posted 18 April 2005 08:22 AM            

I am very intrested in the product line. The question is how do you get an already established VTC environment with SD VTC utilizing lower bandwidth calls to upgrade to a higher bandwidth system. The organization I work for would greatly benefit from this.

posted 18 April 2005 12:33 PM            

AndyN (or anybody else) do you know if the $11,999 MSRP for the LifeSize Room product includes H.239, High Resolution, and the embedded MCU? These are the options the other vendors kill you on.

posted 18 April 2005 01:15 PM            

I mean think about it,why pay over $30k for a Tandberg 6000 with MCU and Dual Streaming and CIF quality when the LifeSize gives you a bigger MCU, dual streaming as standard, a beautiful looking device, a speaker phone built in, oh and 10X the quality.

Now one could argue that Polycom could drop their prices massively and hopefully (for them) get out of LifeSizes way. Can't see how Tandberg can do that. After all they've always played the quality pitch. Now that looks very very second hand compared to the LifeSize proposition.

Think there's a moral to this story. Concentrate on making yourself better, not on your direct competitors. As someone wise once said. "If you don't reinvent yourself every three years someone else will do it for you". Well Polycom and Tandberg, it seems to me, the games up boys.

Better start inventing.

posted 19 April 2005 04:45 AM            

You can clearly see that the products on display are prototypes and not the real thing.

What is important to us is reliability it is no good having good quality if the hardware or software keeps falling over.

In summary;

It's not very cheap certainly, not as cheap as I was expecting.

We certainly wouldn't risk buying any sort of product from a company with no track record no matter how good the “Emperor's new Clothes” speech is.

And in hindsight who would buy products from dotcom start-up.

Better quality video comes way behind my requirements for robustness and reliability, strong company behind it interoperability etc etc.

What a let down and I thought this product was supposed to be revolutionary…. can't see a revolution.

oohh and a speaker phone........how 90's

Just my two cents………..

posted 19 April 2005 10:44 AM            

Any fairly recent high end codec(tandberg/polycom etc) has the processing power to deliver at least DVD resolution in real time(and possibly more depending on the compression algorithm). This means that in the next software revisions from the established manufacturers you will most likely see their "live" resolutions at high bandwidths beefed up to compare better with LifeSize on paper.

In practice however, this is a near-useless feature. The only practical application of such technology today are the few high end installations that have complete control over the remote site and no concern about call economy.

posted 19 April 2005 12:08 PM               

I don't agree with the comments that this will "hurt Polycom and simply murder Tandberg". Both companies have aggressive R & D departments and I have to believe that they have similar products in the labs now. They're probably going to wait to see what the appetite is for HD videoconferencing and then ramp up production to meet the demand.

Large companies, including ours, can't simply "forklift" their existing endpoints and infrastructure and replace it with HD. At best, this will be an add-on or overlay to existing networks--at least at the beginning.

posted 19 April 2005 01:39 PM            

I agree Ztrobe on the business world side. At the business level, 1 meg would be rare, and their codec is not going to be able to do anything magical compared to the competitors.

If the product is solid, I think the HD camera and the price will make a huge dent in the industry that will only be good for the customer.

posted 20 April 2005 09:42 AM            

Conferencing phone, how 90's? What sort of statement is that? What do you use? bean tins of strings or perhaps telepathy?

Find it odd when people say we've waited two years and that's it? What did you expect, teleportation? Or perhaps the sort of stunning marchs in technology as displayed their competitors.

It's unreliable? Bit of a sweeping statement considering none of us have seen it yet. Anyway I don't remember the existing manufacturers products being that rock solid now. Of course it might be unrealible but saying so before actually seeing it seems a little unfair.

Start up company. True, but a well backed and well led one with a great track record. It's not like Kenoyer and Malloy haven't done this before. And there is the small point there EVERY company was a startup once, doesn't seem to have hurt Microsoft, Cisco or Toyota.

I can't believe these guys are simply running Nexperia's or Equator chips. Perhaps they are running the same chipset as the Codian (not that I know what that is but it seems a very powerful chip) If that is true is seems extremely unlikely that the existing players can simply do a minor tweak in SW and match them. For a start their cameras couldn't cope. To my knowledge none of the existing players make their own it seems likely that it might take a while to catch up.

As for quality not being important, well in Healthcare and Educaion and other industries many people have rejected VTC completely as it's simply not good enough for their requirements. Wonder if this will be? I think CIF was acceptable on a 27inch TV, but it looks awful on a 61inch plasma. Bigger screen bigger warts. With 10x the resolution that should be solved. It certainly looks ok down at Best Buy on the HD TV's there.

Seeing is believing I guess. They are at the Interop show in Vegas in May, guess it's worth having a look then.

posted 22 April 2005 06:34 AM            

The point of the matter is that buying equipment from a start-up is far riskier than purchasing from an established company.

