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Affordable and Usable Video Conferencing?
Sabalon writes "I work at a state university with remote sites, minimal space, and all the other usual bits. We used to have some dedicated-circuit video conferencing tools but those have fallen into disuse. The administration is now interested in being able to stream a class from site to site, or at least have a student at one site have visual interaction with a person at another site. My thought is that if Skype, uStream and others can do live video, there has to be some things out there that don't cost a fortune but work effectively. Key things would be the ability to use commodity web cams as a source, viewable on a PC (preferably all the main OSes) and the ability to add in other devices (say H.323 encoders) or desktop/application sharing. Are there decent products and solutions out there for us mere mortals?"
Here in Alaska.
We use Polycom for room to room communications, skype and gchat for person to person.
We used it the other day and were very happy with it - it's free to try for small groups.
Wait... You mean Cisco Telepresence doesn't fall in the category of "affordable and usable"?
Damn. All those certifications (read: hours of watching "24") have gone to waste...
Cisco WebEx seems to fit the bill, although I'm not sure if it'll run on *nix.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.
I work for a large retail operation. We use a product called ePop http://www.nefsis.com/ It's affordable and does the job. Or as I like to say... it's GOOD ENOUGH. ;-)
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Since then I have been hesitant to try it again but it did work very well.
Are there decent products and solutions out there for us mere mortals?
Just about anything will work -- unless your internet service provider sucks. Then you're kinda doomed. So do your homework on what low-latency providers are available or get a leased line between the sites.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I've been recently setting up video streaming for a client and found that dim dim is free for up to 20 people (using their closed source software) and unlimited if you feel like building it yourself with the opensource version. It's not bad either, I can't complain for the price :)
There is also Moodle (http://moodle.org/), ff you're willing to do a bunch of setup yourselves
We tried it and were put off the pop ups, ended up using Tokbox, works good, and you can have 5 or 6 different screens up at same time. Really cool Woosh effect when some one joins up :)
Is there any specific reason not just to use skype to send the video?
You can then upload the video to YouTube afterwards.
At the university where I work, we got a $100,000 grant from the USDA to upgrade our aging V-tel units to Tandberg systems a few years ago. If you want this done right, you'll need the right equipment, it's just that the equipment costs an arm and a leg and getting free money from the government helps. Also, perhaps going through a videoconferencing underdog like LifeSize could help get you going. I hear LifeSize is trying to get their foot in the door by providing sweet deals that undercut the likes of Cisco, Tandberg, and Polycom. Good luck!
- Danny
As mentioned already, polycom does make a good system for video conferences. For classroom use it might be limited. Depends on the size of the class. 30+ people and it might fall short. The smaller the number the better. Meeting size groups it is a great system. For larger groups, the camera is going to have to be set to track the speaker which might lead to some interesting camera views on the other side. Or the camera is set to get the whole group which means not everyone is seen clearly. Plus is an average cost of $10,000 considered low cost? Add up the cost of the camera, main unit, the part to connect a laptop and the price shoots up quickly.
I have used 3-4 different polycom models plus the PVX software. For meetings it is a great system. For two way class use, it sort of falls short. For one way class (a class is listening and watching to the professor remotely) use it works.
Google offers videoconferencing, and I believe it is free (sans the cost of the cheap USB camera you will have to buy).
Check out this article, then check out the links for it on Google's site...
Google to offer Video Conferencing
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
One thing to consider is that if you want to stream a class from a regular webcam you will not be able to see what is written on the board due to the low resolution.
Also, the teacher will walk out of view of the camera as they write on the board.
My school had motion tracking cameras. It looked like a normal video camera on a tripod, with a motor attached. The teacher would wear some kind of tracking device on their belt, and the camera would automatically follow them.
You would also want to consider a "smart board". Something that digitally records what the teacher writes on the whiteboard.
Pretty much, unless you script and edit a filming session while splicing in closeups of the board, your result will not be as useful as it could be.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
You're not going to be able to usably capture a classroom lecture with webcam and associated microphone.
-Peter
I've heard good things about FastVDO Smartcast hardware/software combo - not too expensive either. http://fastvdo.com/ - has a lot of power in a small box: http://www.fastvdo.com/SmartCast/
Have you looked at ViVu (http://vivu.tv) they seem to provide a decent functinality for the kind of application you are looking for.
A few years back, my multi-site development group set up a web cam on just a regular PC running windows. Then we just set up Mbone and VIC to run the actual conferencing part. It worked really well and supported as many clients as we needed it to. I'm not sure if it's still around or under any development - but you can't beat the price ($0). And they have clients for most OSes.
Have a look at http://www.zoiper.com/ (disclaimer, i work for them). We make multiplatform softphones with video support (currently only video on mac and windows, we will implement it in our solaris and linux versions later). In combination with an opensource proxy (opensips, kamailo) or pbx (asterisk freeswitch, yate), you can build a very nice conferencing solution, maybe some of your students will even be able to set it up for you. If the university you are working for is non profit, send us an email and we will provide you with free licenses for your students.
