Polycom Conference Composer User manual

Conference Composer
User Guide

Copyright © 2001 Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Because of technical
progress, specifications are subject to change without notice.
The Polycom logo and Vortex®are registered trademarks of Polycom, Inc..
Polycom, Inc.
Installed Voice Business Group
1720 Peachtree Street NW, Suite 220
Atlanta, GA 30309-2439
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.aspi.com
Technical Support:
[phone]
[email protected]
CCUG-0100-01

CONFERENCE COMPOSERTM USER GUIDE
Polycom, Inc., Copyright 2001 Technical Support: 800.932.2774 1
Conference ComposerTM Software ..............................................................2
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 2
Installation.............................................................................................................. 2
Features of the Conference Composer Window ..................................................... 3
Operating Conference Composer...................................................................5
Device Parameters .........................................................................................8
System ..................................................................................................................... 8
Options.................................................................................................................... 9
Mic/Line Inputs....................................................................................................... 11
Input Filters ............................................................................................................ 12
Automixer................................................................................................................ 13
EF Bus .................................................................................................................... 14
Matrix Mixer........................................................................................................... 15
Output Filters ......................................................................................................... 17
Outputs.................................................................................................................... 17
Logic Input.............................................................................................................. 18
Logic Output ........................................................................................................... 19
Presets..................................................................................................................... 20
Macros .................................................................................................................... 20
Diagnostics ............................................................................................................. 20
Project Files and Creating Reports ................................................................21
File Saving.............................................................................................................. 21
File Restoring ......................................................................................................... 21
Creating Reports..................................................................................................... 21
The Console Window ....................................................................................22
Console Tab ............................................................................................................ 22
Properties Tab ........................................................................................................ 23
Modem Use with the Vortex..........................................................................25
Troubleshooting the Vortex Modem Connection.................................................... 27

CONFERENCE COMPOSERTM SOFTWARE
Conference Composer User Guide 2 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
CONFERENCE COMPOSERTM SOFTWARE
INTRODUCTION
Conference Composer is the design and configuration software that is supplied with
the Vortex®. Its purpose is to make it easy and intuitive to configure Polycom’s Vor-
tex products, share configuration files, create presets, macros, and logic assignments.
Conference Composer operates under Windows™ 98, ME, NT, and 2000.
INSTALLATION
Insert the Conference Composer disk into your CD-ROM drive and run the Setup
program. If you have a previously installed version of Conference Composer on your
computer, it is highly recommended that you uninstall that version (use Add/
Remove Program from the CONTROL PANEL window) before installing the latest
version.
After running the Setup program, simply follow the instructions for installing Con-
ference Composer.
USING CONFERENCE
COMPOSER WITH A
VORTEX AND EF200
PHONE ADD
When using the Conference Composer software with the Vortex and the EF200, plug
the RS-232 into the Vortex. If you plug into the EF200, you may not be able to get
Level information because the EF200 will not know how to interpret the data from the
software that will display metering information.

CONFERENCE COMPOSERTM SOFTWARE
© Polycom, Inc. 3 Conference Composer User Guide
FEATURES OF THE CONFERENCE COMPOSER WINDOW
1. EXPLORER MENU. The Explorer-type menu structure allows you to easily navi-
gate and browse through your device list. Clicking on an item in the tree will dis-
play the parameter page to the right of the explorer menu.
2. STATUS METER. This meter and status light shows the communication status
between your PC and a Vortex or EF device (EF200 or EF1210). The WAITING
light turns yellow when it is communicating via RS-232 with a Vortex or EF
device and the meter indicates how full the command buffer is with commands
being sent to the device.
3. DSP LOAD. Indicates the current percentage of used available variable DSP
resources.
4. MENUS.
•F
ILE. The File menu allows you to create a new Project, Device Chain, or
Device; manages file functions of a Project such as Opening, Saving, or
Closing; and handles printing and Preferences.
•P
ROJECT. The Project menu contains 3 options: AUTOSCAN, SAMPLE, or
ONLINE. AUTOSCAN finds all Vortex or EF devices connected to the PC and
scans in their settings. SAMPLE loads a sample project into Conference
Composer. ONLINE allows you to either download settings from a Vortex or
EF device or upload settings to a Vortex or EF device.
Figure 1. Feauters of Conference Composer window
1
23
4

CONFERENCE COMPOSERTM SOFTWARE
Conference Composer User Guide 4 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
•U
SER MODE. User mode selects between BASIC and ADVANCED. Basic
mode limits user options that can be adjusted. Advanced mode allows con-
trol of all parameters available on Conference Composer.
•H
ELP. The Help menu contains the ABOUT option that shows the version
number of the software.

