Polycom RealPresence Group Series

If you're always working in the Polycom ecosystem then the Group Series codecs are reliable and the quality of the camera and microphones are extremely good. However, the system relies heavily on either having onsite server technology and/or cloud based bridging capability. In addition, the peripherals like cameras and microphones are quite expensive. Maintenance and support costs also make the ongoing investment a costly one.

The support and maintenance is only as good as your own helpdesk. First line is your own IT department and they need to be fully versed in using the systems and configuring them. Beyond this, Polycom's 2nd/3rd line support is good but by that time you will have wasted a long time insofar as your system will be down. The RMA process is good for maintenance support codecs but again, you're paying for this on an annual basis.

While expensive, you can't compare the cost and time of people flying all over the globe to have in-person meetings when 95% of the time they can be done between a RealPresense.... even more so in today's post-pandemic world. You just get such a better video and audio experience than a Teams meeting.

We were also able to connect our RealPresence to Teams so that you can join a meeting and choose whether to join it from your desk with Teams or from a conference room with a Real Presence. This solved 2 issues for us in that there's now a simple link on the Real Presence to join a meeting instead of making a direct phone call to another RP device, and for meetings with 1 or 2 people from a site, they can now join this meeting from their desk and free up the conference room for a large meeting.

I can't say I've needed support more than a handful of times. One was for trying to connect a Polycom Conference phone and a Real Presence together. After a few months, we came to the conclusion it wasn't possible, that was the only frustrating occurance with support. Any other time if we needed to RMA a device, it was very smooth.

RealPresence Group 500 series supports eagle eye director secondary camera and it auto-focuses on the speaker who is speaking right now in meeting rooms. We may use this for a larger meeting room with a maximum participant count of up to 50. In the past, we made lots of higher management calls with govt. bodies. our Japan team and the overall experience is awesome ( Audio and video quality are extremely well).

We didn't face any single failure so far except unexpected disconnection due to lack of network. In the boardroom we set up the video quality to HD mode hence our video output always crisp and crystal clear to the far end participants and we appreciated many times for this.

Having a dedicated video unit performs much better than virtual solutions. High-quality video.

I have never had a bad experience with Poly support although you do need to go through a maintenance provider to access Poly support. Poly engineers and support staff are very efficient and knowledgeable.

It is very well suited for conference calls. You could also use it for demonstration purposes. We use two cameras and they will move to focus on the whole room or towards the person that is talking. We use two TV screens so that the people of the meeting can be displayed on one screen while the presentation can be displayed on the other.

The Group Series is well suited for all meetings spaces. I cannot think of a scenario where video conferencing requirements would not be fully fulfilled by a Group Series device.

Polycom RealPresence Group series is very well suited for high traffic, high priority conference rooms where video and audio quality and required to be the best. Polycom RealPresence Group series is overkill for small huddle rooms and smaller conference rooms ( mainly due to the cost), but for board rooms and large meeting spaces, it excels.

Polycom is a good low-cost solution for satellite offices not heavily engaging in conference room meetings. Good quality audio and video.

Polycom RealPresence Group Series has been the best system I've worked with thus far. I would highly recommend it for colleges/universities, hospital or wellness administrative areas, executive/corporate companies, and businesses that employ more than 25 people. I would recommend it if a group uses the phone frequently, and plans meetings and conferences on a regular basis. It would be less ideal in a work setting with few staff or one in which a staff does not interact frequently.

Very well suited to an environment with an on-site Polycom bridge, as ours is.

Small meeting rooms to large board rooms - there are RealPresence Group (RPG) systems of varying sizes that have additional features to manage all room sizes. If you have a small huddle room environment and feel that the RPG is a little too expensive, then the Trio with a Visual+ will provide you with the functionality, while keeping the familiar interface.

Any room where you would want to hold a meeting or face to face conversation or even if it is just an audio call, the Group Series is compatible and scalable with any size room. Probably the least advisable solution would be a small office. For that Polycom has the Trio to assist.

Telecom audio, web meetings work well. Can further integrate room systems like Crestron but the learning curve for people is steep. Would like to see people embrace and adopt video meetings to reduce travel cost but that is hard to do without a mandate. Some people get it and use it, some do not or do not want to, but in the end it works well if you know how.

For larger rooms the 500 series works well with the EagleEye (EE) Director. The Director would not be helpful for smaller huddle rooms.

For formal meetings which we can set up in advance it works fairly well (see comments on what could work better - namely it isn't overly user-friendly on the set up). Would be nice to have it so one could have an ad-hoc meeting.

Medium to large size conference rooms are the best fit for the Group Series. Smaller rooms could use a Trio with Visual + rather than a Group. Using proprietary Polycom table mics along with CEC enabled TVs and a sound bar is a solid design that reduces the need for expensive control systems.

When it comes to deploying a Group Series (GS) endpoint or not, our decision primarily focuses around the size and complexity of the room. For many rooms, we can't justify the cost...which is MANY times that of even a GREAT USB webcam and audio system. We, more or less, only put them in complex, Crestron controlled rooms.

I find it best both during group collaboration, one to many instructions and one on one business.

Its ability to broadcast / join remote clients to meetings.

They are responsive and very knowledgeable.

Any conferencing space where two way video conferencing is required can take advantage of a Group series. There are times when additional room integration with audio/video may be required for advanced use cases, but the Group series allows for that. There are more cost-effective methods for desktop conferencing such as RPD with a webcam, so I would not suggest a group series for a single person sitting at a desk.

It is well suited for larger rooms where you need video horsepower for a meeting. This includes 2 screens and a larger room. In our smaller rooms, we are evaluating the Group Series 300 and the Debut. Those rooms don't have multiple screens and the larger 500 series is over kill.

Any place where solid video conferencing is needed. The small [package] provided enterprise level video conferencing.

It works much better than Skype or voice conference when connecting 2-5 people from 2-5 sites as long as the system has consistent connection performance.

Well suited for remote locations from major areas such as the headquarters to offsite locations as well as across multiple states.