For classroom streaming Go To Meeting with Macs is a nice set up. I've been attending conferences using the system. You can type in questions or ask them verbally. Those functions can be actively disabled as well.
I work at a state university with remote sites, minimal space, and all the other usual bits.
You already have everything you need. Use the bits to drill a hole into the ground,
then drill horizontally from there to the other locations and use a set of simple
lenses and periscope-style mirrors for video conferencing.
This works very well for us, we even implemented a network stack on top of
the video conferencing system. As a matter of fact, I posted this by dictating it
to my TOOL (Transport Overlaying Operational Linker) while watching him type it.
Ok, Jeff, just hit submit now and go take a dump, I won't be needing you to post
anything for the next 20 minutes.
My thought is that if Skype, uStream and others can do live video, there has to be some things out there that don't cost a fortune but work effectively. Key things would be the ability to use commodity web cams as a source, viewable on a PC (preferably all the main OSes) and the ability to add in other devices (say H.323 encoders) or desktop/application sharing. Are there decent products and solutions out there for us mere mortals?
H.323 is a signaling protocol, similar to SIP. I have no idea what you mean by an H.323 encoder. I am also a bit lost by the phrase "us mortals." Are you looking for a solution that the infamous Joe Sixpack can set up? Since you have not mentioned in what capacity you work at the "state university" I must conclude that it is in a non-technical role. Why not leave the project to those with the technical qualifications (not to mentioned google skills) to handle it.
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
If I'm understanding the original poster correctly, one of the things he wants to do is have mulitple viewers of a single transmitter stream (possibly with some kind of moderated talk-back capability, too).
I'm far from an expert in this area (I haven't worked on a videoconferencing system selection in nearly a decade, and don't really use video chat myself - heck, I don't even *have* a skype account), but it seems like the OP needs some kind of point-to-multipoint capability.
Do any of the suggested solutions actually support that in any useful way?
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
At my university we use Access Grid:
http://www.accessgrid.org/software
We use this at all of the South Dakota public universities for distance learning or meetings. It works quite well. It's also used extensively at the national labs so if you work with any of them it's a double bonus.
It's also scalable in terms of components so it can run on less than stellar hardware.
Cisco Telepresence is the best - also least affordable in terms of required bandwidth and setting up a special room, but it is awesome!
For a small number of sites, you might try SightSpeed, they can do 9-way conferencing. I like its quality for a PC-based system.
Google Videochat is horrible quality, but has the unique quality of being able to make it through almost any firewall when you use HTTPS access to your Gmail.
Mac iChat is good as well.
Set up a water cooler inside an empty conference and the workers will gravitate there for a meeting. Of course, some of the biggest liars will try to dominate the water cooler. The plunger from the restroom will take care of that problem.
You should take a look at EVO . It was developed by CalTech for use in the high-energy physics projects at CERN. It is a Java application, no installation required, but works surprisingly well even with consumer webcams in mac and linux. You can use it for free by just registering and organizing a meeting in the 'universe' group, or you can request that your own organization is added (and still use it for free). It has all necessary features: multiple video streams, collaborative white board, recording and replay, file storage,... At particle physics labs around the world the meeting rooms are basically built around EVO, and polycom has virtually disappeared. It helps if you are close to one of those labs, or on an educational backbone.
ekiga works wonderfully for me and is FLOSS
Give Dimdim a try.
It's free and opensource.
www.dimdim.com
My company offers a product called VCS (http://elluminate.com/products/vcs/index.jsp) - it's fairly inexpensive and does a good job for reasonable sized video conferences. It's being used by Harvard Business School and some other larger institutions.
I have yet to see anything easier to use for video conferencing than TinyChat. Just use Firefox or Chrome with Ad Block and you'll have a nice clean interface (or pay for a subscription - it's still pretty cheap).
IOCOM just released a new version of Visimeet (based on Access Grid, developed by Argonne National Laboratories) with free and premium options and with individual and room solutions. My group started using the free version, and we don't have to pay for point-to-point users. We connect dozens of students, and instructors can see all of them at the same time. The best part is that we only pay for a subscription for the instructors. The students are free.
Having actually just worked on this with my current job, I can say decisively that there are a GIGANTIC number of video conference solutions available - and unless you have a dedicated 10MB pipe, there will be sound issues. Although we ended up going with Microsoft Office Communicator as our solution (not possible given your options - intranet only), we went through a major list of providers.
The number two solution for us was Nefsis (aka WiredRed), which is dedicated around presentations and multiple video sessions, is usable with anyone with a webcam, and do NOT require a server to run (though it's way faster if you do, obviously). Sightspeed, Megameeting, WebEx, and GoToMeeting were also on the list. Don't forget REALLY free options like Google Talk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_conferencing_software is a great place to start looking for other options. CNet has some good comparisons, as well.
If you do not need multipoint conferencing Skype is you best bet: it works on almost any computer with any webcam and you do not have to worry about firewalls. The latest beta supports HD video. Skype does not talk to h323 endponts though.