OPERATING CONFERENCE COMPOSER
© Polycom, Inc. 5 Conference Composer User Guide
OPERATING CONFERENCE COMPOSER
Conference Composer may either be operated online or off-line (not connected to a
Vortex or EF device) depending on how you would like to use it. If you work off-line
it is easy to save the settings to a file, share the files with others, and then upload the
settings into an EF device when you go online. The online or off-line operation of
Conference Composer is the same, although if you are operating off-line you will
need to add devices to the project before you can start working with the devices.
Conference Composer organizes your projects into a hierarchy of PROJECT, DEVICE
CHAIN, and DEVICE. Starting from the bottom of the list, a DEVICE is simply that –
some piece of equipment that will be used in the installation. A DEVICE CHAIN is a
collection of devices that are linked together through the ASPI Bus or EF Bus (that’s
where the name device chain comes from). Typically these represent all the devices
that are tied to a particular serial port on your computer/controller. The PROJECT rep-
resents a collection of DEVICE CHAINS. You can think of the PROJECTS as directories,
the DEVICE CHAINS as files and the DEVICES as items in the files.
There are many different buttons and knobs that allow the user to change settings on
the device. Conference Composer’s convention is that a feature associated with a but-
ton is enabled when the button’s LED is lit. To use a knob, click on the knob and
while holding down the mouse button, raise or lower the cursor to increase or
decrease the knob value..
ONLINE: CONNECTED
TO AN EF DEVICE
To operate online, the EF Device should be connected to an RS-232 port of your host
computer. The first step is to have Conference Composer scan your EF Device -- this
ensures the settings you see on the PC screen are exactly the settings in the device. To
do this, select the AUTOSCAN option from the PROJECT menu as shown in Figure 3.
This ensures the settings you see on the PC screen are exactly the settings in the
device.
Figure 2. To increase the level, click on the knob and move the cursor UP. To
decrease the level, click on the knob and move the cursor DOWN.

OPERATING CONFERENCE COMPOSER
Conference Composer User Guide 6 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
NOTE If you have any devices currently using the serial port on your PC, such as a PalmPi-
lot’s HotSync, please close those programs to free the COM port before running
AUTOSCAN.
AUTOSCAN will automatically find all EF devices (EF2280, EF1210, EF200) attached
to the RS-232 port and then automatically download all the settings into Conference
Composer. Once the settings have been downloaded to the PC, any changes you
make to the device through Conference Composer will be sent automatically to the
device, updating its configuration in real-time.
Once Conference Composer has finished downloading the settings from the con-
nected devices, you will see the Navigation area look like Figure 4. The amount of
time it takes to sync with the Vortex depends on the number of presets that have valid
data. More presets means more data must be sent to the PC.
OFF-LINE: OPERATING
WITHOUT AN EF
DEVICE
To operate without any devices connected to the computer you can select NEW-
>DEVICE->EF2280 to create a sample Vortex system to configure. This will automati-
cally create a Project. Once you have a Vortex installed, your navigation tab should
Figure 3. Select AUTOSCAN to have Conference Composer automatically find
online devices.
Figure 4. Project gen-
erated when connected
to a Vortex.

