Cheap Video Conferencing for Small-to-Medium Sized Corps? 36
Jason W. asks: "I work for a medium sized company of about 75 employees. A while back I was asked by our CEO to look into a video conferencing solution. I didn't find much information about setting up a system in house except from Real Networks. The problem was, they wanted $10,000 just to start. We even had a sales visit from a consultant who laughed at us when we didn't want to spend $8-10,000. Like I said, we are a medium sized company, but did I mention we are privately owned? $10,000 is WAY to much for us to spend on what would be, new technology for us. I wanted to poll Slashdot readers, and see if they have any experience in this area. As for our needs, I know we would need to talk from Texas to Washington D.C, and to Virginia. Can we do it from our website? Do we have to have hardware 'stations' on each end? What are your thoughts?"
Icky but cheap... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Icky but cheap... (Score:3, Interesting)
Play your cards right, and you can get a faster internet connection out of it too.
"Well, we have the cameras, but now we need many many megabits of bandwidth. The good news, though, is that we can still do it for half the price!"
Polycom (Score:4, Informative)
The imaging quality on some of their lower end webcams are questionable though.
Re:Polycom (Score:3, Interesting)
Lots of information on video teleconfrence can be found out by searching for ITV.
Re:Polycom (Score:3, Interesting)
Webcams and net2phone (Score:1)
Also, what about just setting up a pair of webcams on both ends, with a normal telephone connection? this should be simple, relatively robust, etc.
Your costs would be bandwidth usage (significant, though someone else can estimate that for me), the webcams themselves (about $200 range for better-than-average versions, though someone can recommend which ones those are), the phone costs (already known).
That's it!
-- Kevin
http://justanyone.com
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dlink (Score:1)
According to the sales literature it is a self contained unit with no need to connect to a computer (So sales guys might be able to set one up.) and costs about $270 [pcconnection.com] per unit
Re:QoS - A definate must (Score:2)
We use them over an IPSec based VPN (H.323 is an open protocol, remember) for security reasons, and QoS everything as much as possible to give the higest priority to the Video Conference traffic. Before we implemented QoS, quality was pretty bad - and this was on fast lines (all lines were T1 or fibre).
QoS made the difference between a useable and unuseable video conferencing system.
Check out the Access Grid (Score:3, Interesting)
Note that the AG uses multicast, which your router or ISP may not support well. Also, there is a bit of a learning curve to put everything together. There are AG vendors if you want to buy a fully supported solution.
-Andrew
Dime a dozen. (Score:1)
Regardless, it appears video conferencing isn't all that bandwidth-intensive. Sun's SunForum prouct claims to require only 25Kbit/sec by default. I've never used it, but that's what their FAQ says. I'm sure having MPEG hardware doesn't hurt, either.
I h
Calling All Starving Artists (Score:5, Funny)
Same Situation (Score:2, Informative)
What level of video/audio quality do you need?
If you need something that can pass for a standard TV broadcast instead of M-M-Max Head-Head--------room, you've got to go higher end with $$$ hardware on each end. It's more like a minimum of $10,000 for each end. If you can get away with NetMeeting, then go for it.
Other questions to consider...
Q: Do you need to have a lot of people in on a conversation at one end?
A: $$
Q: Do you need to t
Open H323 Solution (Score:2, Interesting)
All these comments and not one FOSS reference?
Here is a duct tape and scripting solution:
Get the software at Open H323 [openh323.org].
Setup a dedicated MCU server using the OpenMCU conference server (also on above site). Without an MCU server, you can only have one-on-one video conferences. The MCU server will handle multiple participant video conferences as well as multiple rooms for simultaneous but separate conferences.
Use OpenPhone (also at above site) as the conferencing software. Since this is all standards base
Re:Open H323 Solution (Score:1)
Me too / Firewall issue (Score:2)
Re:Me too / Firewall issue (Score:1)
Then to answer your nat/firewall question, consult this [gnomemeeting.org] from the gnomemeeting FAQ. (NOTE: this might give you hints regarding netmeeting behind a firewall as well).
Hope this helps.
chepati
look at www.webcamnow.com (Score:2)
Bewarned that they have a "family" and "uncensored" section -- the latter generally being exhibitionist porn and voyeurism (and probably subsidizing the former).
I'm sure you could roll your own along those lines, and u
ICU (Score:2, Informative)
What we did ... (Score:1)
You could skip the whole server part and just do direct IP connections if you wanted. A bit more difficult for the lay user, but highly effective, and cheaper.
NetMeeting (Score:2)
Assuming you already have a fast intranet connecting your sites, just use NetMeeting. If you want higher quality, skip the cheapo USB cameras and get an NTSC capture card and a pan-tilt-zoom camera.
Re:NetMeeting (Score:1)
Rent (Score:2)
Video Conferencing (Score:2)
The biggest issue I have is that often in larger meetings, the remote camera is so zoomed out to get everyone in the shot that it's like looking through a telescope. I think there is a way to control the remote camera, but it's almost never done, especially if you have more then 2 parties videoconferenced in. (Who gets to control the camera?)
Ideally you want to spend money on having extra cameras (a zoomed out one for everyone, and ano
Axis Cams (Score:1)
anyway, my two bits.
You want this (Score:1)
try reality fusion teamview (Score:1)
The UI is pretty impressive. In terms of videoconferencing usability, I feel that RealityFusion's TeamView client application beats MS NetMeeting or Yahoo! Messenger. However Reality Fusion does not sell the server software though.
Another solution you could look at is SmileTiger [smiletiger.com]
Re:try reality fusion teamview (Score:1)