Polycom VSX5000 vs ?

[ringlis]

I have a client that's asked me to put together a videoconferencing package. We have a small conference room with a projector that would want to conference with 3 or 4 desktop users. Right now I'm thinking a Polycom VSX5000 with People+Content (perhaps a Soundstation 2W) for the conference room and Polycom PVX/Logitech Quickcam Fusions for the desktops.
Requirements:

1. Enterprise hardware designed for a small to medium sized conference room (4 to 8 people)

2. Support for simple integration of IP or POTS voice. (use the Soundstation over telephone line to reduce bandwidth load)

3. Good quality video and audio

4. Pant tilt zoom support (digital ok)

5. Good software package (e.g., is recording, archiving supported? how many users? picture in picture, etc.)

6. Perhaps most importantly, ease of use, basic IT staff need to be able to operate independently

I've priced this setup at about $6000 total CDN from our suppliers. Are there some others I should be considering (Tandberg, Sony PCS-11, Radvision,)?

Are there some potential problems with this configuration?

Any suggestions comments, greatly appreciated. These forums are fantastic, I'll be sure to add a review when we purchase.

[vtcqueen]

Have you thought about the TANDBERG 550 or 770? better quality and more reliable in my experience

[tom9933]

The package you are describing should work ok and support all of the requirements you are describing; however if budget allows, I would consider upgrading two of the components. The VSX 5000 uses an oversized image sensor to simulate a ptz camera, while this works well with a very small room it might be a bit much for a medium sized room. I would recommend a demo of both this unit and a VSX 7000 in your room to determine whether the digital ptz will be adequate.
Another thing to consider is to step up to a VTX 1000 phone so you can integrate the phone and codec together. This integration gives you a couple of nice things including the ability to use the phone as the mic pod and the ability to do some basic control of the codec from the phone.
Two other things to consider, do you need embedded multipoint capabilities? Also when you discuss recording or archiving, I’m assuming that you plan to hook a vcr to the vcr outputs on the codec. If you instead want to archive the conferences digitally I would recommend looking at a centralized streaming/ recording solution, but I think that’s more of a long term issue because of cost.
Good luck,