OPERATING CONFERENCE COMPOSER
© Polycom, Inc. 7 Conference Composer User Guide
look like Figure 4 (the red X’s indicate that you are offline), and you are ready to pro-
ceed to the next section.
Figure 5. Operating Conference Com-
poser Offline.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 8 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
DEVICE PARAMETERS
Each device in Conference Composer is represented by a list of sub-entries for that
device. For the Vortex, those fields are SYSTEM, MIC/LINE INPUTS, etc. as shown in
Figure 4. By clicking on the Device (EF2280:00 in Figure 4) you bring up the SYS-
TEM page as shown in Figure 6. Notice that each SYSTEM page has tabs correspond-
ing to the list of sub-entries in Figure 4. Clicking on either a tab or the field name will
bring you to a page with specific controls for that set of functions.
SYSTEM
The SYSTEM Page presents you with a block diagram of the Vortex. It allows you to
quickly enter text labels for inputs and outputs (this can also be done on all the other
pages too), and see the signal flow from inputs to outputs. Holding the cursor over a
particular block in the block diagram will show signal flow information from inputs
to outputs or outputs to inputs depending on where you hold the mouse. By holding
the cursor over any output block, you can see the all the inputs that map to the partic-
ular output. You may enable/disable specific features by left clicking on the blocks in
the SYSTEM Page. If a block is grayed out, it is turned off.
When connected to a device, the Signal Activity LEDs mapped to the inputs and out-
puts of the SYSTEM Page (See Figure 7) show the signal activity. This indicator is
independent of the gating indicators -- it simply indicates when the input or output has
signal level above the Activity Threshold. The Activity Threshold for what consti-
tutes activity is set on the OPTIONS Page -- it is in the MISCELLANEOUS section. If you
set this level too high, the threshold may be too high and the signal activity LED will
Figure 6. Vortex System tab shows the block diagram of the device.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
© Polycom, Inc. 9 Conference Composer User Guide
be difficult to light. If you set the signal activity level too low, the ambient room
noise may light the signal activity LED too easily.
The ability to follow signal flow and the Signal Activity LED can provide useful tools
to ensure that the proper input to output mappings have been setup.
OPTIONS
The OPTIONS tab allows the user to set the following parameters:
•M
ODEM INITIALIZATION STRING. The modem initialization string, if enabled,
Figure 7. Signal Activity LED of Inputs and Outputs.
Figure 8. Options Tab.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 10 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
will send the desired string to the modem (or any device connected to the RS-232
port) each time the Vortex is reset (either through power-up or a software reset).
This allows the Vortex to put the modem into an Auto Answer Mode, and set the
baud-rate to 9600 bps. The default string is set to: ATE0F1&B1S0=2.
•N
ON-V OLATILE MEMORY LOCK AND PASSWORD. Locking the Non-Volatile
memory will prevent users from overwriting presets that have been saved and
will also prevent the end user from changing the power up default preset.
•F
RONT PANEL LOCK AND PASSWORD. Locking the Front Panel will prevent
users from changing settings of the Vortex from the front panel LCD menu.
Users will be able to see what the settings in the device are, but will not be able to
change the device settings.
•M
ETER DISPLAY ON THE FRONT PANEL. This parameter allows you to select
which input, output, or reference is displayed on the front panel meter.
•D
EVICE NAME.
•D
EVICE ID (when working off-line). The Vortex Device ID can be changed from
the OPTIONS page only if the device is off-line. To change the Device ID of an
online Vortex, you should change the Device ID from the front panel LCD menu
and then AUTOSCAN again.
•S
CREEN SAVER TEXT AND OPTIONS. The Screen Saver allows the designer to cre-
ate 4 sets of messages that can be displayed on the Front Panel LCD on the Vor-
tex. START TIME is how long after the last front panel button has been pressed
before the messages begin displaying. DELAY TIME controls how much time
elapses before the next message is shown.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
© Polycom, Inc. 11 Conference Composer User Guide
MIC/LINE INPUTS
The MIC/LINE INPUTS page contains all the controls required to configure the 12
inputs (8 mic/line inputs and the 4 line level inputs). Figure 9 shows a Mic/Line Input
channel, a Line Input channel, and the Signal Generator – note that you can enable/
disable an input from view with the numbered buttons on the top of the page. Once
Input 1 is configured, the user may copy those settings to the other mics by clicking
the COPY SETTINGS 1–8 button. The same capability exists to copy the settings from
Input A to the remaining line level inputs.
The fields for Inputs 1-8 are as follows:
•T
EXT BOX. This stores up to 16 character for the input label.
•G
ATE LED. This LED is active if the LEVELS button is enabled and the particular
input gates on.
•M
ETER PER INPUT. This shows the signal level if it is between -20dBu and
+20dBu.
•G
AIN SLIDER AND TEXT BOX. These allow the user to set the input gain in dB on
the channel. The value adds gain in the analog domain using digitally controlled
trimpots. For Inputs 1-8, the gain slider can provide up to 30dB of gain. For
Inputs A-D, the gain slider can provide up to 20dB of gain.
•M
IC/LINE SWITCH. This applies mic or line level gain to the Input. In Mic mode,
Figure 9. Vo r t e x M IC/LINE INPUTS tab showing Mic/Line Input 1, Line Input A,
and the Signal Generator.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 12 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
33dB of gain is added to the signal.
•P
HANTOM POWER. 24 V phantom power can be enabled or disabled (it is enabled
in Figure 9).
•M
UTE. This button is used to mute or unmute the input signal (MUTE is disabled
in Figure 9).
• AGC ENABLE. This will enable/disable the automatic gain control (AGC).
• AGC MAX GAIN. This can be used to limit the total amount of gain the AGC can
apply to the signal.
• AGC MIN GAIN. This can be used to limit the total amount of attenuation the
AGC can apply to the signal. For example, setting the AGC MIN GAIN to -10 dB
