5.4 Remote Control of Main Camera from Far Sites

In a point-to-point call, the far i.e., other, video site can control your main camera from its hand- held remote if the site has a Polycom video conferencing system (i.e., if it is an NRAO system or one with similar hardware to ours). To do this, the other site selects ``far" camera control on its hand-held remote before pressing the pan, tilt or zoom camera control buttons.

This capability is not available during a multi-site video conference through a video hub, because there is no unique ``far" site in such a conference. If remote control of your main camera is needed during a hubbed call, e.g., by a far site that is ''chairing" the meeting and wishes to select who or what is seen in close-up at your site, or if your room is an Auditorium where your own hand-held remote cannot be located near its own video unit, then another method of remote camera control may be needed.

The NRAO has a capability for a far site (usually Charlottesville) to send commands to any NRAO video system via the Polycom remote application programming interface (API). Our interface to this API is through scripts written by Alan Bridle and Gene Runion for Windows PCs, and normally requires one of Alan Bridle, Gene Runion or Gareth Hunt to be present at the meeting. If you need remote control of your site's main camera during a multi-way meeting, please contact one of these people well before the meeting to arrange this.

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