If you do need multipont however, be prepared to spend some money. The free (or almost free) solutions do not hold a candle to a real MCU. When you do not control your network a 100%, you will want transcoding and rate-matching, otherwise one bad connection will boggle down your conference. I suggest you look for a used MCU on eBay: many corp. are switching to HD video and you might find something reasonably priced.
Great video quality and low delay. Free for one-on-one. Low cost for business users and up to 9 X 9 conferencing.
Adobe Acrobat Connect is an excellent tool that seemlessly combines what you seem to be asking for, including the ability to record sessions for later viewing. There's a free trial, but the full service costs $39/month.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/
Use RTSP to stream and StreamTorrent for distribution. There are RTSP implementations to fit most any budget and need. Even something as basic as Videolan could work, depending on how much effort want to contribute on your own (or delegate). Using a StreamTorrent network might help with load balancing, especially if audience size exceeds capacity. But it really comes down to network capacity, audience size, desired content quality, and how much you want/need to 'protect' that content. - RTSP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Streaming_Protocol - StreamTorrent: http://groups.google.com/group/streamtorrent?pli=1 - VideoLAN: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html -kf
Things that I think suck: Public IM connectivity setup takes over a month and is licensed poorly and very hard to order with a handful of different options. E.164 normalization for SIP mediation is not for the faint hearted. No persistent chat support (cant IM people that are offline and get the IMs when you log on) and the group chat is a completely separate client from a merger. Mac Messenger does not support Enterprise Voice so you can use it for AV but not as a softphone.
The edu pricing for OCS would be cheap like dirt and there a lot of organizations and clearing houses that you can federate traffic with. Check this link out: http://wiki.uky.edu/ocs/Wiki%20Pages/Federation%20Partners.aspx
SipX does that, plus a whole host of other things too.. May be overkill for what you're looking for though.. That's your call to make..
My company uses both, depending on our needs. Skype seems to have a lot less system overhead and is multi-platform, but it's really only good for 1-to-1. You can get rid fo the ads in ooVoo by buying a Business account. You just need as many "seats" as you plan to have simultaneous conferences. I believe you also need a Business plan to enable desktop sharing, which may be important. A down-side is if you enable desktop sharing- you lose the video feed from that desktop. It also only supports 6-way conferences, although that's four more (video) than Skype.
Anything beyond that and you would probably need to go with a Webcasting or Webinar service. They can be really expensive (like $1k+/month/doman with usage limits). I haven't found a good FOSS solution. Red 5 looked promising, but the development seems to have stalled. The only real in-house solutions for larger scale Webcasting or conferencing seem to be from Adobe and Cisco, which means they are prohibitively expensive. I think I read somewhere that Polycom has a solution too, but I haven't checked into it.
I work for an online university, we use web conferencing software from these guys. They have easy to use online tools for scheduling classes, and easily joining them from a central location. They also offer integration with Moodle which many universities now use. Their software also integrates with Microsoft's Live Meeting and Cisco's Webex, which have whiteboards, VoIP, desktop and application sharing, viewing multiple webcams, polling, raising hand, and so on.
You can be an insane coder too, read: Insane Coding
How about Opera unite ( http://unite.opera.com/ ) ? One of the unite application allows you to stream videos and could be suitably extended to do more.
I just checked out all the free video conf. I could find, and Skype won hands down. The big feature one was full screen. Other free sw has a small video windows. My company have many expensive systems, including Tandberg, and I don't really think much more of them than skype.
What I would really like is a video conferencing system that consists of a table sticking out from a wall, and with a mirror image of the room on the far side. Now set up your projector so your video conference just looks like your table continues into the wall to the far side. For effect, if anyone touches the wall, the projector ripples the image to make it look liquid like the stargate.
Also try "talking heads" with skype. Just fill in empty seats around the table with laptops with a skype connection to a remote person, and make her head full screen. You can even roll a bunch of meeting attendes around a factory floor, and drag them with you for lunch.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
You can do video chat on the PS3. And you can chat with multiple people at the same time. I've personally done it with three people. I don't know what the limit is. All you need is a PS3, a compatible webcam (could be a Playstation Eye, PS2 EyeToy, and there's various other webcams that supposedly work), and a network connection and you're done. Oh, sorry, replied too fast...missed the requirement about needing to be viewable on a PC. Well if that's not a strict requirement, then you can think about the PS3 option.
While I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, I've actually had some minor success with broadcasting over Justin.TV.
Last summer one of our intern groups was giving a presentation to an NPO client. Unfortunately, most of the board was out of the country. So, as a last minute solution, I grabbed a web cam, a laptop, and set up in the auditorium. The quality was mediocre at best, but with more time, I'm sure I could have tweaked the lighting and the exposure controls for the webcam to get an even better picture. Additionally, Justin.TV allowed some nominal real-time interaction in the form of the chat room attached to the broadcast.
Was it an ideal solution? No. But did it get the job done? Yes. The viewers overseas were quite happy to have the opportunity to see the presentation.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
I keep remembering that videoconferencing scene in Demolition Man, with the conference table surrounded by motorised portrait-mode screens. I think it'd be funny to have conferences where a missing member attended by Skype, and had a personal assistant assigned to wave their screen-camera around in an interested way to point at whoever was talking.
