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We used to call it a call reject button.
http://community.polycom.com/t...
There is the first hit I found, from 2011. I know they existed in the 90's, probably the 80's and 70's too. So this is a classic example of "common feature, but on a new thing".

I could theoretically file a thousand patents for "burning fuel" in an engine between N and N+1 cubic inches, for N=1..1000.
Sure, the existing engine size patents could be defeated, but if there is no 469"? That's mine, for twenty years.

Hello, I could patent making a call on an iPhone 8 right now - there is no prior art bc it doesn't exist. So its "novel".

Obviousness is not as simple as you suggest. Your patents on different engine sizes would likely fail from obviousness because it would be obvious to scale an engine upward or downward in size to meet varying requirements of fuel consumption or maximum power. Nor could you patent anything about an iPhone 8 simply by its name.

They even make a portable USB unit if you want some thing that you can carry around instead of fixing in place in the meeting space: http://www.polycom.com/products-services/voice/desktop-solutions/pc-speakerphones/CommunicatorC100S.html

Pretty much every company ever has already solved this problem with polycom (or similar) conferencing phones(ranging from a few hundred dollars on up)

http://www.polycom.com/product...

Also conference phone numbers like Webex at all so lots of people can call in, if you need that sort of thing.

This is not a new or unsolvable problem, this is "standard office gear" since the 1990s.

Exactly, we have a 30 seat conference room with a polycom and 2 extension mikes. For company meetings, remote employees dial-in to the conference bridge, and the phone works surprisingly well, everyone in the room can be heard. (it does get confused though when more than one person speaks at once -- it doesn't know which microphone to use, so the two voices fade in and out)

No need to ditch working solutions just because they are "old school" -- most of our remote users use some VOIP solution to reach the conference bridge (google hangouts, skype, etc)

Pretty much every company ever has already solved this problem with polycom (or similar) conferencing phones(ranging from a few hundred dollars on up)
http://www.polycom.com/product...

Also conference phone numbers like Webex at all so lots of people can call in, if you need that sort of thing.

This is not a new or unsolvable problem, this is "standard office gear" since the 1990s.

If someone loses their mind and wants to kill people, there is little we can do to stop them. It's tragic, but it's part of the price of a free country.

You're pretty eager to blame a "free country" given CNN's summary that a clear picture of the 24-year-old and what may have motivated him remain elusive. What if his motivation was the result of the mass John Doe law-suits issued by the MPAA/RIAA et al that killed his his beloved grandmother after she lost her family home and connection to society? When people were killed in planes, there was an increased take-up of video confencing technology; what do you reckon will happen when people are killed in movie theatres, hmm?

They are pricey but what you want are a couple of Polycom VSX 5000 or similar units. Maybe you can find some on ebay or something. They are nice because you don't need to be technical to run them and they come with an easy to use remote control. You can even control the other units camera direction and zoom. The quality of both the audio and video are very good but, and this goes for all of your solutions, depends on the reliability and quality of your internet connection. You just need a TV or Monitor and an Ethernet connection for the unit. If you can find a couple older models on ebay it will be your best solution.

http://www.polycom.com/products/telepresence_video/video_conference_systems/room_systems/vsx5000.html

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Unfortunately, where Microsoft falls short of Apple is that Apple uses fewer ex-Apple staff for these roles; Microsoft tends to bring back it's former employees with alarming regularity which means a strong resistance to innovation and creativity.

You can run the server software ( Free ) on any older machine and the phones are nearly open source with the options they have.

The Phone can be expensive but any unit ( phone, cell, PC etc) that can run SIP based telephone calls will interface fine.

For example I have a HTC Dream with android and the SIPDroid app works very well.

Links:
http://www.trixbox.org/

http://www.polycom.com/

http://www.sipdroid.com/

I agree.. a set-top box is gonna be your best bet if you never want to troubleshoot it. You can look into Polycom, BrightCom, Tandberg, LifeSize... they all have "cheaper" solutions now.