My organisation has been burned many times listening to" wow look at the quality of that, isn't it great type statements...cant you see it(Emperor's new Clothes)" and the reality is the organisation had very few staff spread thinly. A few months later the company doesn't get acquired by a larger company which is typically why start-ups are constructed these days. Then it goes belly up leaving me with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unsupported equipment.

I also find your response hilarious about the health care industry let me tell you that reliability is far more important to the health-care industry than quality.

After all I certainly wouldn't want to have any type of health-care stuff done to me if the equipment is brand new and unproven. “Sorry sir although we could see your kidney in superduperturboplus high resolution(Cant you see it WOW!! Cool) we actually cut the wrong one off because the call kept falling over and then the hardware failed completely. We were using flaky new hardware which was a prototype bar of soap ago three months ago"

After the dot-com era. My organisation has a strict policy that an organisation must be in business for least two years before we can even look at their products. It's a policy that has proven itself time and time again.

posted 23 April 2005 11:39 AM            

Frankly I'm amazed you bothered even commenting on the product at all really. After all you said yourself it doesn't matter to you as you not even going to look at it for two more years.

I'm sure you and the super reliable existing systems will be very happy together.

posted 24 April 2005 11:19 PM               

quote:

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Guy you must have been the guy buying PictureTel Concordes in 2000.

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The Concorde was a good product, they served many customers well. Still a ton of them in the field. I think any manufacturer would be happy to have that situation. You could argue it was the most successful product put out by PictureTel.

Sean

posted 26 April 2005 03:37 PM            

Agree it was the best product put out by PictureTel was the Concorde. Problem was it was so successful that PictureTel didn't want to kill their own revenue stream with the introduction of the Swiftsite.

So Polycom did it for them with the ViewStation.

posted 27 April 2005 05:31 AM               

What they have done is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just as VC quality got better when the industry went from 261 to 263, then to 264, this is just the next step

If you think that Polycom and Tandberg are going to just conceed defeat then I think you are dreaming.

I think Life Size will do just fine. I think Polycom will continue on just fine. I think Tandberg will also continue on just fine. If this expands the market because there is another player, so much the better for all of us.

posted 27 April 2005 07:23 AM               

But I feel LifeSize will not go wrong with all their(Craig Malloy & Michael Kaynoyer's) experience & talent. After all the same guys re-written the industry once with ViewStation & within two years(1998-2000)dethrowned PictureTel to become no 1 & maintained till they left to form Life Size.(&Since Polycom is on the decline on market share, what with VSX design terribly going wrong) & Now Polycom also lacks the proper product profile. Tandberg also need to worry as they cant keep on harping quality & feature front.

All the Lise Size stuff looks good on paper(as I said we need to wait for the field trials)& rightly priced.

Tandberg is really murdered as their stuff is awfully high priced(just an example.. their gateway with on PRI interface costs a bomb $40k... now just look at LifeSize Networker with 4 BRI, 2 PRI & 1 V.35 interface for multi-user costs a good 3 times less at $11,999/- & for single user costs a whopping 20 times less at $1,999/-)

Any answers from Polycom & Tandberg ? I am still waiting.

Pradeep K L
http://www.wainhouse.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000997.html

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I have IT, you have IT & IT works.

posted 27 April 2005 08:56 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by pklingam:
...awfully high priced(just an example.. their gateway with on PRI interface costs a bomb $40k...

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Incorrect, the gateway does not cost $40k USD.

posted 27 April 2005 09:56 AM               

Can you at least give us the indicative ?. I am sure you would agree that Tandberg is not only priced high lacks the flexibility.

I argued with your Tandberg guy the need to have BRI interfaces on a gateway. Just think of it, why does one need to invest in a gateway with PRI interface when the need is for few calls ? Not everyone has PRIs. Even if one has PRI its costs a lot. Better option would be to have a Quad BRI interface on gateway.(It costs a bomb because it has a PRI)& You cant tell the customers that you have PRI interface & they got to provision PRI line only.

------------------
I have IT, you have IT & IT works.

posted 27 April 2005 09:59 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by pklingam:
Thanks Sean for correction.

Can you at least give us the indicative. I am sure you would agree that Tandberg is not only priced high lacks the flexibility.

I argued with your Tandberg guy the need to have BRI interfaces on a gateway. Just think of it, why does one need to invest in gateway with PRI interface when the need is for few calls ? Not everyone has PRIs. Even if one has PRI its costs a lot. Better option would be to have a Quad BRI interface on gateway.(It costs a bomb because it has a PRI)& You cant tell the customers that you have PRI interface & the customer got to provision PRI line only.

