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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!
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
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!
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.