With a few absentees it'd start to look like Japanese mime or puppet theatre. You could have the operators wearing black ninja costumes to blend into the background. It could get surreal.
Eric Baird
If you already use Windows as your desktop and Exchange as your email / messaging systems you should look at Office Communications Server 2007 R2 http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/communicationsserver/default.aspx
- Integrates with outlook
- has desktop sharing with multi-monitor support
- you can use it will off the shelf hardware or cheap "certified hardware"
- You can use it for IM, PC to PC Voip, Video, and even as a full phone system replacement.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Has anyone suggested DimDim? http://www.dimdim.com
It's free for up to 20 people, available for Windows, Linux and Mac.
I do video conferencing for a living and I can tell you that affordable solutions abound. For $150 you can get an H.323 software from Polycom (PVX) that runs on a Windows laptop or PC and uses a webcam. It will interoperate with every H.323 codec and software out there. Or you can try CounterPath's XLite program.. which I think does video over SIP. The Polycom stuff now all supports video over SIP as well. If you want to go OSS then I use ekiga on Linux. I'm sure there exists stuff for MacOS too.
I think you should stay with a H.323 solution because if you do then everyone else in the world who is doing H.323 will be able to talk to you. Skype and a lot of other solutions people have recommended are based on proprietary, closed standards where as H.323 is an open international standard.
Also.. hardware codecs are no longer super expensive. You can get a unit from Polycom or Tandberg or Sony that will handle a small classroom for under $5000. Don't bother with the Cisco (or anyone else's) telepresence stuff until you really get big scale and need it.
If you are attempting to find a solution for lecture delivery for students who are paying tuition, I think you are doing the students and the campus a disservice if you pursue a webcam based solution. You will need to convince the "powers that be" to budget significant dollars on standards based equipment (i.e. most University's are using H.323 devices but I feel the industry will move to SIP in the future). The system will need to designed from network infrastructure to classroom design to recording (including delivery and archiving).
At the research university that I work at, we are using Tandberg equipment. We have pretty much standardized on the Tandberg 6000 MXP codecs, but moving forward I have my eye on Tandberg C90's (most likely C60's due to cost). But we utilize H.239 (second stream for 1024x768 (and up) PC content) in addition to the video stream. A Tandberg Content Server is utilized to capture the course, and to hold multipoint conferences we utilize Codian 4501.
As you can see this is a significant investment in hardware, but if you truely want to deliver lecture via video conference, do not cut corners. Just my $0.02
Well, after working with thus stuff for the past few years, I would have to say Lifesize. All you need is an HD webcam, ideally a static IP or port forwarding/ triggering, minimum 1mb upstream and then your done. Granted, if you want conference room status, and more than 4 locations then you may have to buy a Lifesize room codec(few grand, depends on how big the room is and if you actually VC with 8 parties all the time). I strongly recommend the minimum 1mb part...
Disclaimer: I work for LifeSize Communications, so I might be biased...
Anyway, in the dedicated hardware area, you've got HP and Cisco at the high end (100k++++), Polycom and Tandberg (merging with Cisco) in the middle end (10k++) and LifeSize and a host of other smaller players at the low end (<20k). If you want HD (720p30 minimum), you're not really going to find it on PC based implementations, most are limited to 640x480p15 - 30 due to the compute required to encode the stream efficiently. Polycom and Tandberg offer a mix of SD and HD products with the SD products generally being cheaper than the HD ones. Everyone in the "professional" video conferencing space is moving to HD. LifeSize offers products from 2.5k (passport - 720p30 only, point to point only) to about 17k (room 220, 1080p30/720p60, 8 way multipoint, H.323) with a variety of products in between. We pride ourselves on needing the least bandwidth to achieve certain levels of performance (e.g., we'll do 720p30 in 768kbps, 720p60 in 1mbps and 1080p30 in < 2mbps). Polycom and Tandberg offerings are generally 2x the bandwidth at the same resolution/frame rate. Cisco's telepresence stuff needs (I could be wrong here, but I think I'm in the right ball park) something like 18mbps for the 3 screen solution you've seen on 24 and a couple of other shows (that's 6mbps/screen).
There are plenty of pc clients, but truth be told, they look like a** compared to the (HD) professional ones in my opinion. Of course, I'm starting to realize that HD TV looks like crap too, so it might just be me.
We've had good success with the following at each location:
- Mac Mini
- DVI Splitter (active not a simple cable -- bought ours at Fry's)
- Wacom Intuos (integrated tablet and video monitor -- the smaller model is recommended)
- DVI Projector (Sharp Electronics WXGA 2500) + screen
- Polycomm conference phone (new model with the cellphone noise-cancelling)
It's hard to have a technical conversation without a whiteboard, and while webex/dimdim/vyew/etc. have shared whiteboard apps, trying to draw with a mouse on a pad DOWN THERE while looking UP HERE while discussing your topic is just too danged disruptive (like trying to walk while rubbing your belly and patting your head). Drawing right on the "whiteboard" (screen) with a stylus removes most of the cognitive friction.
