posted 18 December 2002 04:11 AM            

But price is another issue that I see at least in Japan when it comes to wider deployment of videoconferencing technology in corporate organizations and alike.

That is why NEC just recently released in Japan their new low-end inexpensive set-tops into Japanese market for example to address those who want inexpensive endpoints and can compromise on the quality of video and audio.
This is another segment of video market that you can not overlook.

posted 18 December 2002 05:27 AM               

The second picture in the article showed a man in the "pink" about his decision.

I must respectfully disagree with the post from Mr. Hashimoto concerning the need to serve the low cost low quality market. There is no low quality market for videoconferencing and thhere never will be one. The product from NEC will suceed when it is low cost and has superb quality. That day will come as the size of transistors migrates to the atomic level.

posted 18 December 2002 06:35 AM            

Anyway,I appreciate your disagreement on my post.
Why I post my comments so often is to get feedback on these, who have different perspectives from mine, which is good for me to make issues in my head move forward.

<<The product from NEC will suceed when it is low cost and has superb quality.>>

That is what we want in the marketplace.I totally agree. That is absolutely what I wanted to say.Thank you.

But I know that some people in Japan said to me," We want inexpensive set-tops, but 6,500USD worth set-tops(which is said to be entry models) are too expensive for us."

And one manager in a big Japanese company with letters starting with "O" not zero,said to me,"We are now using Tandberg systems at some locations, but as we have hundreds of branches in and out of Japan, we want to have set-tops more but since the list price for set-tops is at least 6,500USD(maybe sometime bit lower as they get discounts from resellers),it is unjustifiable to us. If we in the marketplce have 1000UDS set-tops whose quality and functions are equal to that of set-tops sold at 6,500USD to 10,000USD, we definately buy more.That is what we want."

Some small business owers said to me,"If we can see people on the screen okay, that is fine with us. It is ok, if it is not as good as Polycom or Tandberg etc..We can compromise on the quality of the box, but not on cost."

The NEC will start shipping the set-tops from December 24th this year(looks like only in Japan), and people like that already issued POs to NEC(according to them)

Universal Industrial(Taiwan) is trying to break into Japan market. People already used to the quality of high-end Polycom and Tandberg do not seems to be satisfied with UI's set-tops in terms of video and audio quality when I talked to such people. It may be a difficult start for them in Japan market since Polycom and Sony and NEC(not Tandberg so far it may be surprising to you, but their business seems picking up strongly)are dominant players and especially difficult to break into segments well-exposed to again Tandberg and Polycom etc..

However, UI seems to be capturing such people or companies(not as many as the video giants) that I mentioned previously, and they are very cost sensitive but can compromise on the quality,features,functionality parts.
But as for features and functions,UI's boxes are almost same as that of Polycom SP.

Anyway,Prices for NEC's set-tops roughly ranges from 1300USD to 2500USD and they have 3 models. The cost difference is based on whether a set-top has video camera or not and external microphone and speaker or not.
It only supports H.261, not H.263 etc.. and it runs on 128kbps on H.320 and 512kbps on H.323. It may not support lip-syc.(not confirmed)

Anyway,I will be interested in how they(NEC and UI) will manage to sell their set-tops in Japan.

Keis

FYI, UI's Japan partner is Navelsystem based in Tokyo and its president is former PictureTel Japan president.

posted 18 December 2002 10:34 AM               

I agree with Mr. Friedel that quality cannot be compromised. Living with sub par video/audio quality over time becomes unacceptable from several perspectives. Poorly designed codecs or “cheaper versions” of mainstream video systems have the potential to significantly degrade the user experience. For example, part of what can be appealing with video conferencing is the illusion of natural conversation. That is aided by three factors: superior audio, low latency, and a high quality video picture.

1. Acoustics and Audio Perception: There is a concept known as “listening fatigue factor”. In short, it is a scale of how much extra work the brain does in matching the sound to the source. Poor quality audio can create inner discord that fatigues the listener over time. The poorer quality the audio then, the harder we must work to interpret what we hear. The harder the brain works, the shorter the attention span. Apply this theory to video conferencing and one understands that lower quality audio will make for a less than satisfying experience which over time will become physically and emotionally draining to bear, especially on international calls where participants are attempting to discern words through thick foreign accents. One should not have to work hard to listen to some one speak. Humans however are very adaptive and thus spend a lot of the time filling in the blank because of poor intelligibility. Eventually one will disassociate the sound from the person speaking.

2. Video Clarity: A high quality video picture tricks the viewer into believing that what they see is a localized experience rather than a picture sent over a great distance. The participant senses that the image has “presence” which immediately imparts warmth and naturalness to the experience. A sub par picture immediately implies that the picture is “transmitted” and unreal, hence reducing the realness of the experience.

3. Latency: One of the more annoying experiences of video conferencing is the 100-200ms delay associated with the experience. It is simply not natural for two people speaking to have to pause a several seconds in between speaking. A less expensive video solution would no doubt have that issue. The Polycom iPower systems have done a wonderful job of virtually eliminating this problem, at least between like systems.

In conclusion I would say that the “cheap alternative” to prevailing systems in the market would only hurt the perception of videoconferencing as a viable business alternative. Without high quality, there really is no alternative.

posted 18 December 2002 12:36 PM            

In the first place, I have to tell that you can use these inexpensive set-tops with no problem unless you are so sensitive to the high quality of video and audio. UI and NEC may be using codecs whose quality may be lower than those used in Polycom and Tandberg. But that's it. That is what I meant. And I know some companies in Japan are using UI's set-tops and issued PO to NEC's and they know Polycom and Tandberg VTEL,VCON, Sony etc...because they studied them before buying the set-tops.

<<I would say that the Cheap alternativeEto prevailing systems in the market would only hurt the perception of videoconferencing as a viable business alternative.>>

For those using UI's set-tops, UI's set-tops are viable business alternative.

However,I do not know the answer to the comment.I do not disagree 100% on your comment,jodonnell-san . However, I rather would "like to" see it as possible good trend for this industry help create more demand for this kind of technology into corporate organizations. I do not know again how it will turn out. It is only my assumption.

However,I think that from end user pespective, it means that they have more choices to buy set-tops with the advent of these kinds of set-tops addressing high-end to really low-end.

Customers are no more docile and they are becoming knowledgable about this technology gradually, so they know that in the marketplace there are high quality videoconferencing systems around, but some people tend to think that oh,well, we want to buy them but because of budgetary reasons, we cannot affort so we buy inexpensive ones.

I do not think that they are stupid people who know nothing. Every end users of Polycom and Tadnberg and Sony that I interviewed so far in Japan said to me in chorus "we studied other vendors as well before we decided on this."

If budget allows, they can buy high quality videoconferencing, but if not like small business but still need set-tops can buy these inexpensive set-tops. The list price is within their budgetary reach.

I am using PictureTel used set-top in my SOHO office, but I bought it at Yahoo Japan Auction at 170USD equivalent Japanese yen. The product was perfect no scratch or anything missing.Otherwise, I am sure I buy either UI's or NEC's as they are much cheaper than low-end Viewstation for example in terms of list price.

keis
2:20am December 19,2002 JST +9GMT