[asterisk-users] Is anyone using * for 2 way video conferencing?

[Robert Augustyn]

Thank you.
What units from Polycom line did you use? 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
> Gordon Henderson
> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 4:45 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Is anyone using * for 2 way 
> video conferencing?
> 
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Robert Augustyn wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > One of my clients, wants to use * box to run weekly 
> meetings between 
> > remote locations over the internet.
> > What would be the best configuration for this? We are talking about 
> > two conference rooms.
> > I am referring to the actual hardware/software and bandwidth 
> > requirements for this to work well.
> > I have run two software video phones and I had marginal 
> results with 
> > it when displayed on large LCDs, delay and blockines ware 
> the problems 
> > I have run into ...
> 
> I've been "playing" with video phones over the past month or 2.
> 
> You've got 3 choices: Bottom-end is Xlite, etc. soft-phones.
> 
> Desktop videophones - currently Grandtream GXV3000 and ATL4000's.
> 
> Top of the range Polycom video conferencing units.
> 
> Starting with the top-of the range ones - these "just work" 
> Don't even need an Asterisk box. Expensive though - I did one 
> help setup a pair of these, one in the UK, the other 
> west-coast US. Both with 42" plasma screens. Very nice, 
> worked very well. Very expensive.
> 
> More recently I've been using Grandstream GXV 3000's. For the 
> price; Fantastic. They do have audio and video outputs too - 
> I have connected one up to my 32" flat-screen TV and it 
> worked satisfactorily.
> 
> Picture quality is as good as the bandwidth you allow it to 
> use and they can go from 1 to 30 frames per second. It uses 
> about 128Kb/sec by default, but you can crank it up to 2 or 3 
> times that. The Polycoms I think were using about 225Kb/sec.
> 
> I've used the Grandstreamw with XLite - XLite using the same 
> codec, so same screen picture size. More or less just worked 
> when I got the codecs to match.
> 
> 
> So the big issue is the Internet - you're using a lot more 
> bandwidth, so need a better link. I found with the Polycoms 
> that the VPN we were using was introducing a lot of Jitter to 
> the link which degraded picture quality
> - turned off encryption and it was fine (cheap Draytek 
> routers doing encryption in software)
> 
> Right now, I'm using them in a more "domestic" setting than 
> business - I know more about the Internet in hte UK, so all 
> sites I'm experimenting with have good ADSL conections and 3 
> of us are on the same ISP, so minimising traffic over the 
> public Internet.
> 
> So there you go - hope this helps!
> 
> Gordon
> 
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