Video conferencing, after fading into the background for a while, is back in news again. Microsoft, last week let us know about their new video conferencing system called RoundTable that is likely to debut in mid-2007. The $3000-a-pop RoundTable is a tabletop device, not much bigger than a traditional speakerphone at the base. Of course, the timing of Microsoft outreach program timed perfectly with Cisco Systems’ announcement about a new video conferencing system called Telepresence. The HD-based system costs a whopping $79,000 and competes with similar devices from the likes of Hewlett Packard (Halo) and Polycom.
A bigger system costs $299,000. (You can see it on Fox show, Vanished on October 27, 2006.) The news should not come as a surprise – Cisco CEO John Chambers spent a considerable time on the potential of video during the last conference call.
Video conferencing has been long time coming, and has been marred by poor quality, and complexity. Proprietary nature of the video conferencing systems did not help either. But broadband removed the network bottleneck, and open standards, and communication protocols are making it easier for video conferencing to work in an optimal fashion.
“Over the next year or so we should see demand for this kind of technology double as early adopters buy more and other companies realize the benefits,” Howard Lichtman, president of Human Productivity Lab told Reuters. This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Many computers are coming with built-in cameras and fairly simple systems such as Apple’s iChat and SightSpeed offer sophisticated yet cheap options for video conferencing.
Cisco’s entry into the market is basically a way to get the buyers of Telepresence to upgrade their corporate networks and buy what else – Cisco gear. “I don’t see it being a big seller,” Elliot Gold, of TeleSpan Publishing Corp tells The Wall Street Journal, and points out that are cheaper options out there.
Options from Austin, Texas-based, LifeSize Communications, a start-up we wrote about in April 2005. Now their products aren’t cheap, but are cheaper when compared to what big companies have to offer. They are working on cheaper versions, and if they can replicate the quality of their flag ship product, then they might be sitting on a winner.
We recently caught up with the company, and got a first hand demo of their system running over a fairly vanilla 1.5-megabit broadband connection, and the picture quality was like watching a TV talk show. On a 37-inch screen, sitting about six feet away from the phone/base unit, it had no jitter, or echo.
Craig Malloy, co-founder and CEO of the company explained to us that they use some proprietary chips, compression and software technologies to achieve HD broadcast quality video. (If there was too much movement on the camera, the quality is going to suffer, but since corporate video conferences only beat drying paint in terms of excitement, LifeSize does the trick.)
The company is working on lowering the cost of their chips, and thus bringing down the overall price of their system. They want to sell their lower cost versions of the system to companies in locations such as India and China. With many US companies having operations in offshore locations, the cost saving on long distance calls alone would make it worth buying this device.
5 trackbacks so far
2:32 AM PT
Video conferencing is hot. Again…
…
2:46 AM PT
IBM sues Amazon (and funny telemarketer prank)…
I invented IT Blogwatch, in which IBM sues Amazon.com over software patents. Not to mention a telemarketer’s worst nightmare…
6:00 AM PT
[...] Videoconferencing Tip: Slow Down Slow down. You’re talking too fast for your videoconferencing tools to keep up. Meeting quality when you fire up your webcam to talk to your colleagues is getting better by the minute, but the network is not quite up to shoving all those bits around in real time. We all end up looking a little like Max Headroom. What can you do until everyone on your project team can afford high-end telepresence rigs? [...]
6:38 PM PT
[...] 14, 2008 at 6:16 PM PT Comments (0) SightSpeed, a Berkeley, Calif.-based Internet video chat and conferencing company is going to announce a Linux-version of its video chat service sometime later this week. The Linux [...]
8:40 AM PT
[...] a Berkeley, Calif.-based Internet video chat and conferencing company is going to announce a Linux-version of its video chat service sometime later this week. The Linux [...]
17 comments so far
5:51 AM PT
Strong new equipment helps when communicating between a known number of fixed locations. When communicating among arbitrary numbers of locations with mixed facilities, then the dynamics change.
How do these systems interoperate with existing rooms, without the special equipment? tx.
6:39 AM PT
This meme is definitely floating around today, its on techcrunch too.
I also wrote about this today, here
Todays Telecon vision is in a special room because of yesterdays economics…I suspect desktop based telecon is the 80/20 application.
My instinct is that a big Broadband pipe + Web 2.0 principles on a decent strength Webservice is the better way to go these days, not an expensive hardware solution based.
7:00 AM PT
watch GOOGLE and YouTube do ”’something” in CORE Distribution to the Consumer using Level3 Networks Content
7:45 AM PT
I’ve spent a great deal of time with VC and I’m afraid the answers No.
Two reasons:
1. The internet backbone gets overloaded and transmission timing becomes unreliable due to no QOS (Doesnt matter how much compression you use). Try skype and you’ll see what I mean. This problem and many others could be mitigated by the last users comment.
Be warned…
9:00 AM PT
Joe,
but most of the new systems are using H.264 and are also utilizing SIP etc. So the standards are there. I take your point about QoS though. Which is one of the reasons why I was suitably impressed by the LifeSize system. I know my eyes were not fooling me, and seeing is believing right. But I think you make valid and pertinent cautionary argument.
9:32 AM PT
hi there,
I worked on Video conferencing product at Motorola 10 years ago and was frustrated to see that it didn’t get popular. Anyways, good to see that it is getting more affordable!
TYPO “A bigger system costs $299,000. (You can see it on Fox show, Vanished on October 27, 2006.) ” — you meant October 23 or October 22nd ?
BR,
~A
9:53 AM PT
Hi there,
“With many US companies having operations in offshore locations, the cost saving on long distance calls alone would make it worth buying this device.”
What I know is that companies like HP(yes, they have some video conferencing products) don’t always use Video conferencing to interact with their offshore office in Bangalore, India.
Most of the times, they use Calling cards to regularly reach India for Offshoring projects!!
As long as the product is not too expensive, it is going to work!
I want to think that there might even be a market for match makers here . Guys in the US looking for brides in India!!
BR,
~A
1:27 PM PT
TelePresence is certainly the most impressive example of video conferencing yet, and it opens up a lot of possibilities in education as well. But the cost…ouch!
1:14 PM PT
I learned from the CIS 178 that in order to engage in desktop video conferencing, participants neet computers equipped with sound cards, video cards, a webcam, a headset or separate microphone and speakers, the appropriate software, and a broadband Internet connection. By reading this blog, it helps wider my knowledge.
2:46 AM PT
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8:55 PM PT
Thanks for the current info on video conferencing. Since my interest is conferencing in general, info like this helps to stay on track on all areas.
Best regards.
5:25 AM PT
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5:14 PM PT
thank you very much for your kind information about this device,this device will be effective in our communication system and in education as well.
3:40 AM PT
I’d like you to check out our free, online video conferencing service called PalBee.com (http://www.palbee.com)
At PalBee.com, we offer registered users the ability to talk with their colleagues, friends, and acquaintances in a presentation-focused interface that combines the most important features of communication. Visitors of our web site can also use it to record online presentations, which can be viewed at a later time by anyone with an Internet connection and a flash-enabled web browser.
If people would like to add this ability to their own web sites, we offer a Mashup API that registered beta testers can add to their own sites in order to offer free online video conferencing to their own places on the web.
All the best!
1:07 PM PT
Hi
Does any one know good video conferencing provider in hyderabad
tks
joe
1:10 PM PT
Hi Joe
check on this link
Vanit
1:12 PM PT
HI Joe
sorry i missed the details (jivainfotech.com/video-conferencing/)
Vanit
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