The Best Conferencing Solutions for New Businesses

Video conferencing has enormous promise for enterprises of all sizes, particularly start-ups.

Take a look at the following:

• Meeting digitally allows you to save money on extremely expensive business travel while also being environmentally friendly.

• If the majority of your employees can work remotely, you'll require less office space, if any at all.

• Video conferencing is more personal, allowing you to establish and develop relationships with colleagues and clients.

However, the vast array of alternatives might make selecting the best one challenging. Cost is an essential concern for start-ups since they often have fewer expenditures for new technologies.

Assess Your Company's Requirements

Every firm has unique requirements. Finding the proper video-conferencing option for you requires careful assessment of your demands. Do you expect vibrant meetings with people in the same room conversing as well as chatting with those who are remote? What kind of space do you have for conferencing rooms? What virtual collaboration scenarios do you anticipate encountering?

These scenarios might include everything from having weekly status meetings, brainstorming, or just addressing a problem, to interviewing new personnel, pitching to clients, or giving training sessions.

Understanding your requirements can help you establish the type of screen, microphone, and camera configuration you want, as well as the feature set you require from your conferencing programme.

Pricing will undoubtedly be front of mind for small firms, so it's critical to consider this when evaluating solutions, features, and return on investment.

Hard Codec vs. Soft Codec

A codec is a piece of software or hardware that encodes and decodes audiovisual data so that it may be sent between parties. There are two main types: hard and soft.

Hard codecs encode and decode data using specialised hardware. If you are not utilising an integrated system, you must acquire and install equipment in your conference room, including a camera, display, and microphone. They are powered by specialised back-end servers. Hard codecs are the typical video-conferencing solutions you're surely familiar with from huge company conference rooms.

Soft codecs encode and decode audiovisual data using software rather than dedicated hardware. Only an internet connection, software, and a device such as a computer, tablet, or smartphone are required for web-based video conferencing. Soft codecs include apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, which have risen in popularity since the outbreak began. Zoom users have climbed by 2.900%, while Microsoft Teams has recently topped 270 million monthly active users (up from 250 million in July 2021).

Each of these solution types has advantages and disadvantages.

Hard Codec Pros

Greater dependability: Because hard codecs operate on their hardware, they are more reliable and face fewer bandwidth problems. While this usually means a higher price point that start-ups cannot afford, MAXHUB's UC solutions provide excellent value for money, especially when compared to similar offerings on the market, making them ideal for small firms.

Better quality: The hardware is solely dedicated to audiovisual transmission, with no other background operations or software updates operating, like on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. This implies it can provide higher-quality calls. When combined with a high-quality camera, this results in a very professional video-conferencing experience.

Hard codecs provide enterprise-grade security with fewer flaws, making them acceptable for transferring sensitive data. Along with advanced encryption, the MAXHUB UC S10 has conferencing platforms that are compatible with all major meeting systems.

Cons of Hard Codecs

Dedicated video-conferencing solutions are often more costly, putting them out of reach for the majority of start-ups.

Hard codecs have generally been less cross-compatible than soft codecs, although comparable current offers should interface more easily with other systems.

Soft Codec Pros

Affordability: Soft codecs provide an economical, scalable video-conferencing option for enterprises on a restricted budget. All of the big options have free versions with a lot of capabilities, but you'll have to pay for longer sessions or more advanced capabilities.

Ease of use: Solutions like Zoom, Teams, Meet, and Webex were created with the non-technical customer in mind. Some don't even require programme downloads because they can be accessed via a browser.

Soft Codec Cons

Quality issues: Soft codecs run on devices that are always competing with a slew of other activities, potentially causing computational power and bandwidth problems. These can lead to poor video or audio quality, and disturbing meetings.

Weaker security: Despite advancements in this area, soft codecs often have less strong encryption than hard codecs. Zoom recently paid out $85 million in a class-action settlement to consumers whose meetings were interrupted by aggressive pranksters.

What to Look Out For

As a startup, you want the greatest value for money, but you also want to make sure you have a future-proof solution that fits your specific needs.

Businesses on a low budget who don't want to sacrifice picture quality might use a non-interactive screen like MAXHUB's Digital Signage. Remember that good resolution and simple screen-sharing are required for successful meetings in a wide range of settings.

MAXHUB's interactive flat-panel technology, on the other hand, provides a full solution for demonstrations, interaction, brainstorming, and conferencing. Although more costly, this does not necessitate the purchase of any additional equipment. To get the most out of your investment, you need as many features as possible. To mimic the real-world working environment as nearly as possible, select a system that includes annotation, sophisticated input detection, and simple screen-saving and sharing.

MAXHUB provides a variety of professional film solutions to assist start-ups in being competitive in today's changing business climate.

Find out how MAXHUB can help your company develop.

MAXHUB is a market leader in intelligent displays and audiovisual technologies for communication and collaboration. As an R&D-driven organisation, we create a variety of industry-leading solutions that help people stay connected and collaborate more efficiently and successfully.

Merge AudioVisual is the official partner of MAXHUB in New Zealand. Merge AudioVisual provides cutting-edge MAXHUB technology.

Discover the Merge AudioVisual difference as we collaborate with you to ensure the success of your company.