---

To get the best feel for our products and solutions, its best if you contact a TANDBERG representative. Web forums are not the best place to explain the value in a product line. Its best done in an interactive manner.

posted 29 April 2005 10:29 AM            

We know that H.264 has been around for awhile.

posted 29 April 2005 10:42 AM            

So my guess is that video makers may be trying to make this HD a differentiating factor in that regards.

posted 30 April 2005 02:06 PM            

If Lifesize really do it it then they will be the first, end of story.

Anyone can put HD on a brochure (VCON) for example.

Think the proof is in the eating.

Las Vegas should be realy really interesting next week.

They Lifesize are as good as they say they (and Wainhouse) say they are then all hell will break lose in this industry. Wonder if Bob Hagerty and Andrew Miller are sleeping well this weekend?

posted 04 May 2005 01:30 PM               

It’s a downside……….. not forgetting I have to pay more in bandwidth to see her in pointless hi resolution

I can see clearly that this is "marketing hype"

posted 05 May 2005 11:48 AM            

Sounds to me like a audio conferencing device would be your best option. Just think of all the money you'd save.

posted 05 May 2005 03:57 PM               

There is no rational argument for why high Definition is applicable for videoconferencing applications. Over and above the perfectly adequate technology available today.

posted 05 May 2005 04:06 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by I can see clearly now:

Anyone seen the stuff working at the N+I show in Vegas, would be very interested in any feedback.

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Yes I saw it working sort of, it wasn't really a proper two way demonstration though.
To be honest I wasn't that impressed there was a lot of look at the quality can't you see it(Emperor's new Clothes). The video product looks a long way from being finished.

I did like the design of the conference phone I would certainly use that instead of the Polycom.

posted 05 May 2005 04:25 PM            

Well you can do this today with all current videoconferencing systems.

posted 05 May 2005 04:36 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by jwulf:
Yep, no rational argument, because I want a doctor looking at not even TV quality images from a scope and making a diagnosis based on those images.

The fact is that HD will not be for everyone, but there are cases where very high resolution images are desireable. the difference can literally be life or death, high quality vs. low quality healthcare in the telehealth world.

---

Diagnosis for radiology must be DICOM 2000 x 2000 pixel, black and white, no compression minimum.

When it comes to live video, motion handling is typically more important than video resolution. For instance when monitoring the flutter of valves in the heart, motion is more important than resolution.

Sean

posted 05 May 2005 11:34 PM            

Tape decks were fine until CD came along, or VHS tape was great right up until DVD's came out.

Quality is a one way progression in my experience.

Anyone going to tel me they prefer VHS or Tape to CD or DVD ??

Broadcast TV, interesting view point.

Tell us more about the phone, sounds like that was impressive then ?? The spec seems amazing but not heard it. Share your experiences, and please anyone else hear / see anything at the show ?

posted 06 May 2005 01:11 AM            

Everyone at the Lifesize stand had that "we know we have something big on our hands " look about them.

The number of polycom guy who were wandering round taking photos with their camera phones was amazing and no one at lifesise seemed to care.

I asked at the Polycom booth to see their promised HD demo but was told it was not being shown at the show.

One comment I did find strange was that polycoms solution will be software upgradable, how to you upgrade a camera to HD using software ?

posted 06 May 2005 02:55 AM               

That's strange about your comment of the HD demo at the Polycom Booth. It was certainly there, I watched Andrew and all the folks from Wainhouse come out of the room it was in. To see it, all you had to do is schedule it at the Registration desk.

posted 06 May 2005 07:12 AM            

Can you give any details, was it comparable to the lifesize offering ?

posted 06 May 2005 01:10 PM            

130k Pixels at 128k
260k pixels at 384k
600k pixels at 512k

Existing systems are 352x288 (101k pixels)

All at 30fps.

So ignoring HD it appears to do better quality at all bandwidths. Of course motion handling matters to, but if they have tons more compute I dodn't see why they can't do it. Anyway if they lied it would all come out soon enough.

Their camera looks pretty special to, so I wonder if that improves the quality of a call to a legacy system ?

8 way HD MCU built in.
Dual Streaming Built in.
Conference Phone Built in (which is apparantly fantastic quality (see above))

Secure management suite

All for $12k.

It also looks great (from the photos)

How much are the Tandberg and Polycom devices ?

Also they have a Multiuser 2xPRI, 4xBRI, 1x V.35 Gateway for $12k, the RAD, Polycom, or Tandberg offerings are all between $35k-$60k I believe.

Honestly I'm only bringing this up because there seems to be a lot of, this is nothing and should be ignored type talk here. You should all ignore the new guys and go back to the same thing you've had for the last 5 years mentality.

I think someone (Wainhouse?) should throw down the gauntlet, and do a shoot out between which ever manufacturers wanted to get involved. Of course if they decline to get involved then we basically know their position. That would stop all the idle speculation.

posted 06 May 2005 02:08 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by I can see clearly now:
...Tandberg offerings are all between $35k-$60k I believe.

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Incorrect.