The only tricky bit is that you really need to project the screen if you'll ever have more than one person in the room. An *active* DVI splitter (passive cabling won't work) does the trick, but you have to ensure that the Mac only "sees" the Wacom monitor initially when it sets up it's display modes. Every time we have a power outage, we need to temporarily unplug the projector from the splitter then force the Mac to re-discover its displays (the Wacom needs the Mac to have the display resolution exactly right). It's also necessary to get a decent projector that can sync to the Wacom's resolution (we use the Sharp Electronics WXGA 2500 which has been terrific).
Skype of course is going to be mentioned a lot. They started out as audio only, and their audio quality remains imho unbeatable. Video quality is not nearly as good especially if your internet connection is poor. Tends to drop frames rather than lower quality. Often video stops working entirely and you have to close and reopen the chat. No support for multiconferencing, no compatibility with anything else, client is available for numerous platforms and all work well. Fairly good negotiation through uPNP routers.
ichat uses the AOL network and works with most other AOL video clients. Extremely good at working around uPNP routers, it's very rare to find a pair that cannot connect. Supports multconferencing with up to four participants. Degrades video quality if your conditions are poor. Probably best done with macs-to-macs though. Only compatible with AIM network clients. Has very good quality video but the audio isn't as good as skype. Very user friendly / easy to use, moreso than skype or xmeeting especially for computer novices. Video compatibility between different varieties of AIM client was poor last I checked. (it HAS been awhile)
xmeeting uses a variety of protocols and does a fair job at both audio and video. Is compatible with other video conferencing software. h.323 etc support. VERY compatible with polycoms, you can even control remote polycom cameras. Client available for several platforms. Useful for when someone has a polycom and someone doesn't. There are "reflectors" available, I presume paid/rented out, for including large numbers of people in a broadcast from a single source.
All three support text chat as well. All three have some degree of uPNP to auto map ports, but you're usually safer mapping them manually where you can. All three work with most any video camera you can get OS support for. (macs and many newer laptops come with built in cameras, otherwise expect around $50) All support one way audio or one way video, in the event that someone doesn't have a camera.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
If you want multi user video conferencing, not all are created equal.
After trying many products, I settled on OOVOO because of reasonable cost (free for two-way, pay for more), quality (excellent), and features (even higher quality video and ability to chat with those who don't have the application installed).
Definitely an option for those of us who are mere mortals...
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours-Stephen Roberts
I'm suprised no-one else has mentioned it, but VLC has had streaming capabilities for a long time.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html
You can also use 'a big fat pipe' and get some really high quality images.
Mungewell.
What about WIndows Meeting Space (the current replacement for the old Windows NetMeeting)? It's free, seems to have all the right features, and supports up to 10 users (PCs). Don't think there's any form of it that supports Mac's, though - you'd be limited to Windows boxes.
My university uses AccessGrid http://www.accessgrid.org/
It's not very easy to set up and get going, but you'll get your video conference, allright!
I hated video conferencing for years because of tragic experiences with crap software on PC's that give you a fantastic postage-stamp sized video at 15fps over a 512/512k connection...
... lets just use the conference phone next time"
Then we were sold a Lifesize video conferencing solution at about $5,000usd per endpoint, which gave 720p room to room comms at 1mb/1mb (or PAL at 512/512k)
We did extensive testing of software solutions to try to find cheap options for people on the road, and found they were all cheap and nasty.
Lifesize now have a product called "LifeSize Passport" that sells for $1,000 - $2,000 USD... it's dedicated hardware, it just works. and for that price it's about the same price as any corporate SOE desktop.
So my advice, after many years of using this stuff in the business world: Stop screwing around with second-rate software on a PC platform and buy something that is going to make your end-users walk away thinking "wow, video conferencing was almost as good as being in the same room. As soon as someone invents violence over IP, I won't need to do in person meetings" not "gee the audio was pretty good, and you could almost make out his face if he didn't move around too much!
If you have access to Internet2 and have the bandwidth, take a look at Access Grid http://www.accessgrid.org/
www.vidder.com
HD Microcasting
Just get one copy of CamfrogWeb, or plunk down on a bunch of client licenses ($50 per client, BUT each code can be used on two machines at the same time) and pay $200 for the Camfrog Server.
It's really simple to use. Might want to password protect your room, though, and NOT list the server on the main Camfrog directory.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If you want cost effective, user friendly video conferencing that works, check out LifeSize Videoconferencing. http://www.nytechco.com is the best place to buy it. Call the 800 number.
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx is very nice.
The desktop sharing is of a lot better quality than what i've seen on other products.
The licensing is 1 time fee and is free to use for non commercial usage. The non commercial license only supports 1 on 1 tho.
enjoy
My university (Illinois Institute of Technology) does this by exporting online classes to lots of remote sites around Chicagoland. I think they use some more specialized high-end videoconferencing software. I wonder if they'd be willing to share their expertise with you.
