OS and Software > No, I Will Not Fix Your #@$!! Computer > Looking for info on video conferencing/webinars

Looking for info on video conferencing/webinars

Is it a one time event or will these be regular / semi-regular events?

You may want to check into Verizon Business and their Webex Conferencing tools.
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This will be an ongoing thing. We would like to hold online trainings every month or 2 for distributors that can't make it to our building for training. We would also like to hold sales conferences with distributors around the world. We have a lot of distributors in South America and in the middle east and we would like to hold live conferences with them to go over our products.

Also, with myself being on the tech support end, if a customer calls and needs help with something I would like them to be able to log in and see my camera and this way I can point it to something in my shop and walk them through a problem rather than just trying to explain it on the phone.

reply to happy4ya
Your selected choice seems reasonable, but given that you didn't actually provide what the needs are, it's a hit in the dark for answers. What part are you actually playing in this setup, are you simply interested or performing?

A webcam is predominately futile, for a business environment, a dedicated (TV) LCD would be more appropriate, in a conference or meeting room.

Here are some points that should be included for others to provide feedback:
• Size of business and perhaps line of business.
• Available funds for the project. Approximate.
• How many and where are the contacts, local, State, National or International.
• Access/ availability of broadband and or bandwidth allocation.

For ongoing interaction, consider Sharepoint.

The company I work for builds all different products for the medical market. Between the 7 or 8 divisions there are hundreds of products. Right now we do trainings in our NY location where our distributors send their service techs in and we provide classroom type and hands on training on our equipment. In our corporate building in Canada, they have a showroom and every few months they have distributors salespeople fly in from all over the world and they do sales presentations, Q&A sessions and tech support all together.

We are moving to a larger building this week in NY and we will be duplicating the showroom they have in Canada down here. We are also building a larger training facility in our new building. My boss wants to eliminate a lot of the traveling and hold online sales conferences where there will be a speaker doing the presentation but not sitting at a desk.....probably walking around the showroom and going over different products. That's why I was thinking a wireless clip on mic and wondering if there was something better than a webcam for this. I was thinking more along the lines of a video camera on a rolling tripod but with a wireless mic (sorta like shooting a movie but on a much cheaper scale).

Also, either myself or my boss would be doing online trainings for the service people who cannot make it to our facility in person....the camera would be out in the training area so I could show someone how to disassemble and change out parts on an air compressor or other components.

I'm not sure what the price range would even start at for this type of setup so we don't really have a budget yet but I'm thinking since the hosting of the online meetings will probably be through an online provider like the one I listed in my first post and there is not much cost there, I will need the following items to get started:

•Good camera
•Good microphone
•A computer to connect hardware to and run the online seminars
•A few cable drops in different locations of the building to connect the camera/mic to
•A few monitors so we could see the people on the other end if they have webcams too and want to join in.

I am the only one in my building who knows computers, A/V and a lot of electronics well so I will be the one either designing the system or working with someone to design it. I will also be using the system to do tech support and training sessions with customers I deal with every day. Sorry for the long post but I hope this gives everyone a better idea of we are looking to do.

Given your situation it would be wise to get a consultant in, I don't actually work with what you are describing, but do as an end user, two 50" LCD's hooked to various and sundry contact points between two separate points locally and Nationally there are also setups to "phone" into. Now this is where a webcam actually comes in and I'm sure that unit alone is a few hundred and sits on one of the two TV's and a flat microphone sits mid room. A dedicated broadband connection is available.

Then a laptop is used to hook for PowerPoint presentations and that I am involved with, unfortunately

I'm sure somebody around here has experience, though. Perhaps the AV forum? »Audio/Video Chat

Or/ perhaps Virtual Private Networking »Virtual Private Networking

Cheers

reply to happy4ya
I've moved this into the "Enterprise Admins" forum - hoping that some of the experts here have specific experience in setting up this type of thing.

reply to happy4ya
While I've not played a role in setting something like this up myself, I have been on the receiving end and I can't stress the importance of a quality camera enough.
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reply to happy4ya
oovoo?

reply to happy4ya
Forget a webcam. I would get a proper video camera, a wireless lapel microphone which could output to either a quarter-inch or XLR plug (preferrably directly to the camera), and video capture setup on a computer.