will keep the AGC from attenuating the signal too much if someone taps on the
microphone.
• AGC RATE. This limits the rate of change of the AGC from between 1 to 5 dB/
sec.
•AECE
NABLE. This will enable or disable the acoustic echo canceller (AEC)
(AEC is enabled in Figure 9). If enabled the user can select the reference signal
to use either REF 1, REF 2, or the BUS REFERENCE.
•S
UPPRESION. The user can also control the amount of suppression that is applied
by the echo canceller during a double-talk situation. Suppression ranges from
NONE (no suppression) to YIKES! mode (half-duplex).
•NCE
NABLE. This will enable/disable noise cancellation (NC). If enabled, the
user can select the amount of noise cancellation using NC LEVEL. NC LEVEL
ranges from 0 to 15 dB of cancellation.
The controls for the line level Inputs A-D are simpler than the mic/line inputs. The
user can select a Gain (0dB is the default) and enable/disable Mute.
The SIGNAL GENERATOR input allows the user to create a noise source (either pink or
white noise) for use with noise masking applications or calibration of the Vortex.
INPUT FILTERS
Each of the inputs can have up to 5 filters of equalization. These filters include Para-
metric, Low Pass, High Pass, Low Shelf, and High Shelf. To use the filters, select the
type of filter and adjust the controls for the filter. You can adjust the controls in a
variety of ways: by typing in values in the text boxes, using the cursor up/down, using
Page Up/Page Down, or by clicking and holding the knob and moving the mouse up
to increase the value or down to decrease the value. The frequency response of the
plots may be viewed by clicking on the GRAPH button.
The ENABLE button per filter enables/disables that particular filter on the Input. The
ENABLE FILTERS button enables/disables all filters on the particular Input Channel.
This button toggles with the Filter Bypass buttons per Input. All filters for a particu-
lar input can be bypassed by clicking on the BYPASS button for that channel.
Once the settings are configured for Input Channel 1, the user may copy those settings
to all other channels using the COPY CHANNEL 1 FILTERS TO ALL CHANNELS button.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
© Polycom, Inc. 13 Conference Composer User Guide
AUTOMIXER
Each Vortex has two automixers that can be controlled: Automixer 1 and Automixer
2. The controls for the two automixers are shown in Figure 10. For most applica-
tions, the user will choose a single automixer. However if the Vortex is split to oper-
ate in two independent rooms, the second automixer should be used. The HOLD TIME,
DECAY TIME, and CAMERA THRESHOLD TIME is specified globally for each of the
automixers.
The CAMERA THRESHOLD TIME is the amount of time a microphone must be gated on
before a Camera Gating Indicator is sent to a control system, possibly for camera
positioning. Please note that the automixers do not sum the gated inputs together, the
summing is performed in the matrix - the automixer makes gating and level decisions
and sends that information to the matrix.
The LOCAL MAX NOM can be set to limit the maximum number of open micro-
phones that can be open at a given time on the local Vortex. In single Vortex applica-
tions, this is the only control required to limit the number of open microphones.
When multiple Vortexes are linked together, the GLOBAL MAX NOM can be used to
limit the maximim number of open microphones that can be opened across all linked
Vortexes. Unless you want to specifically limit the number of microphones in a par-
ticular Vortex when using GLOBAL MAX NOM then you should leave the LOCAL
Figure 10. Automixer controls on the Automixer Page.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 14 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
MAX NOM set to 8. To link Vortexes together, use the BUS MIXER number. Put all
the Vortexes you would like to operate as one large mixer together on the same BUS
MIXER number with the exception of BUS MIXER 0. If the BUS MIXER is set to 0, the
Automixer will work independently from other connected Vortexes.
Each of the eight signal channels going into the automixer can be configured to be
part of a particular automixer (Mixer 1 or Mixer 2). If set to NONE, it is not part of an
automixer and does not affect gating decisions. The gating for each channel can be
set to to FORCE ON, FORCE OFF, or AUTO.
The THRESHOLD TYPE can either be ADAPTIVE or MANUAL. The default is ADAPTIVE
THRESHOLD. The ADPATIVE THRESHOLD can be set when the THRESHOLD TYPE is set
to Adaptive. This represents how much louder the signal needs to be over the noise
floor before the microphone should be gated on. MANUAL THRESHOLD allows you to
set an absolute threshold that the signal needs to be greater than in order to gate on.
GATE PRIORITY can be configured for each microphone. Priority 1 is the highest pri-
ority and Priority 4 is the lowest priority. A higher priority input takes precedence
over a lower priority input if the maximum number of open microphones (Max NOM)
is set to be less than the number of microphones assigned to that automixer.
EF BUS
The EF BUS page allows the user to configure how to combine the bus signals from
the other linked Vortexes and control which echo canceller reference is sent to other
devices as the Bus Reference. Since there can be up to 8 Vortexes linked together and
each device can put 4 different signals on the bus (W, X, Y, and Z), there are 4 subma-
trices to allow flexibility in how the signals from other devices get mixed together and
get presented to the main matrix. Figure 11 shows the EF BUS submatrix and the fact
that there are 4 submatrices and the inputs are WB0, … WB7 for the W bus, XB0, …,
XB7 from the X bus, and the same for the Y and Z busses. The cross points can be
changed by left clicking on the cell and adjusting the gain. Cross points can be muted
by right-clicking on the cell (an unmuted crosspoint is indicated by a bolded black
value; muted is indicated by a gray value). Any of the rows of the matrices can be
configured as a mix-minus which allows the user to work with a simple mix-minus
sum of all the other devices. If more complicated mixing from other devices is
required, any of the matrix rows can have arbitrary cross points gains.
EXPORTING THE ECHO
CANCELLER
REFERENCE ON THE
EF BUS
You can set which echo canceller reference is assigned as the Bus Reference to be
used by all other linked Vortexes in the EXPORTED SIGNALS section on the page. The

