SoundStructure Channel Sales Training
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Agenda
• SoundStructure in action
• How SoundStructure can help your customers
• Solution overview
− What is SoundStructure
− Target customer profile
• Example installations
• Competitive overview
• Finding more information
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 2
SoundStructure In Action
“We have just successfully installed our first SoundStructure in our CEO's meeting room and
have purchased several more units to go into the main boardroom. The sound quality and
acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) on the product is outstanding so I can see this becoming our
standard for larger VC rooms.”
- Large Global Financial Services Company
“I have helped commission a couple of systems where a competitor’s system failed at AEC. The
SoundStructure C16 worked superbly, in one installation the customer could not believe that we
got a usable system because the other vendor’s system was completely unintelligible!”
- Polycom Channel Partner
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 3
What is SoundStructure?
SoundStructure is an audio conferencing
solution for medium to large rooms when the
experience or application requires the
integration of speakers, microphones and
telephony into a single audio system.
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 4
How SoundStructure Can Help Your Customers
• End customer is purchasing an experience
− High quality scalable audio experience in any room environment for local and remote
participants to ensure more productive meetings
• End Customer knows they have a problem and need to improve audio
experience
−
−
−
−
©
Users will have complained that room doesn’t work or doesn’t sound good or is not usable
Customer may have a room they “don’t know what to do with”
Want to enhance the audio performance of their video system
Have rooms that require more than a conference phone
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 5
Advantage of SoundStructure for Large Rooms
• SoundStructure offers excellent coverage for rooms that are too big for
standard conference phone
• Add microphones where you need them for best coverage
Excellent voice pickup
Conference Phone
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Usable voice pickup
Slide 6
SoundStructure & 12 Table Mics
SoundStructure Solution Benefits (Customer)
• High quality, immersive audio conferencing experience for local and remote
participants improves collaboration
• Seamless integration with RealPresence Room solutions for an outstanding
video conferencing experience
• Easily configurable for any application or room layout
• Compatible with any telephony environment from narrow-band analog to HD
Voice VoIP to adapt to your needs
• Flexible dialing and control options
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 7
SoundStructure Solution Benefits (Integrators)
• Easy to create designs
−
−
−
−
Flexible processing options
Modular telephony options
Easily scales from 8x8 to 128x128
Simple to control
• Seamlessly integrates with Polycom room systems and microphones
• Ultimate audio conferencing performance and capability
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 8
SoundStructure Solution Elements
Conferencing AND Sound Reinforcement
Accessories
Ceiling Microphones
C8
Direct digital connection
8 inputs
C12
12 inputs
C16
16 inputs
Sound Reinforcement
12 inputs
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Native SIP
TEL1 & TEL2
PSTN Lines
Headset Adapter
SR12
©
VoIP Interface
Slide 9
Digital Phone
interface
Polycom
Touch Control
Polycom SoundStructure Solution Example
Microphones
…
Playback/Record
HDX Ceiling Mics
Amplifier
SoundStructure
Conference
Link
…
Speakers
Polycom Touch Control
or 3rd Party Control System
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
PSTN or VoIP
Group Series
or HDX Video
System
VVX 500
Polycom
RealPresence Platform
Slide 10
How Do I Know My Installation Will Be Successful?
 Broad-based deployment experience
 Over 50,000 rooms worldwide
 Installations across many industries
 SoundStructure and RealPresence Room systems designed to work
seamlessly together
 Digital link to Polycom codecs and microphones
 Knowledge and tools you need to be successful
 SoundStructure Studio design tool with built-in intelligence that generates a complete
baseline configuration file
 Comprehensive training and best practices guides
 Design, review and commissioning services available
 Polycom product support and expertise
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 11
Who Are the Decision Makers / Influencers
• Who are the decision makers / influencers?
− Build / design integrator
− End user who ‘owns’ conferencing technology
− AV consultant representing the end user in large opportunities
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 12
Target Customers
 Any organization with geographically dispersed teams that need to
collaborate
Education
©
Healthcare
Technology
Manufacturing
Retail
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Government
Financial Services
Biotech
Media
Slide 13
Energy
Entertainment
Consumer Goods
Use Your “EAR” to Find Opportunities
• Experience
− Rooms where voice quality and clarity are critically important
− Leadership rooms, collaboration spaces, conference rooms, general assembly
• Application
−
−
−
−
−
Custom solution to enable their collaboration
More mics for better room coverage
Different types of mics - ceiling, gooseneck, push to talk, wireless, etc.
Reinforcement of local audio in the room
Combine/split rooms to efficiently use space
• Room size
− Medium to large rooms, board rooms
− Class rooms, training rooms, court rooms, auditoriums, etc.
