Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Table to Ceiling
Microphone Conversion

But, because they usually sit on a table top they are susceptible to picking up extraneous sounds transmitted through the table and partially blocked from speakers that may be behind individuals sitting at the table.

To minimize these distractions or limitations, microphones suspended from the ceiling are preferred in many cases. This type of mounting for microphones are available from Polycom. However, the price for a ceiling microphone array is considerably higher than the table-top microphones that come with the videoconference units. They list for $900 and more.

To achieve the functionality of a ceiling microphone but at a substantially reduced price it is possible to construct this type of mount from inexpensive parts for about $50. Rusty Presley of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System provided simple instructions for building your own ceiling mount using the table top microphones. The following are the instructions he provided:

We have built and use a number of these units. They work exceptionally well.

Their are some caveats to this type of installation. The most obvious is that the mute button is no longer easily accessible. The remote control or the web interface would have to be used for muting.

Also, if a Visual Concert device is used for transmitting data, connectivity becomes more difficult due to cable length depending on the Polycom model in use. This can be overcome by using People+Content IP software instead of the Visual Concert hardware.