Submission + - Video-conf solutions: proprietary and/or open mix
papaia writes: I have been trying to find [the least expensive] solution allowing a business-level environment setup for video-conferencing, with the following basic requirements:
— high quality video (mostly hardware capability, including hi-res monitors, remote control (tilt, zoom on speaker) of camera, etc.), for multi-site video conferencing support in conference rooms setup to accommodate 10-15 people (as far as capability of camera and viewable screen size)
— single user web-cam like setup, allowing tapping into the "main" (above) video-conferencing system from any PC
What I already have are a couple of Tandberg units, a couple of older Polycom (actually ex-Picturetel) ones (could dump those, probably), and some web cams for PCs. What I would like to do to address the requirements above would be to:
— find some way for Skype to interface with Tandberg (some gateway-like solution allowing Skype-proprietary-to-H.323 translation)
— find some way for Skype to do multi-user video-conferencing (of which some solutions don't seem to be maintained anymore — e.g. festoon)
— find some other H.323 client (dump Skype), which would be "Internet friendly" (allow HTTP encapsulation, perhaps, to ease firewall traversal?!?)- then tie that into Tandberg (netmeeting seems to be capable of handling such)
— drop the concept of using H.323, and use PC-based Skype clients with Tandberg gear just used as monitor and camera (problem: Skype does not accept hi-res, w/some limitations in its xml config file)
— use some open source solutions for multi-site conferencing, possibly Windows-platform (client) friendly)?!?
- ... some other ways
So — would anybody care to share their own solutions for the two requirements in the beginning of this (or fill in the [... some other ways] part)
— high quality video (mostly hardware capability, including hi-res monitors, remote control (tilt, zoom on speaker) of camera, etc.), for multi-site video conferencing support in conference rooms setup to accommodate 10-15 people (as far as capability of camera and viewable screen size)
— single user web-cam like setup, allowing tapping into the "main" (above) video-conferencing system from any PC
What I already have are a couple of Tandberg units, a couple of older Polycom (actually ex-Picturetel) ones (could dump those, probably), and some web cams for PCs. What I would like to do to address the requirements above would be to:
— find some way for Skype to interface with Tandberg (some gateway-like solution allowing Skype-proprietary-to-H.323 translation)
— find some way for Skype to do multi-user video-conferencing (of which some solutions don't seem to be maintained anymore — e.g. festoon)
— find some other H.323 client (dump Skype), which would be "Internet friendly" (allow HTTP encapsulation, perhaps, to ease firewall traversal?!?)- then tie that into Tandberg (netmeeting seems to be capable of handling such)
— drop the concept of using H.323, and use PC-based Skype clients with Tandberg gear just used as monitor and camera (problem: Skype does not accept hi-res, w/some limitations in its xml config file)
— use some open source solutions for multi-site conferencing, possibly Windows-platform (client) friendly)?!?
-
So — would anybody care to share their own solutions for the two requirements in the beginning of this (or fill in the [... some other ways] part)