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 14
“EAR” Sales Questions
• Experience
“Do you have teleconference rooms where
people have trouble understanding what is being
said?”
• Application
“Do you have rooms that are mission-critical
and great audio performance is
mandatory?”
“Tell me about the rooms you use for training and classroom
learning…
“Do you sometimes reconfigure the furniture?
“Is it always easy to hear the presenters?
“Do you use hand-held or lavalier microphones?
• Room
“Is there other media played in the room?”
“Do you use installed voice in any of your
conference rooms?”
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
“Do you have any conference rooms that
hold more than a dozen people?”
Slide 15
Case Study:
Technology
Challenge
 High performing teams with very interactive participation from
members
 Expectation that everyone needs to hear and be heard
 Existing audio solution was inadequate for their expanding needs
and their desire to add video
 Past experience had shown that audio quality was critical to
connecting distributed teams
Technology
Usage
 Local collaboration rooms for small project teams
 Larger rooms for training, distance learning, webinars and
seminars that span the organization
 Deployed hundreds of Polycom installed audio systems
 Installed video endpoints and infrastructure
 Large deployment of SoundStructure VoIP Interfaces
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Enhanced audio experience for meeting
participants
 Improved the broader collaboration experience
across the company
Solution
©
Results
Slide 16
Case Study:
Small Multi-National Financial Services Firm
Challenge
Build video conference rooms to provide a life-like, face-to-face
conferencing experience for users who historically did not like
conferencing
 Previous room utilization rates less than 15%
 Users complained that they couldn’t understand the people on
the other end
 Users found it easier to pick up the phone or travel to the other
sites for collaborative meetings
Financial
Usage
Results

 Conference room utilization increased to better than
50% and is still increasing. They have plans to add
more conference rooms
Multimedia video conferencing and collaboration
Solution
Polycom SoundStructure C-Series audio processors and HDX
video codecs
 Simple to control
 Easy to integrate with their multiple room configurations
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 17
 The complaints about not being able to understand
the people on the other end have stopped
 A recent project was completed 3 weeks ahead of
schedule due to increased communication between
remote teams
Case Study:
Large Global Financial Services Firm
Challenge
Design a system using a single platform that can work in 8 different
styles of conferencing and collaboration environments
 Must be easy to install and use a fixed standard wiring scheme
to enforce worldwide standards across installations
 Must use common 3rd party control system code which doesn’t
require any customization or modification for each room type
Usage


Multimedia collaboration rooms
Audio and video conferencing systems
Financial
Results
Solution
 Polycom SoundStructure C-Series systems
 Virtual channel naming approach and SoundStructure Studio
design tool made it simple to support multiple room designs
without changing the control system implementation
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 18
 Created standard site files that can be loaded by any
contractor requiring minimal field configuration
 Provided consistent quality and user experience
worldwide
Case Study:
Large Internet Company
Challenge
To improve sound quality and interactivity between conference
participants in HDX video conference rooms
 Add audio only participants through existing Avaya VoIP
desktop phones without using 3rd party control systems
 No training of users required to use new capabilities
Usage
 Daily communication for internal and external meetings through
video and telephone
 Executive and administrative meetings/operations
Service Provider
Results
Solution
 Polycom SoundStructure C-Series added to existing HDX 8000
systems
 Deployed over 200 SoundStructure devices and headset
interfaces worldwide
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 19
 Worldwide users were able to take advantage of the
new system capabilities upgrade without retraining
 Audio, video and telephony participants benefited
from improved sound quality
Case Study:
Large New York Business Law School
Challenge
Provide an interactive learning environment that does not require
the lecturer to manage a system
 No AV person required to run the room
 Audio based camera position must operate automatically once
call is connected
Usage
 Interactive distance learning
 Lecture and presentation
Education
Solution
Results
 Polycom HDX 8000 and SoundStructure C16s connected to
third-party push-to-talk desktop mics
 Deployed Polycom SoundStructure connected to HDX codecs
with CLink2
 Used the GPIO to control preset recalls for the camera based on
which student mic was being used
 Allowed any lecturer or professor to use the
facility without having to learn how the system
works
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 20
 Helped an understaffed AV department on a
large multi-building campus to provide high
quality learning experience
Case Study:
Biotech
Challenge
 Customer had an installed audio solution deployed that was not
working properly
 Solutions did not deliver full duplex audio and did not handle room
noise effectively
 Competitive solution did not perform well with the room layout and
local participant distance from microphones resulting in poor voice
quality at remote sites
Biotech
Usage
 High level sales and marketing meetings
 Distance learning
 Drug development team collaborative sessions
Results
 Improved audio experience for meeting participants
 Accelerated transition to visual communication
Solution
 Replace approximately 200 competitor’s units with Polycom installed
audio solution
 Ultimately replaced all video endpoints as well
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 21
SoundStructure Surpasses the Installed Voice Competition
Polycom
Installed Voice Advantages
Major
Installed Voice Competitors
ClearOne
Converge Pro
Biamp
Nexia/Audia
“I have helped commission a couple of systems where a competitive system
failed. The [SoundStructure] C16 worked superbly. In one [installation] the
customer could not believe that we got a usable system because the competitor’s
[audio] was completely unintelligible!”
