Which aspect ratio should we use for Microsoft Teams Rooms?
…and all hybrid meeting/teaching displays? 16:9 or 16:10 or 21:9? Here's how to make the choice.
In practice this falls into two headline choices.
First, for projection, whether to use 16:9 or 16:10 (spoiler alert: 16:9, always)? Virtually no content is native 16:10 - and it's a heritage aspect ratio from WUXGA - about to be made extinct by the transition to 4K UHD.
Second, for Microsoft Front Row, the new screen layout for Teams, as featured in their Signature Meeting Rooms (and also for replacing the end-of-life Cisco telepresence systems). Here - in theory - there are multiple choices: 21:9 or 28:9 or 32:9.
Two of these can be discarded quickly: 28:9 and 32:9. So it was great news when Microsoft settled on 21:9 for the Front Row screen layout. Great news because this means we can specify and install these displays with confidence. Great news because it’s the best choice.
Future hybrid display use will evolve further, but one fact remains: we need to have multiple content windows on the same screen - at the same time.
But there is another dimension here: image size. Microsoft has addressed the fact that we are now in the era of a step change up in required display size. When we have to apply display size calculations based on the content window within the display - and not the overall size - then 98” flat panels are now only best suited at the smaller end of the room size scale.
In commercial practice - unless your budget is large - these displays can only be made using projection, as Microsoft recommends. However, this ONLY works in practice, under normal room lighting conditions when using properly specified ALR projection screens.
The futureproofed option for standard 2.7m / 9' ceiling height rooms is to use a 120" 16:9 display that gives both 16:9 and 21:9 EDIDs to the Teams Compute PC meaning you can toggle between 120" in 16:9 and 113" in 21:9.
This is the specification of the new VDL Digital Canvas display co-curated with Epson, featuring our ALR (ambient light rejecting) projection screen and the new EB-810E super-UST 4K UHD (pixel shifted) projector. Orders taken now. Shipping July 2023. From under £7000 / €8000 / $8500. Available globally from good AV integrators.
Posted: 14th June 2023