My hard of hearing is contagious to my reading comprehension! I read the title as "Adorable and Usable Video Conferencing?"
this is the 3 way skype clone that runs in a browser with good quality; it does up to 6 people no problem.
mebeam is lower res.
oovoo is (I think) not free for more than 2 users.
Dimdim seems to work for me, and is in-browser and relatively lightweight.
I'd say the flat panel monitor has done more for the video conferencing experience than anything else.
I haven't found better pricing than Openco.org for a professional solution.
http://www.radvision.com/Products/Video-Products/Desktop-Video-Communications/SCOPIA-Desktop-Video-Conferencing/default.htm
I used it when it was called "Click To Meet". Its a full featured product, but is not too cheap. As I recall at the time, a 10 user licensed was around $20K.
It is web based, integrates with Lotus Sametime and I believe has some level of Jabber integration (don't quote me there), it has SIP compatibility, and can communicate with existing H323 infrastructure.
They might have changed the pricing now...not sure.
Skype does all of the above. Desktop / application sharing, cross-platform, and it is free (unless you're calling out to an actual phone number). Oh, and it's cross-platform and works with any video hardware you have drivers for (I used to use it with my DV camcorder before I had a webcam). Is there a reason you cannot or don't want to use Skype for this setup?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
Videoconferencing is, has always been, and will always be a solution in search of a problem. Nobody (who has any sense) has ever said "gee, I wish I could look at a grainy, postage-stamp-sized picture of the person I'm talking on the phone with". Nobody *cares*. Not for meetings, not for classes. Audio is critically important. Shared presentation is critically important. Shared whiteboard is criticall important for some purposes. Video? Video is utterly useless.
(I've worked with most of the videoconferencing technologies out there, in the context of a large University research group. I've even built custom videoconferencing platforms for clinical case conferencing. It's all useless. People *say* they want it. People *think* they want it. But even when you spend $50k on a pair of high definition Access Grid Node rooms, it's no better than a good speakerphone. And nowhere near as good as $150 plane ticket.)
pick one.
Why not cook up your own teleconf software? We use gstreamer which has all the 'good stuff' with x264. Check: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-good-plugins/html/gst-plugins-good-plugins-gstrtpbin.html . The pipeline mentioned there works surprisingly well even over high latency networks and all it takes is a shell script to launch it. Add farsight to it and you have multi-party video conf too!!
No need to say a thousand words ; So get your hands down RED5 - http://www.red5.org/ - A powerful 100% Open Source Flash media Server
There are many solutions for video conferencing and I have found that Vidyo to be the best for combining MCU capability and the most cost effective for those who have many satellite locations. It has been implemented by a few web based companies for ease of use and short term cost effective rental source. If its for the conference room situation though the other vendors: polycom, lifesize, tandberg, sony, aethra. Have not provided a proper solution with multi-site capability beyond 4 or 5 sites without a major investment in a MCU. The company i work for just used the Vidyo solution to host a multisite call between more than 10 different hotels all on the same Vidyo router, with minimal issues and fast learning curve for those who supported it It was a very successful event and we were very proud of the results. I don't like the framerate of skype or google vidyo. Too slow. If you have a high end camera and clearone chat 50 at each location, Vidyo is the way to go. It even works well over the internet unlike the QOS demanding h323 endpoints.
<unashamed_plug>
If you want video streaming with the end user being able to interact, I suggest you give a look at http://boxtream.unice.fr/ it is entirely Free Software and documented hardware.
We coupled it with a Free Software IRC applet at University of Nice to allow remote students to ask questions during courses, creating an end to end (the first one ?) Free Software based interactive courses and conferences streaming solution : all parts from the video encoders, streaming and chat servers, and client sides applets are Free Software.
Feedback is welcome.
<unashamed_plug>
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
You absolutely should try VSee. (www.vsee.com) If Skype had multiparty video calls, but with better video and without killing your bandwidth, and then developed highly intuitive application and desktop sharing tools that make collaborating on documents easy. Follow that up with taking any collaboratively created docs and uploading them to all call participants with drag-n-drop file sharing and you have a winner. AND IT'S FREE! (if you only call 10 people a month. but you can call them an unlimited number of times!)
let me redo that link so it's clickable: http://www.vsee.com/
I work in a EU project with people from several EU and pre-accession countries. Although we have a general meeting every 6 months, each work package must work toghether in between.
We have used both typical audio-conference and video-conference and looking at the people while you are talking to them *feels* better than just listenting to their voice.
In addition, a good remote conference software includes also the ability to have a group moderator (similar to what Skype groups had available) and other tools (like whiteboard, file sharing, etc) that faccilitate the meeting.
We tried "flash meeting" from the Open univ. project and IMO it was good.
I guess the reason why you do not get it is because you are too much of a "technology person". I've worked with Social scientists, biologists, ecologists, agronomists and the like, and all they "non-tech people" preffer that sort of audiovisual interaction.
http://www.accessgrid.org/
Not perfect, by any means, but free, very extensible and open source.
Add as many cameras, simultaneous video streams, etc as you have the bandwidth for. It also has a framework for adding other services and writing shared applications in python.