—Polycom Channel Partner
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 22
 Never runs out of processing power
 Stereo capabilities for immersive
conferencing on all inputs
 Feedback elimination on all inputs
 HDX video codec integration
 HDX ceiling microphone integration
 Most flexible telco options
(field-installable VoIP and PSTN)
 SoundStructure Studio design
expertise built-in
Product Training Streams
• http://www.polycom.com/support/voice/soundstructure/soundstructure_training.html
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 23
Sales Tools Available
 Customer presentation, FAQs, Accessory Guides & more on our product
pages:
 PPC: C-Series | SR12
 SoundStructure Design Guide
 Contains example applications
 http://support.polycom.com/global/documents/support/setup_maintenance/products/voice/So
undStructure_Design_Guide.pdf
 Product Bulletin #1328 for Professional Services
 www.polycom.com/soundstructure
 Streamlined pages to make navigation easier
 For questions please contact your Channel Account Manager
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 24
Thank You
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Benefits For End Users
Benefit
Enabling Features
• Stereo echo cancellation supports many different applications such as stereo playback or audio
from the video codec from the front of the room and telephony audio from the ceiling
• Full crosspoint matrix makes it possible to send audio where it's needed
High quality conferencing
• Robust and fast acting independent echo cancellation and noise cancellation on all channels
experience for local and remote
means that the system provides natural and transparent interaction
participants
• Flexible input and output capabilities allow you to put microphones where you need them, and
distribute loudspeakers throughout the room
• Feedback elimination supports reinforcement of local audio into the room for improved intelligibility
by local participants.
• Advanced audio processing can improve the overall audio quality through equalization, dynamics
processing, and more.
Integrates seamlessly with HDX • CLink2 allows HDX and HDX microphones to be digitally connected into SoundStructure with
video conferencing systems
shared mute and volume control
Immersive audio experience
improves collaboration
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 26
Benefits For End Users
Benefit
Easily configurable for
any end-user application
• Scalable from 8 inputs to 128 inputs to meet the needs of even the largest systems
• Extensive audio processing including sound reinforcement and feedback elimination for PA and
conferencing applications
• Powerful logic and events engine to support room combining and advanced applications
• Different styles of microphones – table, ceiling, wireless - can be mixed and matched
Flexible telephony
options including native
SIP integration
• Modular telephony options make it easy to support changing telephony requirements
• Solutions for single or dual line analog telephony and SIP telephony
• Uses same industry-leading, open standards-based UC software as SoundStation and SoundPoint IP
telephony products
• Broad SIP partner interoperability through VIP and VFV partner programs
• Powerful SoundStructure API makes it easy to program the desired functionality
• Supports AMX/Crestron style control systems
• Polycom Touch Control can be used with or without HDX to control mute and volume and dial HDX or
telephony interfaces of a SoundStructure system
Multiple dialing and
control options
©
Enabling Features
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 27
Benefits for Integrators
Benefit
Flexible processing
options
Ultimate audio
conferencing
capability
Easily scales from
8x8 to 128x128
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Enabling Features
• Stereo echo cancellation and noise cancellation on all inputs makes it easy to have 16 microphones with
only one device
• Sufficient DSP power to turn on all input processing such as equalization, feedback elimination, dynamics,
and delay, as well as all output processing including equalization, dynamics, and delay
• Customizable automixer performance with chairman modes and support for different microphone priorities
• Full crosspoint matrix makes it easy to send audio where it's needed
• Up to 16 submixes per device for additional routing, volume control, and processing
• Robust and fast-acting independent echo cancellation and noise cancellation on all channels means that
the system provides natural and transparent interaction between users
• Monaural or stereo echo cancellation creates opportunity for partner differentiation with immersive audio
• Advanced audio processing can improve the overall audio quality through equalization, dynamics
processing, and more.
