Affordable and Usable Video Conferencing? 170
Sabalon writes "I work at a state university with remote sites, minimal space, and all the other usual bits. We used to have some dedicated-circuit video conferencing tools but those have fallen into disuse. The administration is now interested in being able to stream a class from site to site, or at least have a student at one site have visual interaction with a person at another site. My thought is that if Skype, uStream and others can do live video, there has to be some things out there that don't cost a fortune but work effectively. Key things would be the ability to use commodity web cams as a source, viewable on a PC (preferably all the main OSes) and the ability to add in other devices (say H.323 encoders) or desktop/application sharing. Are there decent products and solutions out there for us mere mortals?"
Cisco Telepresence (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... You mean Cisco Telepresence doesn't fall in the category of "affordable and usable"?
Damn. All those certifications (read: hours of watching "24") have gone to waste...
Use the bits like we do (Score:1, Funny)
I work at a state university with remote sites, minimal space, and all the other usual bits.
You already have everything you need. Use the bits to drill a hole into the ground,
then drill horizontally from there to the other locations and use a set of simple
lenses and periscope-style mirrors for video conferencing.
This works very well for us, we even implemented a network stack on top of
the video conferencing system. As a matter of fact, I posted this by dictating it
to my TOOL (Transport Overlaying Operational Linker) while watching him type it.
Ok, Jeff, just hit submit now and go take a dump, I won't be needing you to post
anything for the next 20 minutes.