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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?"
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...
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!
After reading the article...why not just use Skype or Ustream as they mentioned?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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 :)
Is there any specific reason not just to use skype to send the video?
You can then upload the video to YouTube afterwards.
My team just bought an iMac with a nice display and put it on one conference room, while the guy on the other end has a little MacBook. You can do 2 or 3-way videoconferences with iChat over Jabber.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
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!
You're not going to be able to usably capture a classroom lecture with webcam and associated microphone.
-Peter
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.
I recommend EVO
Being an audiovisual engineer at a large University in the US, I can tell you that Skype DOES NOT work well for group videoconferencing. Skype was designed to be used with a microphone and headset, and for that purpose it works great. When you try to blast audio through a room with enough microphone pickup to get everyone in the room, feedback is your enemy. In order to do videoconferencing *right*, you'd need a dedicated videoconferencing codec such as a Tandberg C60 or other device that has built in audio-negating capabilities. While costly, they do things marvelously well.
Who moded this interesting? Pidgin most certainly does video, I've used it, it works. Try it for yourself if you don't believe.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
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).