Incorporating Softphone and Contacts
| Site: | QSC |
| Course: | Q-SYS Level 1 Training |
| Book: | Incorporating Softphone and Contacts |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Friday, 3 May 2024, 10:48 PM |
Description
Video Transcript
0:08
The Soft phone component, coupled with the Acoustic Echo Canceler, lets you use the Q-Sys Designer software
0:14
for high quality distance conferencing. This component allows Q-SYS to register to any Voice-over-internet-protocol,
0:21
or VoIP, including analog hybrids connected to a standard telephone line, or a fully digital VoIP method running on your existing network.
0:32
This feature is not dependent on hardware but is implemented in the software within each Core, therefore it comes at no cost.
0:39
Furthermore, multiple Softphone components can be used simultaneously, making it simple to create multi-room systems within a single Core.
0:49
Your first step is to add a SoftPhone component to your design.
0:53
You can do this by going to the Inventory panel, selecting the Plus icon, select “Streaming I/O”, and then “Softphone.”
1:02
You’ll see this added to your inventory, and you’ll notice that it has three components to it, which you should drag into the Schematic.
1:10
The Controller component gives you control over the Softphone, the In component acts as an input and lets you route
1:18
your incoming audio into your design, and the Out component represents the audio that you would like to send to the phone and to the outside world.
1:27
To make things simple, let’s connect these to our Core. I have a microphone attached to this Mic/Line Card in our Core,
1:35
which we’ll use to speak to our caller. I’ll just wire this microphone to the Out component.
1:42
I also have a loudspeaker connected to this Line Out Card, which we’ll also drag into the Schematic, which I’ll connect to
1:49
the In component. Now for a Conferencing scenario, we need to use Acoustic Echo Canceling. So let’s drag an AEC component from the Schematic Library.
2:00
Let’s take a moment to look at the pins on the AEC component. There are two input pins and one output pin.
2:07
The first input pin is labeled Microphone, which is obviously the local microphone that the near-end caller is speaking into.
2:14
If you are using multiple local microphones in your conference room, QSC highly recommends that each microphone has its
2:21
own AEC channel, because the impulse response for each microphone will be different. If you are unable to
2:26
provide each microphone its own dedicated AEC channel, you can sum the microphone signals with a Mixer,
2:32
but be aware that this may provide compromised results.
2:34
The first output pin is labeled Conference, which is the main output that you will be sending to your Far End caller.
2:41
If you would like to apply any additional processing in this signal path, you must do so after the signal has been
2:46
processed by the AEC component. Do not apply any processing between the local microphones and their input to the AEC.
2:54
The second input pin is labeled Reference. This should be a copy of the incoming telephone feed, after all
3:02
processing has been applied to it. You want the same signal sent to the Reference pin that is being sent to your local loudspeakers,
3:09
because the AEC is using this signal as a reference for the noise it will eliminate from your local microphones.
3:15
If you mistakenly took this signal before your processing is applied, then your AEC isn’t being given an accurate reference of what will be broadcast from your loudspeakers.
3:24
A second output pin is available labeled Reinforcement. You can activate this pin in the AEC Properties panel by
3:31
changing the Reinforcement Output field to Yes. This pin is only used for large rooms, typically conference rooms or legislative facilities,
3:39
where you would like the audio of the near end reinforced over your local PA system as well. This way everyone in a very large room
3:47
can hear both ends of the conversation. This signal will not include the local Noise Reduction or Comfort Noise processes that you learned about in the previous section.
3:57
You would not want to send the Conference output pin to your local loudspeakers.
4:02
I repeat: this first output pin is intended for the far-end caller only, and should not be sent to your room’s output channels.
4:14
We have an excellent sample design, available in the Project Files for this course that you can download, that shows more
4:18
examples of correct and incorrect ways of applying processing to the AEC component.
4:23
So back to our Softphone design, let’s apply this knowledge. I want to route our local microphone to the Microphone pin of the AEC,
4:32
and then send the Conference signal to our Softphone Out. We’ll also need to split the incoming Softphone signal to the
4:41
Reference pin of the AEC, so that it knows what echoes to remove from the final audio.
4:47
The next step is to properly configure the Softphone to work on your network, which is done in the Administrator.
4:53
I’ll run this design to the Core now, which lets me access the Administrator icon here in the upper-right hand corner.
4:58
Once a Softphone is a part of your design, you’ll see a navigation tab for Softphones here in the Administrator.
5:04
This panel has two columns – one that lists the Softphones in your inventory, and one that lists the Audio Codecs.
5:11
You have to make sure you select the proper network here in the Interface field.
5:15
Your Core has a LAN A and a LAN B connection, as well as an Auxiliary A and, for larger Cores, Auxiliary B.
5:22
Be sure to select the network that connects to the outside world.
5:26
Double-click your Softphone and you can edit how your phone connects with VoIP. You’ll need to input your User Name and Proxy,
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select whether or not you would like to register with the proxy, and also input your Authentication ID and password.
5:40
You should be able to get all of this information from your IT technician or VoIP provider.
5:44
And some VoIP providers will use your User Name as your Authentication ID as well. Once your information is all input properly,
5:50
hit OK and Update Settings, and then you can exit Administrator to test out your Softphone.
5:55
If you double-click the Controller component you’ll get its Control Panel, which shockingly looks a lot like a phone.
