advice please

[agsb]

read some of the threads already.

we are a languages school based in the uk

want to do VC to china, france, maybe some others. i dont know what they have on there end, though we will try n recommend if possable. Nor do i know there net connection speed, bandwidth.

it should be ip to ip though.

we have a good connection to the net dedicated v lan at 512 just for vc from our council.

we also want to make use of a site called www.global-leap.com

i think they are polycom equipment.


main criteria is classroom to classroom

maybe..i say maybe multi points in the future

so what u guys recommed?

im looking at polycom vsx 7000 or tanberg 770

thanks

[George]

Hi there agsb,

The problem I see with your problem is that you don't have enough info :)

Go ahead and find out what they have on their end and what their connectivity is like then come back here and let us know. That way the professionals here on VTCTalk can make better recommendations based on compatibility and endpoint bandwidth limitations.

Oh yeah and welcome to the community! We love having new members join up and get right down to business. Keep em coming!

[agsb]

unfortuantly im in the same situation.

ive repeatedly asked for info regurading these schools but none seems forthcoming from the language director :(

given that and our other priority of global leap, what would be your recommedation if possble with this lack of info.

global leap use polycom and i think is defaulted to 128k over ip

[tom9933]

Since it sounds like your calls speeds are going to be around 128k I would recommend getting a system that supports H.264. Beyond that, either system should work for basic audio and video connectivity. Normally the big factors when choosing between different manufactures are cost, ease of use (the interface), expandability and support. On these points you will generally get a different answer depending on who you ask the questions to. We use the Polycom products, but many others on this board use Tandberg and several other brands not mentioned in this post.
Beyond the choice of codec I think your bigger issue is going to come down to the rest of the equipment in the room. Also coming from a distance education environment I can tell you that the codec is only a very small part of a classroom system. Are you working with an integrator or are you designing the system in-house? I know both of the manufactures offer “education” packages and they tend to be ok for small rooms, but you will most likely need to go beyond this in larger rooms.

[agsb]

i think the interface for eg mic inputs allow more flexabilty on the tanberg ie its a standard mic input.

so if we break the mic ( hope we dont lol) we can plug one in from music dept quite easily.

the council and the isp have done a deal for tanberg, so i think the support for tanberg will be good and will also put in a gateway for peeps if they need to break out to isdn.

on the testing i did i didnt find any difference in performance between the products, there may be some but as far as our testing went they both worked well.

both looked fine. if it was price driven id go polycom. but we have the budget for tanberg.

the classroom is all done and will have the necessary networking for a unit.

projector etc its just a choice of which codec.

the codec will eventually be moved between a set of rooms that will allow VC, depending on who books it out.

i think im headed to tanberg, dont have time to assess sony now.