful you'll end up with a system that hits feedback at every given opportunity.

First question is how many people do you expect to use the system in the room at any one time?  This can have a very dramatic effect on what equipment you need.

Ideally the system needs to have feedback cancelling (echo cancellation) on it so that the sound coming out the speakers isn't fed back in to the mics. that's why there are specially designed conferencing systems.

as a starter, have a look at systems from Polycom and cisco etc...

edit - sorry, missed the bit where you said about using an online solution.  Which one is it?  might make it easier to help advice on hardware.

Agreed that you don't need a sound bar, the sound from the TV will be fine; your problem will be getting good sound (and picture) from the participants.

I'd use one good quality USB podcast mic like this attached to the PC, and then try to find a good, reasonably priced camera solution.  I got one of these which actually turned out to be woefully inadequate; if I was trying again I'd be spending double, or looking at whether I could incorporate a proper video camera (or stills DSLR that can do video) which can connect via USB.

In some respects it depends on what you're trying to achieve - if you're trying to look cool in front of customers then you probably need a 'video conferencing' solution like we've been talking about, but if you just want to get people talking together and seeing each other (and sharing screens etc), Skype and headsets for all participants is a far superior solution.

I need to go to Specsavers.