Video Conferencing at Home

[SpaceCowboy]

I have lots of family all over Canada and the US and keeping is touch is important to us. So we've used the telephone, Skype with a webcam, livemeeting etc. but wouldn't it be cool to sit down in the living room with the TV and video conference to other family households?

I know we do this at work with Telepresence and fancy Polycom units but in searching the net I haven't come across anything economical for family/residential use. Lots of desktop/laptop solutions but not room solutions. We all have home theaters and high speed internet (okay lots of us anyways) so I want to leverage that.

So is anyone doing this? What are you using? What's worked? What hasn't?

I'm looking for something like an appliance - one box, camera, sound, ethernet to plug into a TV - like the Polycom V500 but at a "reasonable" cost.

Anyone? Thoughts?

If not - let's design and build one.

 

[electron]

I can't think of any solution that exists right now, but it would be great if someone would build a (live) linux distro, that could turn an old PC into such appliance, maybe using Skype?

 

[nov0798]

Thats exactly what Livemeeting from MS does. A webcam, a phone with speakerphone, and the internet!

 

[BryanE]

You might also want to try a XBOX 360 with the Live Vision Camera. It will do what you describe.

"Users can have a video conference with one other Xbox 360. The quality of video play back is excellent, with no lag. You can even see the time in the recipients time zone to compare. You can obviously have multiple people on one video cam, but in order to talk back and forth, the person doing the talking needs to have the Xbox Live Headset on. You can increase/decrease the volume, zoom in and out, view their profile and change effects all while conferencing. The cool part is that you can request to have a video chat from any game, across different games, from the dashboard or even while in Media Center Extender mode. Of note, you cannot video chat in the game unless the actual game supports video chat. Any invites or requests for video chats will take you back to your Xbox 360 dashboard for the video conference."

 

[ASIHome]

What about these D-Link units: http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=8

Currently buy one get one free.

 

[SpaceCowboy]

What about these D-Link units: http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=8

Currently buy one get one free.

Good score.

Holy Cow - that's kinda the whole concept right there. I'm surprised by how old they are that I didn't come across those. And it would seem some other people have jumped from this thread on purchasing them as I see them on back order now (which wasn't he case when I first looked at them).

I'll probably grab a pair to try them. I'm sure the video isn't great but that's the idea.

I know they're old, maybe going to be discontinued but interesting - wonder why they never took off or dlink built upon them.

 

[Skibum]

I would not get your hopes too high.....I hope it was cheap.

1. It uses h.263 for video
2. the resolution is only CIF at best
3. it uses the outdated h.323 standard for telephony

The only way to get nice big high quality video is with a CPU that can handle it.
You will be hard pressed to find that in a stand alone device.

 

[SpaceCowboy]

I would not get your hopes too high.....I hope it was cheap.

1. It uses h.263 for video
2. the resolution is only CIF at best
3. it uses the outdated h.323 standard for telephony

The only way to get nice big high quality video is with a CPU that can handle it.
You will be hard pressed to find that in a stand alone device.

Thanks Skibum for the heads up. Being a video rookie wondering if you could walk me through them somehow to put them intro perscepctive with more recenly standards.

In doing some reseach it does look like H.263 is a older codec but will in wide use, especially around IP video phones. In you opinions where would you say things are headed standards-wise?

I came across this product also ($180usd): 'http://www.sysmaster.com/products/set_top_box.php' but it is also H.263 video and probably would require a software switch (maybe Asterisk as that supports SIP and H.263) to be hosted somewhere. Plus it is a CMOS sensor.

I'm still suprised with the availability of broadband, and it would seem large TV's now days, that a device like this isn't more prevelent yet. Why does everyone think this is the case?

 

[BryanE]

I'm still suprised with the availability of broadband, and it would seem large TV's now days, that a device like this isn't more prevelent yet. Why does everyone think this is the case?

I think it goes back to people being uncomfortable getting their picture taken. Magnify that times 10 with video and it may explain why products like this haven’t taken off. I’ve worked for companies where video chats are a daily occurrence and I still prefer simply talking on the phone. As we move forward into a world where every corner/person has some type of video recording device you would think this type of product would be more prevalent.

Bandwidth has also been a longstanding issue and while we have much larger pipes now, most ISP’s restrict upload speeds which dramatically degrade voice/video. Especially when you start talking about doing HD video chats.

Here is a peak at a product that does what you’ve described… for a price.

http://www.lifesize.com/products/lifesize_express/