Video Conferencing Facility Types
Many large companies maintain their own boardroom video conference facilities to
communicate with remote offices. These configurations are equipped with high-end cameras and
microphones to cover large rooms, then communicate to other similarly equipped offices over
private virtual circuits, direct IP connections or other legacy means (ISDN data lines). These
are all fixed-site locations that must be reserved and shared among senior executives and other
employees.
Another type of facility is a business center, video
conference room rental. These rooms are available for rent on
a dollar per hour or charge per event basis. They are available in many
large cities, offer related concierge services such as catering, technical
assistance and the ability to connect to other conference rooms under the same
ownership. In some cases, these facilities can connect to "off network
rooms" that use matching Internet connection types and video
conferencing protocols — i.e., matching "speeds and feeds."
The facilities-for-rent approach is useful for ad hoc meetings where your video
conferencing needs are sporadic. However, the cost is comparatively high
by today's standards — $50 to $100 booking fee plus a $150 to $200
conference fee — and services rarely include desktop sharing and web
collaboration among participants. Another concern is reliability. Failures
to "connect," especially "outside the network" are not
uncommon, resulting in very expensive speakerphone sessions.
Specialized Facilities: Command Operations Center,
Broadcast studios, ...
In addition to boardroom and business center rentals, other more specialized
video conferencing facilities include government and military command operations
centers, emergency and disaster relief operations headquarters, and broadcast
studio news rooms.
Common Limitations and Challenges
In all scenarios above, the primary challenges have historically been
the high price of equipment that is complex to install and difficult to use,
often requiring IT staff at hand. Moreover, accessibility remains a problem:
rooms must be reserved ahead of time and, in the case of rentals,
may require cross-town travel.
New Technology Such as Nefsis Introduces More Options
Many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) cannot
afford such facilities, and assume that they cannot afford video conferencing,
either. But times have changed. Today, cheap webcams and inexpensive high
definition (HD) video peripherals can be plugged into any desktop or conference
room PC. With the advent of Nefsis cloud computing and multi-core processing,
even multipoint HD video conferencing
can be delivered over an easy-to-use, widely accessible online service. High-quality
video conferencing is never farther away than a PC with Internet access.
With Nefsis, you can connect to anyone, anywhere, anytime —
any desktop, room, webcam or camera.
This is an entirely new type of video
conferencing facility, it's anywhere you have a PC and
Internet access. This new, virtual facility is simple, easy to use
and powerful, from the desktop to boardroom, to virtually anywhere online
meetings take place.
In summary, the new options are:
• Equip your own facility using off-the-shelf
video conferencing equipment and save
• Use Nefsis
desktop video conferencing
anytime, anywhere — no reservations required
• Use Nefsis with any mix of desktop and conference room locations
Easy Online Meetings
The result is easy online meetings, with fully integrated video
conferencing and web collaboration.
- easy, point-and-click user interface with pictures and
mouse-over descriptions
- invitations that go out with a few clicks of your mouse
- live audio and HD video
- document and presentation sharing
- shared desktop applications with live annotation
- media sharing — you can play movies during your conference
- full host control as to involvement of each participant
- conference recording of all audio, video and live sharing for later viewing
Summary
Organizations can have a full-suite of high-quality web and video
conferencing functionality without renting third-party
facilities. For those building their own conference rooms,
consider using Nefsis for these advantages:
- Nefsis allows you to conference between any mix of desktops
and rooms — not just rooms alone
- Nefsis allows the use of any webcam or video peripheral,
including HD — whatever fits your budget
- Nefsis connects participants over the Web, so there is no need
for technical staff to configure IP settings
- The Web and your computer are always available, so there is no
need to reserve a room or incur downtime traveling to a video
conferencing facility
- Collaboration and sharing tools are built into Nefsis, so
there is no need to configure external software for working meetings.
For example, Nefsis
web
collaboration features include annotation over live
applications, media file sharing (i.e., you can play a movie
during your conference) and file hand-outs. These live sharing
features are not available in traditional, hardware-based video
conferencing facilities.
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learn more about Nefsis,
schedule a live demo or start your own
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