Choosing the appropriate type of video input is an important issue for any vision-based system and the right decision must take into account the specific requirements of the intended application. We present GlobeAll, a modular four-component prototype for a vision-based Intelligent Room: a video input component that uses an electronic pan-tilt-zoom camera array, a background learning and foreground extraction component, a tracking component and an interpretation component. In the context of

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... lligent Room systems, we establish several qualitative criteria to evaluate their video input component. We use these principles to compare our electronic pan-tilt-zoom camera with two other current solutions -mobile pan-tilt-zoom and wide-angle lens cameras -and we show that electronic pantilt-zoom systems best satisfy our criteria.