VTEL Setup In Ireland *Urgent*

Shrimp

I need some help regarding Video Conferencing. I am in the process of researching the possibilities of installing a VTEL computer, which in turn will be used to hold one-to-one conferences to worldwide clients. I have some questions which particularly need attention.

• Do you know of any companies in Ireland that will provide this service?
• What is the situation regarding connection speed? What should the Upload/Download speeds? (I would imagine an upload speed of at least 250kbs+)
• How reliable is it, when done well?
• How much would it cost? (It says on the VTEL homepage that the All-in-one kit cost €4,999)

If I missed anything which I am sure I must have, can you please mention them.

If you need any more information or have any questions about specifics please ask. Email me here if you wish

Thank you for reading, If you could respond ASAP I would be greatly appreciative.

Kali

5 grand for a PC just to do video conferencing is a bit over the top.. get a decent mic and webcam and you're done... all you're paying for in that vtel setup is the fancy monitor.

The actual video conferencing software is the tough bit.. not the actual hardware, theres literally hundreds of options, webex are a good bet if you do a lot of US conferences, but for one-to-one stuff, you really should start testing with the basics like netmeeting and then move up..

I don't know how relevant or up-to-date this site is.. but may prove useful:
http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/video.htm

Shrimp

I need it to be 100% reliable, It will be used to hold conferences to clients around the world, as I cant give out to much information about the clients I can only say that they would be expecting 100% security, and compatibility, and will be paying substantial money for this service.

I know net meeting is usable, it is fine for friends or family, but not for a business that has a sole target market of online conferencing. I need something that is far more powerful than that, one which can backup live streams as they are been aired, the best of the best(within reason).

I also would require to be able to use some of the following tools. http://www.vtel.com/products/peripherals/default.htm

I know of a company in England(VTEL's Partner in UK) which fit these system, but would need to know if there is a place in Ireland which does this?

Thank you, any help is greatly appreciated.

Shrimp

*Bump? I need help with this, as the title says it's urgent! Thank You!

bungeecork

Dude - I can just tell you about what my (Australian) company uses, if that'll be any help. Let me say this first though - even though it was a highly professional installation (our 3 offices were fitted out at the same time) and cost several thousand dollars and looked very cool and impressed clients, it was not 100% reliable. I'd say it was a total success 98% of the time.

We used Polycom machines with 4 dedicated ISDN lines pairs for each unit/office. That gave us 512kbps max per call, almost perfest picture quality and more than enough for a motionless camera. This allowed split 3 way conferences at 256kbps each, very good picture and sound quality. ISDN seemed to be pretty much the standard across the UK and USA, every time we had a conference with sites there we initiated the calls by dialling ISDN numbers. And that's how we called our own offices.

Some bits of advice
* after it's installed show the office co-ordinator (or the tea lady if you have one) how to use it and then wash your hands of it. It's tempting to take ownership of the funky new techie thingy but when all is said and done it's a telephone with a screen and it will waste your valuable time
* ISDN calls are not cheap man - make sure every conference is booked by someone willing to pay for it with their budget
* even better, get them to call you !
* have a test conference with each new site you plan to link up with
* with a bit of planning and a cheapish addition to a standard CISCO router, ISDN lines make an ideal disaster recovery backup in case your internet link goes down (that's how we got the budget approved anyway)

hope this helps a bit
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