Audio Technica makes some decent quality equipment that won't break the bank. But Sennheiser is da bomb

reply to happy4ya
Disclaimer:
I've never set something like this up but 'eLearning' is my thing. I've worked in video production a bit but, while no live streaming yet, I have discussed and read about this stuff. As to why we don't implement it, see further down. This is all IMU (in my understanding).

Hardware:
- definitely a solid camera with digital/firewire output to a computer which will then send that stream to the conferencing server. An older Canon XL1 would likely do just fine.

- good lapel mic. Wireless is nice for freedom but if there's interference and the sound scrambles or cuts out, that sucks. For our video shoots, which are generally pretty static, we use wired lavalieres. If your subject will be moving, go wireless but have a wired, hot backup shotgun mic (actually, have a second audio channel backup regardless).

- fast computer (not hard these days) for forwarding the AV stream out to the video conferencing server. You could have that server in-house but then you want REALLY WIDE bandwidth. Upside of sending the stream out to a datacenter is all customers connect to the DC, not your in-house computer. But even with just that forwarding server, you gotta have decent, reliable upload speed (5mbps min, though depends on the quality of video your sending).

Then of course, don't discount good lighting and overall set environment.

Software:
- There's lots of video conferencing software. Some is designed for your desktop and assumes a local Windows Digital Management (WDM) connection. Others are more 'server' based and meant to take live streams from external sources.

Do you know if you're looking for an 'installed' or 'hosted' solution?

DimDim is a decent open source web conferencing tool.
»www.dimdim.com

Adobe Connect Pro is a well-regarded tool used by many high $$ corporations with the ability to setup a variety of 'rooms' and schedules. It's Flash based so the whole plug-in/client-platform thing is largely taken care of. However, it's not cheap I've heard.
»www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro

Cisco WebEx is The Tool, if only because of widespread use, not necessarily because of features. I've little exposure to it.
»www.webex.com

WebTrain is a lower-cost version of WebEx. Not sure if it can be installed - may be a hosted-only solution... I've used that a bit and it suitable for basic screen sharing. I've never tried video through it.
»www.webtrain.com

I've not come across LiveConferencePro before but it seems similar to the above tools. It may be just as good...

Now, as to why we've never explored this space more deeply - live web conferences definitely have their benefits, largely in the ability to ask questions, receive answers, and have a live chat. As noted above, this space is well-covered (surely by many more vendors than I've listed).

However, in the eLearning world, fixed-time sessions (classroom or web) have the limitation of being, well, fixed time. Getting folks to coordinate schedules can be a challenge in itself, and if your audience is global...who's giving the 2am presentations for the customers in Asia?

Unless there's a real need for real-time conferencing, our recommendation is generally to invest in a professional recording of a well-rehearsed, properly set-up, ideal presentation and record it (in a studio if appropriate). Then just provide that via the web.

You could just stick it on your website. Or you could put it into a Learning Management System that allows registrations, invitations, schedules, user/group management, tracking, reports, even eCommerce options if desirable.

Now I'm getting into the sales part, so I'll stop. If that interests you, IM me via this site and happy to consult on the pre-recorded aspect. If definitely want to do live web conferences, well, freely drop a line anyway. I've probably got a more experience contact or two I could direct you to...
Hope that helps!
KM

edit: I should also mention, there are also (of course) turnkey systems for these sorts of things. Two I've heard of are the ever-present Polycom
»www.polycom.com

and R-Hub
»www.rhubcom.com

I've never seen or know anyone who has the R-Hub system but have been in Polycom systems at a couple FedGov buildings. They're pretty sweet, though by nature pretty much point-to-point I think (in other words, all participants must have the same hardware).

I can't imagine either are 'cheap'.

Thanks for all the good info. The owner definitely wants to do some live conferences and presentations. We will probably be doing some pre-recorded ones too and putting them on the company website and probably even recording some of the live ones so people who missed them can see them at their convenience.

I figured we would be using something like LiveConferencePro for the hosting or maybe another service but I know we would need a good camera, a good microphone (or two) and definitely a dedicated computer to connect all of this to. We have Optimum Online with Boost so I'm pretty sure we won't have speed problems and if we do we can move to Fios.