As for your end, you don't need a crazy setup. Especially if you're more tech savy. You can just use Ekiga (it's SIP compatible and will work with these systems)

Regardless of which solution you go with, you should look int MPLS or some type of Quality of Service from your ISP so that you conversation with Granny isn't interrupted by something like an email download or a music stream.

oh one more thing.. echo cancelling. you'll probably have a horrible time dealing with echo or non-full duplex issues if you go with any of the software-only solutions.

Get an embedded video-conferencing system.

Polycom e.g. has some nice systems, one of the smaller ones is the V700.

They come with a pricetag of 2500 EUR but work. I guess your grandparents don't wanna fiddle with the software on their machine or something similar.

Or because the world is constantly pushing the proprietary stuff along, and it's leading to rooms like this:

http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/telepresence/realpresence_experience/rpx_hd.html

Having the other folks on a small monitor is "nice" but if you're building something today, might as well get the big'un.

And if not the room-based systems, even the small conference room systems are getting bigger and doing HD and other things like "people on content"... (think weatherman on the evening news, here... content behind you... you standing in front of it...)

http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/video/video_conferencing_systems/large_conference_room/hdx9000.html

These things are moving along rapidly, with a number of competitors in the marketplace. People that really need it, are just paying for it and buying it -- slow economy, slow travel, always have a reverse effect on the conferencing industry. We're one of those "backward to the market" businesses.

[Disclaimer: Yeah, I work for PLCM.]

Or because the world is constantly pushing the proprietary stuff along, and it's leading to rooms like this:

http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/telepresence/realpresence_experience/rpx_hd.html

Having the other folks on a small monitor is "nice" but if you're building something today, might as well get the big'un.

And if not the room-based systems, even the small conference room systems are getting bigger and doing HD and other things like "people on content"... (think weatherman on the evening news, here... content behind you... you standing in front of it...)

http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/video/video_conferencing_systems/large_conference_room/hdx9000.html

These things are moving along rapidly, with a number of competitors in the marketplace. People that really need it, are just paying for it and buying it -- slow economy, slow travel, always have a reverse effect on the conferencing industry. We're one of those "backward to the market" businesses.

[Disclaimer: Yeah, I work for PLCM.]

Yep, works well.

http://www.polycom.com/usa/en/products/video/large _conference_room/rpx_hd.html

Other companies also make them, but [disclaimer] I work for PLCM, so why advertise for the other guys? :-)

We have units from Polycomm at work. You can remotely control the camera, zoom, etc. They're compatible with standardized video-conferencing software, and can dial from a list much akin to a video-phone.

They also plug directly into a TV, or video projector, and can be set to "follow" noise.

They can also be rather extensively expensive, of course, but I've seen some on eBay for not too bad a price (up to the discretion of the buyer).

Here is some stuff from their website. It doesn't seem to mention pricing though, but I do remember that it isn't cheap, especially since it is more centric to a business environment than a home one. But it's fairly easy to use... enough that non-technical exec and boss-types manage nicely.

I work at a company that uses videoconferencing pretty heavily. We have all dedicated equipment and lines for it. I have heard numbers tossed around for the cost of the end-units (which look to be about 10 years old now) and I suspect $10k might be on the low end. It runs over dedicated ISDN lines (two of them!) and has a camera and several microphones, and the capability of supporting multiple cameras (for document viewing, etc.). The cameras have fun features like remote pan/tilt/zoom and auto motion-seeking, which is creepy. (The system this thing uses would be great on a gun turret.) This is a photo of the type of machine we use. (Note strange "antennae" on top; that has something to do with the motion detection.) Formerly made by Picture-Tel, which is now owned by PolyCom. Their newer stuff doesn't seem to be quite as impressive as the old gear, but probably does more without looking like it's plotting the demise of humanity.

We use it all the time. It's not well set up for impromptu meetings, but neither is our company or organizational structure. We use it several times a week for scheduled meetings across locations, and it's good. There are people that I've only ever met via the VTC; if not for it, they'd just be disembodied voices on the telephone.

I think videoteleconferencing is not something you can do on the cheap. Or rather, the money you're going to put into it is going to directly influence the quality of the results. If you're willing to spend $50k, you can get something totally usable; but it's going to require ISDN lines (or special tap into your IP network, more likely today), a room to itself, and space in people's schedules when they want to use it.

