Megaconference

[Matt Carner <>]

Hi Mark,

We've deployed your 'soft-client' solution in one of our training rooms with a weaker Mac Mini.  We also used this USB camera and a little bit different audio setup.

The big complaint from the users is the lack of zoom and pan range on the camera.  For these products, anything more than a few people in front of a monitor is turning into a poor experience.  

I'll let you know when the affordable PT(optical)Z USB cameras start appearing.  :)

Thanks,

Matt

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Leonard, Mark <> wrote:

Hello Megalister's--

I'm curious if anyone out there has run a side by side comparison of say a Cisco C-20 against a 'soft client' like this--

• Mac mini 2.6Ghz Intel Core i7
• Cisco Jabber (enterprise version- MOVI)
• USB Camera with pocessing within the camera
• Pretty capable USB speaker phone

Sure…in a perfect world we would always buy the dedicated codec for video collaboration-- right?   —  but I'm really starting to wonder about reasons not to run  the $1000 set up above in non mission critical events—

How about it?

Anyone out there running a H.323 soft client  in a classroom set up? 

And yes— to make it a little tougher… I must have 30fps, 1080, and connection speeds around 1000kbs  :>)

And no— I'm not so interested in the 101 web based videoconferencing services that have popped up as this is really a 'hardware' discussion. In my eyes— the weakest link in the soft client is the camera. Buying a $3K+ USB camera to compete with the Cisco HD camera kind of defeats the purpose of looking at workarounds to a dedicated VC codec.

Thanks for looking at this-

Have a great long weekend-

~Mark

Mark Leonard

Media and Collaboration, UNH IT

--
Matt R. Carner
Senior Video Conference Consultant
Video and Conferencing Services
ph: 612-756-9816
fax: 612-624-2066

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University of Minnesota
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