Does that Canon XL1 camcorder stream live video through the firewire cable? I used to have a Sony that had firewire and USB but it only streamed live via USB. Do they make wireless microphones for the computer that connect via USB or would I just get one that plugs into the mic in on the sound card? Would the onboard sound be ok for this or would I need a better soundcard with extra inputs? I've used some of this type of equipment before but just not a setup that was run through a computer like this so I'm not sure what's out there.

The audio via USB or soundcard would be a concern if you're going for a basic 'webcam' only. But with a 'real' camera like the XL1 (and that was hi-end a couple years ago, there are surely fancier ones now, but our XL1 works just fine) the audio inputs are on the camera.

That way the audio and video is mixed at the source. Sync can often be a problem with separate audio/video inputs. Far better to feed through the camera then out to the computer....
And the XL1 (and cameras like it) have two audio inputs, of course (XLR connections, I believe).

I'm pretty sure, though not positive, such cameras can live stream out over the firewire connection. As we prerecord most all our stuff, I've not actually tried that...
(I leave the deeper camera research capabilities to you
KM
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reply to KoolMoe
We have a PolyCom unit that we purchased last year. As was stated before, they are not cheap. Ours is a HD unit, so if the remote side has the capability, the video conference is in HD. Most of the time though, we run ours at a lower quality to make it nicer for everyone else that is using the network.

I believe that the final price for it was around 20,000, But the higher ups that bought it had the idea for a second camera at 4,000.

While you have to have a similar unit on the remote end, it doesn't have to be the same unit. That means if you have a PolyCom unit, you can attach to a V-Tel unit.

They are very nice units, although ours sit in a cabinet most of the time.

reply to happy4ya
For video conferencing you should look at:

»www.lifesize.com/

Did actually got a couple of units for a month at 2 locations to demo from the company
The units the sent us to demo were:
»www.lifesize.com/Products/Video/···220.aspx

I'm currently testing this for video conference on a PC:
»www.lifesize.com/Products/Video/···top.aspx

Purchased a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 and downloaded the software for a 30 day free trial.

Both products produce excellent video. On the life size Room series 2 management groups stopped using a phone conference bridge and went straight to video conference to work and developed next years budget. The used video conferencing several times a week.

Work so well that 2 units are currently budgeted for 2010.

reply to happy4ya
I haven't responded in a few days so I just wanted to say thanks for the info you guys have been providing. I'm checking out all the links and info posted....thanks for the help. At least I have a start now.

reply to happy4ya
I just went to a conference training on the new Polycom systems for remote conferencing, very, very impressive and powerful software/image resolution. They are able to share desktops, powerpoints, and spilt the screen to still show the presenter, the mic units are insanely good. I mean I was very impressed by the whole system it was reasonably priced for a business class system, and performed kick-ass.

They even offer a CMA Desktop IM app that includes video conferencing that was pretty damn sweet.

Of course as with anything now days there are loads of choices but you have to figure out what fits your needs best. I have the contact info of the rep that held the training w/ us if you want it....

What is the connectivity requirement for 'kick-ass' performance?
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Well per the presentation full HD video w/ desktop sharing as well was around 1MB up and down.

reply to KoolMoe
One big thing that everyone forgot to mention, is lighting. An XL1, DVX-xxx, or any of the prosumer miniDV cameras are great quality, but will look like crap under office lighting. Everything will be somewhat washed out, grainy, and you won't be able to get good clarity when doing closeups on the equipment you're demonstrating.

All the prosumer cameras will give you "live" video and audio over firewire, but you'll have to tinker with them a bit and make sure the one you pick can be configured to not shut itself down when there's no tape in it.

The Sennheiser G1 stuff might be available cheap. I'd imagine that you could get a good used prosumer DV camera and a good used wireless setup for under $3K - you want to buy used stuff from a reputable place that deals in used gear and has an in-house repair shop (I like G&G in Secaucus).

On top of that you'll want to add a few cheap softbox lights and a decent tripod (optionally add a dolly if you have to move the camera around).

Personally, I'd hire a video guy to set this up and train someone. You also have to consider whether there's in-house talent to actually run all this stuff during a presentation...

I'd be tempted to go with a two camera setup, one for the speaker, one for closeups. A cheap way to handle source switching with two cameras would be to do that in the analog realm, there are fairly affordable analog video switchers available - I doubt most of the conferencing software is able to cleanly switch between two inputs.
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