DEVICE PARAMETERS
© Polycom, Inc. 15 Conference Composer User Guide
choices are REFERENCE 1, REFERENCE 2, or NONE. Only one Vortex can put an AEC
Reference onto the Bus. The other Vortexes can use this reference.
MATRIX MIXER
The Matrix Mixer in Figure 12 allows the user to map any input to any output with an
arbitrary gain in dB applied from -100 dB to +20 dB. Muted cells are shown in light
gray while unmuted cells are shown in bold. To set the gain of a single cross point,
“left” click on the cell. To set the gain of a collection of cross points click and drag to
select a rectangular area. A slider control with a text box will appear to allow you to
change the gain, select mute/unmute, or, on Inputs 1-8, choose the gated version of
the Input. If you are using signals for reinforcement and specifically want the gated
signals at an attenuated level, then set the gated crosspoint to the desired level such as
-15 dB. In general, the gain of gated signals should be set to 0 dB since the matrix
will sum the automixed signals and use the appropriate weightings of the signals
based on the information from the automixer.
Figure 11. The EF BUS sub matrix. In this example, WB0 is grayed out because we are working with
Device 0. Any of the cross points can have arbitrary gains.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 16 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
To change the gain of an entire row or column you may simply click on the column or
row header (any of the labels 1-D on the columns or the rows) to see a collection of
sliders as shown in Figure 13.
The outputs R1 and R2 correspond to the echo canceller references REF 1 and REF 2.
While these outputs are not physical outputs on the product, they allow you to build
the echo canceller reference without using physical outputs from the device. In the
example in Figure 12, we used stereo program audio and consequently had a local left
output (Output C) and a local right output (Output D) in the room. The echo canceller
reference R1 included both the codec audio (Input A), the phone add audio (Input B)
Figure 12. The full cross point matrix for a system using a phone add, a codec,
and stereo program audio. Only the bold crosspoints are unmuted.
Figure 13. Cross point slider view of how Input A is used in all the output chan-
nels.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
© Polycom, Inc. 17 Conference Composer User Guide
and a mono mix of the left and right program audio. The program audio is attenuated
by 3 dB before adding it into the R1 output.
OUTPUT FILTERS
Each of the outputs can have up to 5 filters of equalization. These filters include
Parametric, Low Pass, High Pass, Low Shelf, and High Shelf. To use the filters,
select the type of filter and adjust the controls for the filter. You can adjust the con-
trols in a variety of ways: by typing in values in the text boxes, using the cursor up/
down, using Page Up/Page Down, or by clicking and holding the knob and moving
the mouse up to increase the value or down to decrease the value. The frequency
response of the plots may be viewed by clicking on the GRAPH button.
The ENABLE button per filter enables/disables that particular filter on the Output. The
ENABLE FILTERS button enables/disables all filters on the particular Output Channel.
This button toggles with the Filter Bypass buttons per Output. All filters for a partic-
ular output can be bypassed by clicking the BYPASS button.
Once the settings are configured for Output Channel 1, the user may copy those set-
tings to all other channels using the COPY CHANNEL 1 FILTERS TO ALL CHANNELS
button.
OUTPUTS
The OUTPUTS page allows the user to adjust the output level, select NOM attenuation,
and mute outputs. A typical output control is shown in Figure 14. NOM attenuation
Figure 14. Output control for each of the 12 output channels is available on the
Outputs Tab. Channels can be hidden from view from the VIEW OUTPUTS con-
trol.

