Last Updated on December 1, 2021 by GrahamWalsh
No main topic for this episode, we’ll recap the past year. Feel free to ask away. Below is a summary of the Q&A during the session.
Questions during Episode Nine
Q. With Webex Guest Join, issues have been seen with End-to-End Encryption. Is this known to anyone else?
A. This seems to be happening only on corporate accounts rather than personal/free accounts. Microsoft are investigating with Cisco. It appears the Webex Web App does not support E2E Encryption, which is odd, as Cisco wrote the Web App.
Q. Any idea when this new Poly MTRoA G7500 will be available and for what price?
A. Estimated Q1/Q2 2021 to be certified. The device is available today in PolyOS mode
Q. Currently Zoom Guest Join on MTR only shows the active far-end-talker’s video feed (non-active far-ends are hidden)- any hint if Zoom on MTR will support a gallery view, or at least include thumbnail views of non-active talkers?
A. As of the latest Zoom release, the web app now has Active Speaker and Gallery View
Q. Will MS add some kind of Bluetooth proximity to Coordinated meetings, so that the 2. unit does not join the call if it is not near by?
A. No idea if this will happen or not. We will look to get maybe Yoav or Christian on another episode for any Surface Hub related items.
Q. Will there be more Teams Displays on the market?
A. We guess so, look out in 2021 🙂
Q. Will the Poly CCX600 become a Teams Display?
A. No idea and can’t comment on roadmap
Feedback on MTR Premium service from a user
We just installed our first MTR devices, and lit up MTR Premium on them. Incredibly happy with it so far. The visibility of the room is excellent and the response from Microsoft support to the tickets generated has been impressive (much much better than going through Premier support). We will be licensing all our rooms for it.
Q. Anyone knows if Surface Hub will be supported with the Premium license?
A. Suggested time frame is Q1 2021 along with MTRoA devices
Q. When will Teams Casting be available?
A. Soonish 🙂
Q. I recently saw that the console interface for MTRoA will be changing in January for Poly. I don’t like the current MTRoA interface, so I’m excited about this. Did anyone else hear of this?
A. Yes, the MTRoA devices will get a similar CoR console like MTRoW devices. Roadmap for Q1/Q2 2021.
Q, Is the android version for collab bars only or will they be available on more robust devices?
A. Collab bars will become more robust with support for external peripherals
Q. I understood from Poly that the X30 and X50 Studio Teams rooms on Android will support AV passthrough in Teams mode. Knauf, Bill from Poly can you confirm when this will be available? This is a great workaround till MS will support direct guest join/third party meetings.
A1. Yes, Poly calls the USB pass through feature “device mode,” and it has been in beta. It won’t make the December 3.3 release today though. Q1 2021 target now.
A2. I am testing right now in beta SW and it was expected in 3.3, but also it will be later maybe Q2
Q. Where can I find the MTR Roadmap?
A. https://aka.ms/mtrroadmap
Q. What’s the main difference between Windows and Android Devices?
A. It is not really about Windows or Android but more about speaker, mics and cameras PLUS smartness on the AEC size to cope with bigger rooms.
Q. Are collab bars suited for large rooms then?
A. Maybe the collab bar products that comes out early next year, will suit larger rooms, than the devices we see today
Q. Are the together mode new scenes like for the desktop app available for MTRoW, MTRoA and Surface hub?
A. It is planned for Q1/Q2 for together mode to be on both platforms as well.
Q. Isn’t there a second aspect to the Hub, Android, Windows MTR devices debate – management?
A. Yes absolutely. Some organisations might prefer to manage Windows OS vs Android devices, so that needs to be considered too.
Q. Does anybody has knowledge about a touch device similar to the perfect touch and pen functionality of the surface hub -> usable in MTR
A1. Any Touch Enabled screen that can connect over USB can be connected to a MTR. Experience won’t be the same as Surface Hub is designed for this. Touch experience on the MTR is more Microsoft Whiteboard today. See here for more details.
