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Prompter UniversityPO Box 11929
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Need Teleprompter Hardware and Software?
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How to Build Your Own We sell a wide range of teleprompter heads at a wide range of prices. But it may make economic sense, when it comes to improving eye contact during webcam conferencing, to build your own teleprompter. Here's how:
This puppy can be made from acrylic, wood, metal, or whatever material you're clever with. If you are handy with metal and have the tools, make it out of metal. Same holds true for wood. We've made ours out of 1/4" plywood. Whatever the material, you will need one standard 1-way glass mirror (1/8" is more than adequate thicknes), and one piece of clear glass, again 1/8" or 1/16" thick is fine which we will fashion into the required 2-way Reflector. Once your prototype is fabricated, you may want to your friends to build their own, so write down the dimensions and materials that you used, and send them here to Prompter-University.com. Construction consists of two side panels sandwiching the mirror and reflector, a top, a platform to mount your webcam, a short bottom, short front and a back. One of the sides is cut into an "L" shape, the other side, top, platform, bottom. front and back are rectangles. I chose to set my Skype return video image to about 4" square in the upper-right corner on my computer monitor. All conferencing (Live Chat) software allows you to dimension your return video anywhere on your computer screen that you want.
If one wants to reflect a 4" square image into a mirror set at a 45* angle, then the mirror has to be taller than 4" since the mirror is tilted top to bottom. A little geometry is in order to get the proper dimensions. The formula is A-squared + B-squared = H-squared. In our case A-squared = 4x4 = 16, B-squared = 4x4 = 16, and H-squared = 16+16 = 32. Then H will equal the square root of 32, or 5.65". The height (top to bottom) of the mirror and clear glass is 5.65". Since there is no tilt of the glass/mirror left to right, the width of the mirror and glass should be 4" plus the width of the plastic trim between your monitor's image and the right side of the case (usually 3/4"). So the the width of the glass and mirror is 4-3/4" in our model.
Head off to your local glass cutters and ask for a piece of 1/8" thick standard one-way mirror, and a piece of 1/16" thick clear glass, both cut to 4-3/4" x 5-5/8". Ask them to seam the edges - that means to sand the edges so you can handle the glass with a minimal injury risk from being cut. Now you need to turn the clear glass into a two-way Reflector. The easiest way is to find a tint shop that will tint your glass with some 70/30 material. You want the lightest density (very, very thin) stuff that they have. No goldtone or smoke tint. It has to be said here that glass, any kind of glass, is dangerous to handle. Don't be stupid. Make sure you are aware of all the precautions and impliment them! Be sure to wear gloves, and eye protection. I am not interested in hearing that any of my friends have drawn blood on this project, so be careful. Let someone else do the work for you if you can't do it safely. So let's decide on the dimensions of the left side ("L") panel of the WebCam Prompter. Look at you monitor and measure how wide the top trim is between your monitor's image area and the actual top of the plastic case. It's probably around 3/4". Next determine how much vertical room that your webcam will take up. You will need it centered on the 4-3/4" x 5-5/8" reflector. It should be right up against, but not touching the reflector. Most webcams will fit within the 4" allocated. If yours is taller, make your box taller. Note: When everything is installed, the teleprompter will be front-heavy. Probably a good idea to make a little extra room behind the webcam in order to add a little ballast later to balance the webprompter out while it is sitting on your monitor.
The right side panel is a rectangle following the dimensions of the left panel. in our case, it is 8-3/4" square.
The Top, Webcam Platform, Back, Front and Bottom are all cut to the same width as the mirror and reflector - 4-3/4". Notice that all except the back have 45-degree mitre cuts on one end. These allow you to hot melt the reflector or mirror to two of the wood pieces to act as supports for the glass. If you look at the drawing below, consider that the Top, Back, Platform and Reflector join to make one assembly, and the Front, Bottom and Mirror join to make another assembly. Before assembling the pieces, drill a 1/4" hole in the top Platform to accomodate the mounting stud for the your webcam.
Lay the left panel on a flat surface. Lay out the pieces of the two assemblies detailed above on the left side "L" panel. Be sure that the lower Mirror is reflecting upward toward the Reflector. Ensure that the tinted surface of the Reflector is pointing away from the webcam. Align the parts and hotmelt the pieces together to form the two assemblies, then hotmelt the two assemblies into position on the left panel. Apply hotmelt to the assembly ends, and position the right rectangular panel over the assemblies. Be careful with high-temp hotmelt around glass, sudden temp changes can crack the glass. Use low-temp hotmelt for this project and use it sparingly. Let the assembly cool thoroughly. Run your Live-Chat conferencing program. Position the incoming video in the upper right corner of your monitor. You should be able to resize the conferencing window to about 4" wide. Rest your webcam prompter on your monitor directly above the video conference window, with the webcam pointing at you. You should be able to clearly see the chat window through the reflector. You now have a double mirror Webcam Teleprompter Head for all your Live Chat needs! All your chat friends will want to know how you are able to look right at them while chatting. Tell them to go to Prompter-University.com and learn how to build their own Webcam Teleprompter. Pretty cool, huh? Now go Skype, Msn Live Chat, whatever!
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The Webcam Teleprompter takes a small portion of your computer monitor screen and reflects it directly in front of your webcam for you to look at. If that small portion of your screen is set up to be the video coming back from your chat-mate during your live chat sessions, then the effect will be that, while looking at your chat-mate, you will also be looking right into your webcam. Your chat-mate will see you looking right at them, instead of off to the left or right at the computer monitor. True riveting eye contact! That's how news anchors on TV make you believe that they are looking right at you while they are really reading the nightly news off the reflector in front of the tv camera.
