What do you wish to achieve? - Point to Point two locations only at any one time
- Broadcast Live from one site to many watch and listen
- Broadcast pre-recorded from one site to many watch & listen
- Multipoint three or more sites with Q&A between any, relayed to all
- Multipoint - three or more plus broadcast from any to satellite sub-groups as a watch and listen.
- Live with session taped for future edit and distribution
- Person to person/s with video & audio & data manipulation across participants e.g. sharing documents, drawings with or without live edit and audit of changes made.
With whom do you wish to communicate by videoconferencing? - Only inside your company
- From your company to sister/ contractor/ supplier companies
- With your customers
- With your prospects
Frequency of system use - Ad hoc
- Estimated use per annum (min/max)
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Quarterly
Installation type - Custom built static installation i.e. a designated room
- Desktop location/s i.e. from the office desktop PC
- Mobile roll-about system -
- Off-site facilities required going to a dedicated videoconference facility
Options required - Record, Edit & Distribute by hardcopy (CD/DVD)
- Record, Edit & Distribute by softcopy (Web cast)
- Broadcast live via direct links to named recipients/ groups
- Broadcast pre-recorded across one or more time zones
- Log who watched and listened and when
- Multiple persons at One or Two (group to group videoconferencing e.g. design teams, board to local management)
- Multiple participants at Three or more sites
What are your current IT capabilities? - ISDN 1
- ISDN 2
- ISDN 30
- LAN Cat5/ Cat5e/ Cat6
- LAN Fibre
- LAN wireless type?
- WAN bandwidth?
- VPN bandwidth?
- Internet access, dial-up 56k
- Internet access , Dial-up 128K
- Internet access , Broadband 1Mb
- Internet access , Broadband 2Mb
- Internet access , Broadband 4 Mb
- Internet access , Satellite link
- Internet access , permanent fibre/ cable link
- T1 / T2 / T3 / T4 (aka DS-1/ DS-2/ DS-3/ DS-4)
- OC-1 / OC-3 / OC-12 / OC-38
Impact on your system to be considered - Bandwidth load
- Current capacity used & unused & reserved (max/ min for each)
- Planned bandwidth use excluding video conferencing
- Contention ratio
- Speed
- Video quality predominantly static (talking head Yes/No)
- Hardware at point of display
- Hardware at point of transmission
- Hardware at point of distribution
Points to consider - Budget
- What do you spend currently on flights/ travel/ accommodation per annum?
- Write-off period for cap ex
- Leasing options
- IT infrastructure
- Cost and timescale of increased capacity and hardware -if required
James Hunter works for Edric Audio Visual, a premier provider of video conferencing solutions in the UK.
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