Wedge Video: Supporting Remote Participants in a Mixed-Mode Videoconference Meeting

As global COVID-19 pandemic response has moved from full lockdowns and partial lockdowns in most parts of the world to a post-COVID era, an interesting new phenomenon that has emerged is the increased prevalence of hybrid meetings with a mixture of online and in-person attendees. The opportunity for remote participants to observe the responses and interactions of others in the meeting is generally accepted as being limited. An experimental prototype system, called Wedge Video, has been constructed as an attempt to improve the experience of remote participants in hybrid in-person/remote meetings. Wedge Video uses standard screen and camera equipment with existing video conferencing software (Zoom). An evaluation of the prototype system was conducted based on three simple games that each required players to interact rapidly and with some use of body language or gaze direction. Encouraging results led to the examination of the geometry of screen and camera placement in detail. A system that has a somewhat ‘virtual reality’ feeling to it has now been developed. The remote user is given a view of the in-person part of the meeting with participants at the same scale and location as they would be if the remote user were at the table themselves. Similarly, the local participants see the remote person in place at their table, at a realistic scale and with close to accurate gaze direction. A very preliminary evaluation of these concepts has been promising.