It's not that secure (simple password preotection only) and can only handle 12 simultaneous cam and mic feeds, but the tinychat website is as simple as it gets and as cheap as you like (free).
Also great for getting teh ladiez to strip, yeah!
If none of you know Polycomm has been making video phones and conferencing systems for YEARS.
They are the best in this industry, and I have personally worked with many of the products they carry.
Though you may spend several hundred dollars each for a pair of their video phones, the video quality and audio quality is fantastic...
From your description of what you are doing... Use Polycomm....
That's the first question to ask yourself, because video "conferencing", as in "more than just two endpoints" can chew up a lot of it, more or less, depending on the technology used. That said, Counterpath has a couple of products that will do multi-user video conferencing on your PC. And they're inexpensive - less than $50 per seat.
Sounds like Appia (*my employer*) would be a good fit for you. PC-based, free download, then pay-as-you-go or unlimited use options (paid by the host; guests don't pay to use). Very easy to use. Multiple resolutions up to 720p HD (and the higher resolutions are better for classroom/group settings). Includes desktop sharing, text chat, recording (good for lectures), media streaming (show another video in the conference! Great for training), and audio dial-in/dial-out for attendees who can't be in front of a PC. Also has a one-to-many "broadcast" feature that is great for distance learning. Broadcast saves a bunch of bandwidth, and attendees can text-chat questions to the presenter without needing their own cameras, mics, etc. H.323 interoperability is already in beta. Free online demos can be scheduled at http://www.appiavideo.com/ . Good luck!
We just installed $100 USB mics in our room, which capture the speaker AND the audience, with pretty decent quality
Full disclosure: I work for Polycom.
The industry is booming right now with tons of high-quality options in the marketplace. I'll avoid discussing Skype and other freebies, and tell you about the "pro" stuff. Everyone else is covering the freebies adequately, other than to point out that the things you want to know are... Resolution and frame rate. When something uses a non-technical term like "HD" to describe the box, as "HD at what resolution and frame rate?".
I'll stick to generalities below:
- Polycom, Cisco, Tandberg (now merging with Cisco), and LifeSize all make useful dedicated hardware at various price-points.
- Company histories: Cisco is selling video as an add-on to the "full Cisco religious experience". They bought Tandberg recently.
- Tandberg is well-respected and also has a large percentage of their business selling specialized boxes for video broadcast/cable TV, etc... that have nothing to do with videoconferencing. (Similar technology, obviously...) No one really knows why Cisco bought them, but it's interesting what will happen to all of their product lines. (Does Cisco really want to sell on-the-fly video transcoding devices to TV stations? Odd.)
- LifeSize is former Polycom people who left to do HD. Polycom immediately did HD as soon as that happened. (LOL... hey, that's just MY personal opinion. I'm sure someone would argue with that, but I've seen that pattern happen at LOTS of companies.)
- Polycom and LifeSize are the only two pure videoconferencing, focused on just videoconferencing players.
Other generalities:
- People say you don't need video. I used to say that too, I came from a company that was acquired by Polycom and figured audio was all you ever needed. I've gotten completely hooked on being able to see real human emotional responses during meetings, etc. It's more useful than you think. Granted, if you're in a tech group or not using a room-based system or even an entire RPX room... you're never quite looking "eye to eye"... techies especially have multiple monitors, and tend to be looking off to one side. But you can still see the other person winces when bad news is given... something you could only "imagine the worst" on an audio conference.
- Getting the video "job" OUT of your PC, even with two monitors on the PC (or more) is best if you do it a lot. Sooner or later, Windows is going to barf on itself during your call, or worse, you need information to CONDUCT the call, and you've got to reboot the thing you're talking through. I use our proprietary desktop client (CMA Desktop) when road-warrior-ing it, and it's great, but when I'm at my desk, a desktop unit like one of the switchable units that doubles as your second monitor, or to me, even better yet... the VVX 1500 I'm currently using, work very nicely.
Really general stuff:
- On modern dedicated hardware everyone does HD. Remember however that HD has to be compressed heavily if you're not wanting to burn 14 Mb/s of bandwidth per call. No one does.
- Everyone has something proprietary built in on top of the standards.
- Everyone has complete ROOMS available that they'll build that include multiple HD units that act in conjunction to give you a "I'm looking into the other room" effect. HP started that with their HALO system, but it was rapidly mimicked by all.
- Everyone makes desktop clients. Some do SIP, some do H.323, some do both. They're all limited by the quality of cameras available for the PC marketspace.
- No one supports Mac well. (Stupid, since the Mac has a camera built-in)
Final note:
- Tons of businesses are also moving toward everyone having Microsoft OCS for the desktop webcams, etc. It's 100% possible to completely integrate OCS desktops to dedicated room units, like ours, and vice-versa.
#1 Answer to your ENTIRE question: Find a Value Added Reseller that knows what they're doing. In the education environment I can tell you that the customers who found a clueful VAR who worked with them to INTEGRATE room-base
+++OK ATH
Take a look at Sonic Foundry's Mediasite. This is the BEST lecture capture solution available.
