This is almost exactly what I was going to recommend setting up at our company.
Yes, a Mac Mini to an LCD TV isn't the most thrilling of tech articles, but I've been very keen to hear experiences of people using these sort of cobbled-together from commodity hardware "ghetto Telepresence" setups.
Our needs (and budget) just don't fit with the more expensive all-in-one solutions. And I imagine the quality of the cobbled-together experience can vary wildly depending on the hardware configuration. So I was excited to read about a setup that is working well for someone.
Exactly! The brand name solutions are great, but provide little flexibility, and aren't very startup friendly. The total for our solution came in under $3k, and we'd be looking at about $15-20k for a brand name system providing similar functionality.
You want start-up unfriendly? The Cisco full out 'telepresense' system with 3 1080p cameras. At max settings, Cisco's literature tells you that you're using ~20Mbit/s (including network overhead). The bandwidth costs alone would bankrupt you.
Cisco, much like Oracle, probably doesn't make that much money off of the average startup. It might behoove them to wisen up somewhat and start introducing some lighter-weight / lower-cost entries to the market.
That said, regarding the 20Mbit/s, never forget that Cisco sells networking equipment. Cisco's point (and it's not a hard sell) is that teleconferencing and network are so interrelated that you may as well buy it all from Cisco.
I will say that their 3-screen 1080p telepresence solution is fricking awesome though. Lifelike. BELIEVABLE. And for Fortune 500 companies that are weighing this sort of thing against the cost of flying three people from New York to Tokyo for a meeting, it's not a bad value prop.
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This is almost exactly what I was going to recommend setting up at our company.
Yes, a Mac Mini to an LCD TV isn't the most thrilling of tech articles, but I've been very keen to hear experiences of people using these sort of cobbled-together from commodity hardware "ghetto Telepresence" setups.
Our needs (and budget) just don't fit with the more expensive all-in-one solutions. And I imagine the quality of the cobbled-together experience can vary wildly depending on the hardware configuration. So I was excited to read about a setup that is working well for someone.
Exactly! The brand name solutions are great, but provide little flexibility, and aren't very startup friendly. The total for our solution came in under $3k, and we'd be looking at about $15-20k for a brand name system providing similar functionality.
You want start-up unfriendly? The Cisco full out 'telepresense' system with 3 1080p cameras. At max settings, Cisco's literature tells you that you're using ~20Mbit/s (including network overhead). The bandwidth costs alone would bankrupt you.
But soooo nice.
Cisco, much like Oracle, probably doesn't make that much money off of the average startup. It might behoove them to wisen up somewhat and start introducing some lighter-weight / lower-cost entries to the market.
That said, regarding the 20Mbit/s, never forget that Cisco sells networking equipment. Cisco's point (and it's not a hard sell) is that teleconferencing and network are so interrelated that you may as well buy it all from Cisco.
I will say that their 3-screen 1080p telepresence solution is fricking awesome though. Lifelike. BELIEVABLE. And for Fortune 500 companies that are weighing this sort of thing against the cost of flying three people from New York to Tokyo for a meeting, it's not a bad value prop.