A2. Lars has tested both LG touch and Avocor, and I found the Avocor a lot better with the whiteboarding… the LG was lagging
A3. See article here on the Tech Community
Q. Are there any other video phones available?
A. You can join from CCX + camera (CCX700+CCX600 camera) to Teams via RealConnect (Cloud Video Interop). Note the phone is not in Teams Mode, SIP mode only.
Feedback from Poly – Stating the above during the design and manufacturing of the new CCX range the specifications required for a Video capable phone where changed which did not allow us to use the CCX 700 for its originally designed use case. At present, there is no video-capable CCX Teams phone from Poly and any discussion around this would require an NDA via a Poly sales engineer.
Q. Would it be reasonable to see Device as a Service be coupled with premium licenses with Teams Room Managed Service?
A. The premium license option is how much you want to support your devices vs having Microsoft manage your rooms. It’s not necessarily a tie-in to device as a service though sure…load up on * as a service
Q. When will more features be visible and supported in the whiteboard integration in Teams like in the whiteboard desktop app? The desktop app is lacking performance and when you have more then 10 people whiteboarding the Teams whiteboard is much more reliable and faster today.
A. Expect an improved web-based whiteboard experience soon
Q. When the people counting comes, that’s when we will look at the new MTR displays for outside the rooms
A. Yes people counting will be integrated to the MTR Displays outside the room.
Q. Is there going to be ability to turn off the post-meeting quality survey on MTRs?
A. That can be done at a tenant level. I will write a blog post shortly on this.
Q. Regarding the coordinated meeting, if we set this functionality, it will be activated permanently for every meeting? Is something that even if it’s configure can be turn it off or on whenever you need?
A. It will be a permanent setting for all meetings
Q. Any guidance for setting up Intune and MTRs?
A. Great article by Craig Chiffers on Intune here.
Q. Has release 4.7.15 resolved the audio sharing issue from the HDMI ingest?
A. Yes, the latest release support HDMI Audio during a meeting.
Q. Still wishing for DISABLING every sort of NR and AEC and such to be able to send unaltered audio across. There needs to be an “expert mode” IMHO for use cases off the beaten track.
A. The PG has heard this request and is not interested in enabling it. You may be an expert in setting up AV, but many IT departments aren’t. Someone turns on expert mode and then the audio is terrible because they don’t know what they are doing.
Q. Any tips for setting up Azure AD Groups?
A. For IP phones, I setup a custom AAD group to define devices by manufacturer name and then define an InTune policy using that group membership. This helps separate our MDM device enrollments for Teams Native IP phones verses getting the same policy I would apply to cell phone devices, etc.
Q. How do I register to be on the Microsoft TAP programme?
A. Register here https://aka.ms/JoinTAP100
Q. Hi Guys, can someone help me? I realize that Cortana does not appear in the latest MTR version, I’m checking on a Crestron room device. Any thought?
A1. It’s still under TAP. Some days ago, the configuration in the admin GUI setup has been deleted by the product development team, you can only set this via XML or teams admin center. The user setting is under settings if you have the latest update in TAP programme.
A2. Also, you need approved Cortana devices for it to show up would be my assumption. The Crestron peripherals are not Cortana certified to my knowledge and I do not have it showing up on any units of mine either. The Logitech Rally does work, and we watched it work on a demo from Michael…. thanks again Michael…that was cool to see. I’m sure as it comes out from TAP and more widespread there will be some documentation about it and I think its blog post worthy so there is some good background info when people run into issues with it….
A3. As per the release notes, Cortana is in preview and must be configured via XML as per here.
A4. Cortana voice assistance in Microsoft Teams Rooms is released under Preview. In its preview release, Cortana is supported only in the US with language EN-US on devices that have connected Rally microphones.
A5. So, only for Logitech Rally systems, at least for now. My MTR has a Logitech Rally Plus attached, it is in EN-US, but the Tenant is in the EU. No Cortana yet. If I apply the XML (See above) the settings will show up, but it is disabled and no user choice. Not on the MTR and not on my Microsoft Teams display Devices (Lenovo). Looks like these requirements are strict requirements for now. Think I will move some devices to an US tenant to play around with it.
Also published on Medium.