Wired HDMI sharing from room PC

Hello folks,

All our classrooms feature a integrated PC.

We’re currently deploying a ZR which uses the Mac mini as the ZR controller.
The mac mini is a late 2018, four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C connector) ports, two USB 3.1 ports, an HDMI 2.0 port.

The room is a ProAV room with Extron AV control running the ZR-CSAPI driver.

The room AV switcher sits in front of the Mac Mini.
The Mac mini acts as 2 inputs to the AV switcher (video and content)
-and-
The AV switcher acts as 2 outputs to the Mac Mini (local camera video source and local content source)

We’re planning on using the wired HDMI content share to feed an output of the AV switcher via HDMI to USB capture to the Mac Mini as content. (Our instructors share multiple AV sources as content -Room PC, Blu Ray, Doc Cam)

My question is, if we disable the automatic detection by selecting the manual HDMI sharing option for ZR, will the:
zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Start / zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Stop

commands work as expected?

We would simply add the zcommand as a user defined command behind the “share” button on our GUI.

Thanks in advance for any replies,

Mark

Yes, it will work. Keep in mind some things:

(1) For presentation-only meetings, the web portal setting has no effect: HDMI sharing is always automatically launched if the Zoom Room detects that a laptop is plugged into the HDMI capture box.

(2) If you set the Web option to require manually sharing, then HDMI sharing will not start if you are in a regular meeting and you plug in a Laptop HDMI cable. A regular meeting is also a meeting that started out as a presentation-only meeting, and was then upgraded to a regular meeting. The ZR-CSAPI command:

zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Start / zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Stop/Start

Will correctly start and stop HDMI sharing, if the meeting is a regular meeting.

(3) Make sure that you use a white-listed HDMI-to-USB capture box, to use the HDMI source for screen sharing. The white-listed boxes are listed here:

Be aware that Extron’s MediaPort 200 is not on the white-list.

-Scott

Scott,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply!

We’ll be using a white-listed capture device.

Ironically, Extron released an update to the their control processor driver 2 days ago that included the behavior I was trying to achieve -I missed it.

Thanks again though.

Mark

Hi,

We have written a Crestron ZR-CSAPI interface (in Simpl#Pro) and are having problems with the HDMI sharing.

We have a (Magewell USB Capture HDMI Plus) capture device connected, the default camera in the portal is set to a camera other than the Magewell input, and “Start HDMI content share manually on controller” is set to on also within the portal.

Firstly, while connected to the Zoom Room using Putty, if we send the command “zStatus Video Camera Line”, the Zoom Room responds with two cameras as per this image.

. Is there any way of setting the USB Capture device to not be included in the list of cameras?

Secondly, if the command “zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Start” is sent while not in a meeting, would the expected behavior be that a Presentation meeting is started of type “SHARING_LAPTOP”? As per the image above, the command responds successfully, but a meeting does not start. However, if “Start HDMI content share manually on controller” is set to off within the portal, and a source is connected to the USB Capture device, a Presentation meeting starts automatically.

Thanks,

Adam.

Hey @adamBanks,

Our Zoom Room engineers are taking a look at your question. I will get back to you with an update as soon as I have one. (ZOOM-168534)

Thanks,
Tommy

Hey @adamBanks,

Not currently supported.

The command “zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Start” can only be used in a meeting to start HDMI share.
If not in a meeting, you can use the command below to start a local presentation meeting.

zCommand Dial Sharing Duration: <int> Displaystate: <None | Laptop | IOS> Password: <string>

Thanks,
Tommy

Thanks Tommy,

Is there any plan to be able to not include the USB Capture device in the list of cameras?

I tested the “zCommand Dial Sharing” command and this will start the USB HDMI sharing if there is HDMI sync, but then presents another issue where Desktop Sharing via share.zoom.us is not possible:

  • If there is no HDMI sync when the “zCommand Dial Sharing” command is sent, Zoom Rooms starts meeting of type “SHARING_LAPTOP” with the status of “Sharing isSharingBlackMagic” off. The user is presented with the Desktop sharing prompt screen on the Zoom Rooms Displays.

  • If there is HDMI sync when the command is sent, Zoom Rooms starts a meeting of type “SHARING LAPTOP” with the status of “Sharing isSharingBlackMagic” state on. The Desktop sharing prompt screen is not shown to the user on the Zoom Rooms Displays and the USB capture input is shown on the Zoom Rooms displays. However, there is no way of stopping the HDMI from being shown other than leaving the call as sending “zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Stop” does not stop the HDMI from being shown (causing Desktop Sharing via share.zoom.us to not be possible).

Thanks,
Adam

Hey @adamBanks,

Currently no, but feel free to add it as a feature request here: Feature Requests

Can you please state the expected flow, I am confused here.

I will pass this to our Zoom Room engineers to look over.

Thanks,
Tommy

Hi Tommy,

With regards to your expected flow question, my quoted comment is what I would expect to occur with HDMI sync not present. The issue is as per my third quoted comment when HDMI sync is present.

Picture a meeting space that has a PC connected via a HDMI capture device - there is no way of being able to use the Desktop sharing via share.zoom.us. I think there should be another state for displaystate in the Dial Sharing command such as “HDMI” so the “Laptop” state always shows the laptop display instructions.

Adam

Hey @adamBanks,

To answer your later question:

“zCommand Call Sharing HDMI Start/Stop” is only supported in regular meeting now, it is not supported in local presentation meeting.

If there is HDMI sync and start a local presentation meeting, it will share HDMI automatically.
Then, if you want to stop the the HDMI share in the local presentation meeting, you can leave the meeting or unplug the HDMI cable.

This is consistent with the behavior of Zoom Room Controller.

Thanks for your feedback, please submit this as a feature request here: Feature Requests

Thanks,
Tommy