Matthew Stibbe's Homepage Writer Everything I've Written Videoconferencing Videoconferencing

Headlines:
This is a summary of webcam and low-end video conferencing equipment.

Video conferencing has always promised more than it delivers.  Traditionally, the equipment is expensive to buy, tricky to install and costly to run.  Not only that, but you have to buy a system for both ends of the conversation because it is far from ubiquitous.  The benefits, however, promise to be enormous – especially in saving costly travel.  So I have always been fascinated by the prospect of desktop videoconferencing.  The idea is to save money by using a PC to do a lot of the expensive processing and using an office network and Internet connection instead of expensive ISDN lines to transmit the data.  This brings the cost from thousands down to hundreds of pounds, making it much easier to make available to more people.

I looked at three systems, ranging from the most expensive PC-based system to the cheapest.  The top of the line equipment is Polycom’s ViaVideo (www.polycom.com/products/viavideo.html).  This costs around £400 in the UK.  It earns its keep by including a specialised graphics processor in the camera itself which significantly improves picture quality and frame rate.  It also has a built-in noise-cancelling microphone to improve sound quality.  Like the other systems I reviewed, it plugs into a PC using a USB port and relies on the PC’s own Internet connection to transmit and receive data.  Using its own custom software, rather than the ubiquitous Microsoft NetMeeting (www.microsoft.com/netmeeting) it puts up a full-size image on the screen which runs at a good frame rate given a reasonable connection.  The minimum speed is 64kb/s which rules out a dial-up modem connection but I found it worked much better with 128kb/s or more.  The software was stable and easy to use once it was up and running.  However, I had a couple of minor teething problems installing everything and I suspect that in a corporate environment it will require the services of an expert to set it all up.

At the bottom end of the scale is the Intel Connect and Share camera (www.intel.com/pccamera).  This is very good value at about £60.  It works with NetMeeting to do videoconferencing and it comes with a lot of its own software to allow you to make and edit videos and also create a web cam by uploading images every few seconds to a constantly updating web page.  This will be useful for anyone who wants to stage their own version of Big Brother.  It even has a port so you can plug in a camcorder and digitise video.  As you’d expect from the price, it has its limitations – the most noticeable being relatively low frame rate and picture quality.  Also, it does not run under Windows 2000 which is a big limitation for me since that is what I use normally.  The third system is 3Com’s PC Digital Web Cam.  This is a little more expensive that the Intel system at about £90, but it runs under Windows 2000 and has an improved picture quality and frame rate.  It also looks a bit more professional and business-like. 

Setting up NetMeeting and its friend MSN Messenger Service was pretty straightforward and I tested it with a friend of mine who also has an ADSL connection.  The picture quality was noticeably poorer with the two cheaper systems than ViaVideo and the NetMeeting crashed several times.  However, with a more controlled environment and a consistent hardware set-up at both ends, this should be easily prevented.  NetMeeting is a powerful package which is available free from Microsoft.  It not only does video conferencing but also lets you share and edit documents in real time and transfer files.  People can participate in conferences even if they don’t have a camera – they can see video and they can speak or type to participate.  Because it is free and is being shipped with new PCs and Windows releases, it is pretty close to ubiquitous even if most people don’t know they have it.  MSN Messenger (www.msn.co.uk/messenger) is a useful adjunct that lets you track when friends and colleagues are available at the computer and lets you send real time text messages to them.  NetMeeting uses this to help set up conferences but it also allows for free voice-over-IP telephone calls and text messaging.  In itself it is a useful piece of software, and again it is free.  To make all these systems work you’ll need a reasonably high-spec PC with a sound card, speakers and a mike plus a reasonable Internet connection.  The Intel and 3Com systems will work on a dial-up but very poorly.  However, most corporate networks have plenty of bandwidth for internal calls and enough Internet connectivity to dial out effectively.

Although it is not strictly a videoconferencing product, I also looked at the Axis 2100 Network Camera (www.axis.com, distributed in the UK by EthernetCCTV.com among others).  This is a good quality web camera, but unlike the other systems I looked at, it does not need a PC to work.  Instead it has its own cut-down webserver built in to the camera and plugs straight into a network socket or a modem.  Once installed and connected, anyone can connect to it over the Internet or LAN from any web browser and get a continuously updated video image.  At about £300 a unit, this is good value compared to a conventional CCTV camera and potentially much more useful.  For instance, the front door at IG was locked outside office hours but often people would arrive early for interviews or whatever and ring the bell because no-one was in reception.  On a good day two or three people would leave their desks and go to open the door, on a bad day, no-one would.  With a 2100 camera in reception, everyone in the office could have looked at the website when they heard the door bell ring and see if someone else was answering the door. 

I think that desktop conferencing over the Internet is potentially a very useful business tool.  Adding a cheap web cam to a PC makes the experience richer and more personal without necessarily giving the full benefit of a traditional video conferencing system (although ViaVideo comes close).  However, at the price of the low-end systems it is so cheap to install that it is worth doing so on spec to see if it is any good.