• OBAM designed to create a single matrix regardless of the numbers of inputs and outputs in the system
• SoundStructure Studio design wizard makes it easy to reuse systems with different hardware
configurations
Slide 28
Benefits for Integrators
Benefit
Enabling Features
Easy to create designs • SoundStructure Studio’s ease of use makes it simple to create, customize, and upload a design to
SoundStructure devices
• Preset recorder saves time when building sophisticated systems
• Virtual channel definitions make it more efficient to work with monaural and stereo audio sources
• Offline emulator allows you to configure and test the system without requiring SoundStructure hardware
Easy to control
• Use of channel names in the API commands allows for control system code to be easily re-used even if the
physical wiring is different
• Groups of channels can be easily controlled with the group name
• SoundStructure API is easily understood and coded
• Events and logic inputs and outputs provide an unrivaled ability to customize the behavior
• Polycom Touch Control provides a simple control solution
• Full support by AMX and Crestron control systems
Easy to integrate with • CLink2 digital connection allows HDX codecs and microphones to be digitally connected
HDX codecs and
• Shared mute and volume control over CLink2 digital connection
microphones
Multiple telephony
• Plug-in card architecture simplifies adding, removing, upgrading telephony. No extra rack slot is required
options
• Solutions for single or dual line analog telephony and SIP telephony
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 29
Competitive Differentiation – End Users
Feature
Benefit / Why a Differentiator
Polycom
Multi-channel echo
cancellation
Having the audio come from the direction of the talker increases intelligibility and talker
identification/recognition to improve overall meeting. Common applications are video participants’
audio coming from the front of the room and telephone participants’ audio from the ceiling.
•
Feedback elimination on all
inputs
Improves performance of conferencing and sound reinforcement. Gives presenters more freedom
to present from anywhere in the room and re-enforces the audio so everyone can hear clearly.
•
Flexible Telco options
Can start with analog telephony today and easily upgrade to VoIP in the future with very minor
system and software updates.
Simple dialing option
Touch Control provides a low cost alternative to AMX and Crestron systems for dialing
SoundStructure telephony systems.
Seamless multi-box bussing
with OBAM
Makes it easy to reuse components and expand a system as needs grow.
Direct digital HDX codec
integration
Easily expand the codec to add more microphones to the system.
HDX mic integration
Allows great audio pick up with a low visual profile. Flexible positioning and easy to add more
microphones with additional SoundStructure units.
Robust echo cancellation
High quality performance makes the room sound quality significantly better for remote participants.
Reduces costly service calls.
Programmable events
Makes it easy to customize the solution to meet the requirements of the end user including split and
combine rooms, push to talk microphones, taking advantage of customizable logic inputs and
outputs.
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 30
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ClearOne
Converge Pro
Biamp Nexia
/ Audia
•
Requires
equipment
change in the
rack
•
VoIP only in
Audia
systems
iPad and
iPhone app
Competitive Differentiation – Integrators
Feature
Benefit / Why a Differentiator
Multi-channel echo
cancellation
Allows the integrator to build a better system for the end user and allows the integrator to differentiate
themselves from other integrators who may be selling alternative products
Feedback elimination on all
inputs
Minimizes the number of devices and the system integration effort required to set up a sound
reinforcement system that has robust performance.
Flexible Telco options
Does not require an extra rack slot and allows for easy upgrade to other telephony solutions
Simple dialing option
The Polycom Touch Control can be used as an inexpensive option for dialing SoundStructure audio
conferencing systems. Easy to pair with a SoundStructure system.
Seamless multi-box bussing
with OBAM
Easy to build large systems efficiently without worrying about how to get signals from one device to
another. All signals are available across the OBAM bus
Control system code reuse
Controlling the channels by name saves time and minimizes programming efforts. Also allows in-field
system changes without having to change the control system code.
Direct digital HDX codec
integration
Digital connection of the codec does not use any of the inputs and lowers system integration cost.
HDX mic integration
Saves time. Easy to cover large spaces with fewer microphones, simplifies configuration and cabling for a
cleaner appearance
Robust echo cancellation
More robust echo cancellation makes the system easier to set up.
Programmable events
Makes it easier to build systems that the end customer requires.
Ethernet interface
Simplifies setup of equipment and remote management
©
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Slide 31
Polycom
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
ClearOne
Converge Pro
Biamp Nexia /
Audia
Mono only
Mono only
•
Limited by
processing
capability
Requires
equipment
change in the
rack
VoIP only in
Audia systems
Physical dialer
iPad and
iPhone app
Limited number
of channels
Limited number
of channels
•
•
Where is SoundStructure Suitable?
©
Conference Rooms
Classrooms
Presentation Rooms
Court Rooms
Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.