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Smooth, Natural Video Conference Conversation

The Yamaha YVC-1000 UC Conference Phone improves decision-making among employees located globally.

OVERVIEW

Takara Belmont Corporation is the world leader in salon and spa design, salon equipment manufacturing, and dental equipment manufacturing. Started as a foundry in Osaka, Japan in 1921, the company has continued to grow and expand with locations around the world. Almost a century later, the company upholds its long tradition of health and beauty through world-class products and service.

CHALLENGE

As part of Takara Belmont’s commitment to excellence, the company’s Osaka and Tokyo headquarters hold a decision-making panel two to three times a month. These meetings allow the executive committee from both locations to come together and discuss important details that are key to the company’s success. Rather than meet in person, Takara Belmont decided the meetings would be conducted over video conference calls, which would reduce cost and time of travel for its employees.

However, the company’s video conference setup didn’t enable the team to easily converse, creating a frustrating and unproductive meeting environment. The system produced a lot of noise, making it difficult to hear every word. Even when the volume was turned up, the audio was broken. The company’s tech team thought of all the possible scenarios of what could be causing the problem, from laptops blocking voices from being carried, the meeting rooms’ acoustics, insufficient network bandwidth, equipment settings, and the microphone arrangement. However, troubleshooting these issues didn’t make the audio any clearer. They needed an audio system that would match the high standards of their current video system.

SOLUTION AND RESULTS

In the company’s search, Takara Belmont discovered the Yamaha YVC-1000 Unified Communications Conference Phone System- Bluetooth + USB. The YVC-1000 is a USB conference phone with Bluetooth capability that accommodates small to large conference spaces and rooms with special table configurations, such as a horseshoe, by daisy-chaining up to four additional microphones and using the outputs for two external speakers. The unit can bridge a call from a smartphone connected by Bluetooth to a call from a video conferencing unit or a computer-based UC client connected by USB. It is designed to deliver the most natural and intelligible sound for the room using an auto-tuning function that detects and monitors the acoustics of the environment to optimize sound processing.

The company did a trial run with the YVC-1000, installing it at the Osaka head office and within the boardroom in Tokyo, which can hold up to 20 participants. It seamlessly connected to the Sony PCS-XC1 HD video conferencing system. From the first meeting, participants were surprised at the dramatic improvement. The audio was clear, natural, and easy to hear. The system solved all the quality issues they had been experiencing and had been unable to resolve through previous attempts. Equipped with voice processing technology, including an adaptive echo canceller and other Yamaha sound processing technologies, it facilitated stress-free conversation in each of the panel meetings.

As a result of the successful trial run, the company installed three dedicated YVC-1000 systems in each location. The system is also supported by three extension microphones at each location, which allow them the flexibility to add and change the microphone layout as needed to accommodate larger meetings. Because of the clarity the YVC-1000 for remote collaboration, the company is now using the system at all company events, connecting Osaka to Tokyo. This has promoted communication and increased participation between the locations.

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