Topic: Interview with Craig Malloy - Lifesize Communications
jodonnell Sr. Member
Posts: 51 From: Simsbury, CT 06070 Since: Feb 2001
posted 19 May 2006 03:58 PM
First, let me say I know and admire Craig Malloy for his achievements both as the co-creator of via video which soon became the Viewstation to the first high definition products on the market with LifeSize. However, a few of his comments in his recent interview with Andrew Davis I think went a bit beyond hyperbole and marketing.
For example:
“The main reason that most video calls are made at 384Kbps-512Kbps is that the picture never gets any better even if you call at 2Mbps”.
786kbps absolutely handles motion better than a 384kbps call, especially when some walks across a room for example.
“CIF is CIF and video calls look like a VHS tape that you left out in the yard all winter.”
What? A 512kbps call using the H.264 video algorithm with Siren audio is an excellent quality call and far from VHS tape left in the yard.
Regarding resellers and end-users and the 1MB requirements for high definition video: “We have spoken to hundreds of resellers and endusers and bandwidth is rarely, if ever, an issue.”
I find that hard to believe. Is he saying that MOST companies can run 10-12 video calls simultaneously at 1MB each without issues?
“We make hundreds of calls a week to locations around the globe over the open internet at 1-2Mbps and in the vast majority of cases, the calls are perfect, without any packet loss.”
Gee, then why does GlowPoint even exist? Is QOS a fairy tale? Across the globe at 1MB with no packet loss???? Over what bandwidth? Must be many hops, so I doubt it.
Just my two cents.
------------------ Joseph A. O'Donnell Value Connect Technologies
posted 09 June 2006 10:38 AM
Yeah, this post pretty much sums up my reaction to that interview as well. There was so much misinformation in that interview that it probably should have been scrapped. People are entitled to have opinions about issues of course, but at some level of incompetence opinions get flat out wrong and misleading and should be edited out.
When making unorthodox statements, such as 384 being the quality ceiling for CIF(in reality, it is just adequare for talking heads, assuming the heads don't move much, going to 768 is a vast improvement in most cases), it's common practice to require whoever makes the statement to back it up with some kind of data that indicates that the statement is correct. If they can't supply that, they don't really deserve journalistic attention at all.
posted 09 June 2006 03:54 PM
It seems like everytime that LifeSize is mentioned most of what comes back is sour grapes (perhaps from jealous competitors). Remember these are the same guys that started VideoTelecom (VTEL), Via Video and then propelled Polycom into the VC market where they became, and still are, the market leader. I would venture to say that these guys know what they are talking about. I would also venture to say that they had a hand in developing the very standards that Craig was talking about. I can't recall one product that was introduced in this market that ever lived up to its pre-intro hype. Those that never made it there are no longer around. Time will tell if LifeSize has it right, but I am not betting against them.
quote:Originally posted by miked: It seems like everytime that LifeSize is mentioned most of what comes back is sour grapes (perhaps from jealous competitors). Remember these are the same guys that started VideoTelecom (VTEL), Via Video and then propelled Polycom into the VC market where they became, and still are, the market leader. I would venture to say that these guys know what they are talking about. I would also venture to say that they had a hand in developing the very standards that Craig was talking about. I can't recall one product that was introduced in this market that ever lived up to its pre-intro hype. Those that never made it there are no longer around. Time will tell if LifeSize has it right, but I am not betting against them.
I have to say that Joseph A. O'Donnell is spot on. There can be no discussion about this. It is crazy to pretend the Internet has that wide, unused space globally.
Miked, I can understand that if all the customers are on the same provider, or just US, the picture can look pretty good, but globally this is "horse piss". Purelye misleading! The worrying part is that some companies may believe the propaganda. The day they have no connection, like the day an incident makes more traffic on the network, or just a new routing to a not so back bone thick provider, what does this company do then? If you want to base your business with video as an important part, you need to make sure it works EVERY TIME, especially in times of crises: therefore you need to buy VPN (leased lines or MPLS). They also need to be dedicated for real time traffic so presentations and video can go as smooth as possible. Just to remind you, a 2MB connection easily costs 3 000USD in most cities in Asia (MOM, Thailand, Jakarta, etc. are at least double the price). Data traffic is very important for many companies, so no one can tell me that it is like that. There are only a few deregulated markeds in in Asia (HKG and Singapore and 1 or two more), Europe is not so great either. US needs to lift up their baseball cap and see what the situation really is, globally. I have worked with 4 global network, so I have some experience with local loop cost and WAN cost.
Craig is just wrong, apart from a few US situations. I can easily give you a few examples where it will not work so good in US either. It all depends on the IP GW between the ISP's, not all of them are that big.
It is not sour grapes reacting on what is not true. I would ask Lifesize to just say iy as is, no need to make a lot of unhappy customers. This is supposed to be a Forum where people get to know how it really is, take away all the sales hype.
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posted 19 May 2006 03:58 PM
