Stuff you should know before buying a desktop visual presenter

Writable platform

It is a great idea if the platform of a desktop visual presenter can be used for writing. A smooth acrylic or a plastic surface of a desktop type document camera can also be utilized for live writing and drawing on it. A non-permanent or a water-based whiteboard marker can be used for writing. The visual presenter platform is wide enough to keep plain sheets of paper to write over it. However, a pen paper arrangement for writing over, using the platform of the visualizer, is ideally not advisable. Being the platform very smooth, hard and glossy the paper on the platform has the tendency to slip off while writing. This affects the speed and efficiency of the teaching process. Additionally, a hard surface is also not suitable to write as it doesn’t provide enough cushion and grip for pen/marker to write on the paper. Hence, it is important to note while purchasing a document camera that its platform is directly writeable and smooth enough to easily erase the marker text and images drawn on the writing surface.

Video Capturing

Most of the visual presenter, either platform or portable design, consist of video recording feature for live lesson recording. The clarity of the recorded video depends on the frame rate of the video capturing sensors which is mostly 30 frames per second. However, a framerate of 30is not sufficient enough to record all the details of the object and clear video through such cameras. Instead of recording a lesson through such desktop visualizers it is advised to use a good quality PTZ or robotic camera. A robotic camera is equipped with a high-resolution camera which can be focused and shifted to any direction using the PTZ (Pan, Tilt, and Zoom) function. One can use our high definition PTZ camera model EAPL Inspire 12 to record such video lessons. It can record videos at a frame rate of as high as 120 frames per second.

Permanent Station

A desktop visual presenter has a large base and is a bit bulky in terms of its anatomy. Such visual presenters require a larges space as compared to portable versions. Due to its large design, it is negligibly portable and requires a dedicated space to keep them permanently at a place. Although a large base of a desktop visual presenter provides structural stability at the same time its heavy enough to shift from one place to another. Visual presenter such as EAPL DG01 and EAPL DC6D are desktop visual presenters. They are great at writing directly on the surface along with an illuminated based for better visibility.

Camera Arm

The various version of visual presenters available in the market consist of two types of camera arms to hold the camera head to the desired position; namely (i.) Mechanical Arm and (ii.) Gooseneck Arm. A mechanical arm can be moved and maneuvered to a fixed number of positions and angles. It is mostly used in visual presenter models where the image has to be created from above the object such as a piece of a document of a 3d PCB panels. A gooseneck arm as the name suggests has a highly flexible arm which can be positioned to almost all the angles of vision for a 2D and 3D object. The desktop type of visual presenters come with an only mechanical arm. This also accounts to the limitation of a desktop type visual presenter. This is also due to the fact and reason to why desktop visual presenters are used mostly for lectures involving 2D objects.