6:02
On the right you can use the keypad to enter a number, or you can type it in the Dial String field, or delete a number with these buttons.
6:11
The Progress field shows the Softphone’s status, the DND or Do Not Disturb button will block incoming calls, you can press Connect to
6:22
launch your Dial String number, and press Disconnect to disconnect.
6:27
If your phone is either Off Hook or Ringing these lights here will illuminate, you can select your phone to Automatically Answer after a
6:35
designated number of rings, and the Status bar will give you critical information on what the Softphone is currently doing.
6:40
So let’s try it out – I’ll input a number, and hit Dial, and I’ll activate the Hover Monitor for my Line Out
6:49
card so that you can hear it through the PC sound card.
6:53
Hello? Hey Patrick, it’s Nate.
6:55
Hey Nate, what’s going on?
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Not much, just showing Softphone!
6:59
How exciting for everybody involved. Can I go now?
7:03
Okay... Now we set up a pretty basic system, but let’s take a look at a few other options you may want to incorporate.
7:10
First let me disconnect from the Core so we can change the design. Now first of all, I would recommend pulling
7:17
an Automatic Gain Control into the incoming signal, as well as a Parametric Equalizer.
7:24
These will help balance out quiet and loud talkers and generally smooth out the audio of your caller.
7:30
However, don’t forget to readjust the reference signal that’s going to the AEC. You need the AEC to reference the best possible
7:38
sample of the audio that’s being played out of your loudspeakers in order to properly delete it, so we’ll take our new
7:45
reference from this point here after the processing.
7:49
There are a few other features of the Softphone that were added to the Designer software version 5.0 which may interest you.
7:56
The first is the embedded Tone Control, which you can configure within the Controller Status component.
8:01
Just go to the Tone Control tab, and you’ll see the ability to use an audio file on the Core as a ringtone,
8:09
and you can also specify different sounds as an Entry Tone and an Exit Tone when the phone connects or disconnects.
8:16
If you want to use this function, be sure to engage the appropriate button. You can also adjust the gain for this playback,
8:23
and choose from several available files. If you’d like to add your own file, be sure to add it to the right directory.
8:31
In Administrator, go to the Audio Files tab and you’ll see a folder called Ringtones. This is the folder that is referenced for these functions,
8:40
so be sure to add your own files to this folder in order to make them available.
8:47
You also have the option to turn off the DTMF Local Playback, which is the audio of the tone made for the digits of a telephone number.
8:55
If you don’t want to hear those, you can deactivate this button.
9:00
Finally, rather than input telephone numbers manually, you may want to manage a series of Contacts instead.
9:06
First, I’m going to disconnect from the Core, and go to the Schematic Library.
9:12
In the Control Components branch, there’s a component called the Contact List. Let’s drag that into our schematic.
9:19
In its control panel you’ll see a list of different lists, but in order to populate this with information we’ll have to go back to the Administrator.
9:27
Just a reminder - If you're running Q-SYS Designer 8.0 or higher, the Contacts feature has moved to the
9:33
Core Manager, which is only available when you're actually running on a core. So, you wont be able
9:38
to emulate this without the hardware, but its functionality is still the same. Alright, back to it!
9:44
Once there, you’ll see a tab called Contacts where you can input contact info.
9:49
You can do this manually by pressing the plus button and selecting “Add new local contact list.”
9:56
Select your new book, and you can now type in a contact’s name and number.
10:01
Alternatively you could opt to add a new LDAP contact list, which allows you to input credentials to connect to a networked
10:09
contact list, such as Microsoft Exchange.
10:14
Now, we can go back to our Contact List in the design, and we’ll see the different Contact Lists that we made, and when we select a name their number will appear.
10:23
You could put these fields onto a UCI so that a user in your room can quickly select a Contact.
10:29
However, be aware that this only displays the information – there’s no connection between this and the Softphone yet.
10:36
After all, if you had multiple Softphones in a schematic, you wouldn’t want one Contact List to automatically control all of them!
10:43
So let’s use some simple control pins to link this Contact List with our Softphone. Click on the Contact List, and let’s expose its “Number” control pin.
10:54
This is the text display of the phone number.
10:56
Then let’s select the Softphone Controller Status, and let’s open the Call Control control pins, and expose the Dial String field.
11:07
One simple wire between these two pins will send the number from the Contact List to the Dial String of the Softphone.
11:15
This way a User can simply find a user, and its number will automatically feed into the Softphone, and they only have to hit Connect.
11:24
And of course, you could get more creative with this if you want, you could wire the Softphone to automatically dial when the Contact is selected,
11:33
or you could use a combination of custom buttons and snapshots in a pop-up window to create a speed-dial of your favorite contacts.
11:41
Then you could pull this popup into a UCI such as a touchscreen or an iPhone and make a call from there.
11:48
Just imagine – being able to dial a call... from your phone! Anyways, you get the point, thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
Lesson Description
Integrate the Softphone component to receive calls and dial out using a third party VoIP system.Tips and Definitions
VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol
DND: Do Not Disturb
- You’ll need to use all three components that make up the Softphone in order to properly configure it in your design.
- You can obtain your User Name, Authentication ID, and password from your IT department or your VoIP Provider.
- Don’t forget to select the correct network to connect to in the Interface field of Administrator.