But not having to actually work in the same office with some people? Priceless.

As a master control operator for a major university's distance learning system, I can emphatically say that while they will have good ideas, don't rely on them (us?) too much. Many university distance learning systems are highly customized for their particular problem set, and won't be applicable for business.

Our system is built with a long list of components from different manufacturers, with customized software to tie everything together. The system is extremely powerful, but the power comes with a price, as you need a fairly large operations team to ensure classes run smoothly. People cost money.

The primary goal for our system is transparency - students and teachers come into rooms expecting to interact very much like they would in a traditional classroom. Part of the transparency is the high quality video (a typical session can use multiple multicast streams requiring a total bit rate of 30-40 Mbps) and the fact that the technology is hidden behind-the-scenes.

For you, I'm guessing you don't have nearly as much money to build this conference room as we do to maintain these classrooms. You probably want the room to be easy to use so the participants can run it without a full-time technician sitting in the next room. You probably also want to be able to connect to a wide variety of people (our system is amazing, but it only works between campuses).

I would suggest starting with something very simple - perhaps a Polycom ViewStation, like this one. They are pretty adept units which are easy to hook up and use. They use either ISDN or H.363 over IP, which is a common standard that most facilities (even NetMeeting!) support, making your room flexible.

As you figure out the details of what you want to do, you can always upgrade your room, but a ViewStation, perhaps with some additional media like a scan converter for computers, a VCR, and a cheap Radio Shack video switch should serve you well.

I'll monitor this thread for a few days, so feel free to reply with any questions.

When I did a comparative study in this field a couple of years ago I found that Polycom's (then Picturetel) system did all what Tandberg's did but still had better functionality at the time. http://www.polycom.com/products_services/0,1443,pw -35-185,00.html

I'd recommend to you; take a look at the high end video conference systems out there, most of them not only have video but also document collaboration functionality.

When it comes down to it, make sure you just do a light comparative study between systems and find out their probable cost and then present it to your CEO. If he thinks it sounds like what he wants and is willing to spend the bucks continue from there. In my experience trying to integrate multiple systems is usually a pain in this area, and you just know they will want to transfer something from one system to another seemlessly and so... With hopes this helps somewhat, /Lindus

I highly recommend using Polycom's line of webcams.
They feature video auto-tracking (camera follows you) as well as PC integration. Using the H.323 standard, these webcams can connect with Netmeeting, Gnome Meeting, other webcams, and much more allowing you to offer conferencing to a wide range of people. With the PC integration you can share your desktop with your client while holding a steady conversation. H.323 also transmits voice as well elimating the need for phones. In our experiences, however, the clarity of voice is not as nice as a standard telephone call over a speakerphone. The unit will plug into either a monitor or television and can be connected directly into an ISDN line or assigned an IP address to receive phone calls.

I've acutally used the Polycom equipment before, but only the larger group meeting stuff. The iPoweractually looks like it'd meet all of my minimums for a videophone and just needs to come down in price by 95% :)

There are some compact video conference systems out there. For example, the Polycom ViewStation is a very compact unit containing the computer and camera. Attach to any TV you like to complete the package.

At work, we use these over our corporate LAN. They also work over ISDN. (Ordinary phone lines don't have enough bandwidth, unfortunately.)

They're not what I'd consider consumer devices, since they're a bit expensive, but they're available and seem to be popular in corporate environments.

There are some compact video conference systems out there. For example, the Polycom ViewStation is a very compact unit containing the computer and camera. Attach to any TV you like to complete the package.

At work, we use these over our corporate LAN. They also work over ISDN. (Ordinary phone lines don't have enough bandwidth, unfortunately.)

They're not what I'd consider consumer devices, since they're a bit expensive, but they're available and seem to be popular in corporate environments.

has a good little product with the ViaVideo line. As a bonus, it'll interact with other video conferencing units running H.323

Also, there's always MS Netmeeting and a cheap camera.

We use polycom camera's here. They are a bit pricey, but do the job. The one advantage they have over the solutions we've tried is that they are self contained. No computer required.

The imaging quality on some of their lower end webcams are questionable though.