What's the difference between Skype and Executive Style Video Conferencing

The great thing about using Skype is the free part, well not really. Take into account that you need to buy a laptop $$, and then you're usually on the hook for a high speed network connection $$ ... and you've got Skype for free?

ok, the difference comes down to the video and audio quality. There are some amazing products developed by 4 main players, Tandberg, Polycom, LifeSize and Sony. Each has their own niche, Tandberg is all around high-end, Polycom is versatile from small to large, LifeSize is the affordable version and Sony makes great cameras.

so, why do the execs spend lots of $$ on Vidcon, it's easy, ROI (return on investment). Let's say that you send a couple of managers across the world in a plane, rent a car, hotel etc. Your $100,000.00 boardroom can pay for itself very quickly.

The reason then why the better Vidcon systems are purchased is the high quality image and sound (and bandwidth) that comes with it. Managers want to feel like they are meeting face-to-face. Attending these meetings is like being there - it's amazing!

3D TV and 120Hz

3D TV is the latest rage, there are a couple of 3D technologies out there, here are the basics:

Passive red-cyan glasses - each lens is chromatically opposite colours and TV images are made up of two colour layers.

Passive Polarized glasses - this uses light polarization in each lens to create a 3D image.

Active Shutter glasses - the TV tells the glasses which eye should see the image exhibited causing a 3D effect.

No glasses - I've seen this at infocomm, it is pretty amazing, not perfected yet, you stand at a certain distance and keep still, the image then looks like 3D with no glasses. The TV's are lenticular lenses giving you a perception of depth.

120Hz is the refresh rate of a TV, most were 60Hz. 120Hz will give you less motion blur with moving objects on a TV.

LED - the new buzz word

Sometimes I think manufacturers throw out these buzz words to induce us into buying the next best thing. That's not to say LED Back light technology is bad, but let's tell it how it is.

The manufacturers have replaced the "old" fluorescent light technology for LCD TV's with the new LED back lights. There are 2 forms of this:

Dynamic RGB LED's which are positioned behind the panel.

Edge LED's which are positioned around the rim of the display and the light is evenly diffused across the back with a special panel. This allows the display to become very thin.

Another bonus with this technology is the small amount of power it uses.

How Does Your Digital Signal Flow

An HDCP handshake occurs when a source like a Blu-ray player sends data to a receiver (TV /display) requesting an authorization key. The display processes it and replys with an authorization key. If the source accepts the authorization key, the signal transmits to the display. A problem can occur when there are multiple displays because there are only a certain amount of keys available (usually 1- 16).

There are digital switchers being developed to accomodate this problem. So the next time you're in a club or bar with multiple high definition displays you can see why designing a system around our new digital era is not as easy as it looks.

http://www.crestron.com/press_room/multimedia_library/default.asp?category=product_overviews#movie1

What is HDCP, EDID and CEC?

HDMI (High-Definition Multi Media Interface) is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data.

HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation. It is used to prevent digital copy of audio and video signals.

EDID (Extended display identification data) is a data structure provided by a computer display to describe it's capabilities to a graphic card.

CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) is a one-wire bi-directional AV Link protocol to perform remote control functions.