DEVICE PARAMETERS
Conference Composer User Guide 18 Technical Support: 800.932.2774
(labelled NOM) enabled will reduce the gain of the output signal by 3dB for each
doubling of the number of open microphones. NOM attenuation is computed sepa-
rately for each output, depending on the inputs that are used to build each output. The
output levels will be displayed in real-time if the LEVELS function is enabled (click
the LEVELS button to enable the levels).
LOGIC INPUT
The LOGIC INPUTS page allows the user to assign individual logic input pins to trigger
specific functions, macros, or complete presets. The types of functions that can be
executed include any function that can be controlled with an RS232 command such as
changing or ramping gains, muting, enable/disable the AEC, set AEC Mode, choose
AEC Reference, enable/disable AGC, set AGC Max, set AGC Rate, enable/disable
Noise Cancellation, set Noise Cancellation Level, set Mic or Line Level, or turn
Phantom Power On or Off. Within Conference Composer, the Logic pins also have an
LED associated with them to indicate the status of the contact closure.
A logic pin can have one of the following states: unassigned, assigned to a particular
function, macro, or preset, or assigned to one of four groups. To assign a function to a
pin, single click and hold on the pin of the connector and select a colored assignment
of the pin from the colored boxes that appear. Figure 15 shows the selection process –
match the colors with the legend to create an assignment entry for either the single pin
or the logic group.
Once a pin has been assigned, there are three states associated with the pin: activated,
deactivated, and held. To assign a function to one of these three states, right click in
the cell, and then pick the function off the list. Alternatively you can type the associ-
ated RS232 command in directly. Clicking the SHOW ACTUAL COMMAND button
translates the command to the actual RS232 command.
You can also change the polarity of the pin by right clicking on the pin number. This
will cause an underline to appear under the pin number. When the polarity is
changed, what normally happened when the command was activated (i.e., contact was
Figure 15. Selecting a type of assignment for a logic pin