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/
1. For each teleconference location you need the following
* Mac Mini -> $600
* Logitech USB Webcam -> $100
* Video Projecter -> $1300
* iChat -> $0
Total -> $2000
2. You will also need one XMPP server. Here are cheap and easy options
* One of those Mac Mini's runs the server edition and turn on iChat server -> $1000 (instead of $600)
* Run OpenFire (Java based) on one of those Mac Mini's -> $0
* Run OpenFire (or any other open source XMPP server) on any other server you already have -> $0
3. Your boss thinks you're awesome for deploying a full teleconference solution that costs less than $100,000 (unless you're deploying to 20 conference rooms, in which case you're awesome for a solution that costs less than $10,000,000).
Cheap, easy and pretty good is to split your solution into audio and video parts. Skype does really well at audio. For video, you could use an ip camera and a browser or bolt in anything else you like. If you want completely non-proprietary, ekiga is pretty good in its latest incarnation, though to get good video you have to use the non-free h.264 and for many-to-many you'd have to set up a sip router. That ends up harder.
What do you think about http://www.iris2iris.com/en-UK/home.htm. Can you use this equipment with all known software, just as you would use a webcam. This is what you would need.
Hi, I work for IOCOM, but I really think you should take a look at our newly announced Visimeet service. It's exactly what you're looking for. Multi-platform; multi-party video conferencing; integrates with H.323 conferencing devices; works w/ webcams on laptops, desktops, in conference rooms, etc.; robust collaboration tools (desktop share, record meetings, chat, whiteboard, etc.); and, most importantly, a client/server conferencing infrastrucure that provides unmatched stability and security.
We've worked with many educational institutions with great success (and pride!). In fact, we were just deployed by one of Minnesota's largest K-12 school regions: http://minneapolis10.cityspur.com/2010/01/19/iocom-deployed-by-one-of-minnesota’s-largest-k-12-school-regions/
Check out our website at http://www.iocom.com/ and feel free to contact us, we'd be happy to discuss possibilties.
Thanks!
I have a customized solution that I am willing to provide for FREE to any U.S. educational institution. Others may be considered on a case by case basis.
Features:
- Flash based (no installations if you already have Flash Player 10), any browser, any OS
- Small and fast (client is ~150kbytes, server is ~300kbytes), minimal setup
- No registration (pick a nick, a room name, and a key string if you want to limit access to the room)
- No personal info required, nor stored (completely anonymous)
- Up to 5 participants per conference room
- You can join multiple rooms simultaneously (share a single webcam or select different webcams), or join the same room multiple times (allowing you to broadcast multiple webcams from a single computer)
- Pause video and/or audio when privacy is needed
- Manual quality adjustment (you control the quality of each individual video stream sent to you)
Let me know if you are interested in
1) Test drive it via my personal website/server
2) Setting up your own website/server
I've done some work with a product called Access Grid for a local university, and it works pretty well. Works with Windows and Linux at least, maybe Mac. It's not the most user friendly thing to install, but it's free and has most of the whiz-bang features of the big boys, although without the super-polished interface. http://www.accessgrid.org/
A few years ago I tested "Agora" with Sakai.
This might be massively overkill for your application, depending on whether Sakai does anything you want (soup-to-nuts higher-ed online classroom application) but it's entirely freeware.
Agora did not, at that time, work with any non-Windows platform that I tried, but that was 2008 or earlier.
Full Disclosure, I used to work for MegaMeeting.com as a tech, but they're a great company with a browser based flash-driven os-independent video conferencing software. Just sign up for an account, log in and you're set! It's very easy and can be used for presentations or conferences. http://www.megameeting.com/
for legion as they don't get it. being a long time A/V specialist at an R1 state university I understand your issue completely. For everyone else, the problem with any proprietary system is we need to bring in collaborators from across the world so dedicated hardware is usually not an acceptable solution, though we do use our polycom whenever possible. They need to be able to grab a client that is free or nearly so and easy to setup and use. A web based solution would be idea (one used to exist though I forget the name IPVX maybe?) There are great dedicated solutions out there but as far as I can tell, no cross platform desktop solutions that support multipoint calls. We have been playing with Skype but as others have noted, in a classroom or even meeting room sized event locations it completely falls down. Polycom PVX software has been good but only for folks that are directly associated with us where we can send them out with a package that can call back home. There are free solutions out there such as Access Grid (based on VIC and RAT) but user friendly they are not. I am surprised that something that seems as trivial as multipoint video remains elusive a decade after it appeared on the scene. I'm sure this is because the problem is anything but trivial or we would have seen it by now from Skype or Windows Live. I would have fully expected it to have been commoditized by 2010. I hope you find a solution and I'd love to hear about it if you do.
Anything out there and any experience with it? Not sure if you can ZRTP with video conferencing as well (it being geared towards VOIP).
I work for Vidyo (wwww.vidyo.com). We offer HD to the desktop using your Mac or PC, plus web cam and audio device. Excellent quality over general purpose IP networks. Integrate legacy H.323 room systems or use our room systems. Up to 50 participants per multipoint call. Not free, but affordable.
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