[AG-TECH] Adding H.323 capability to an AG node

[Richard Naylor]

At 09:58 a.m. 1/10/2003 -0400, David Bradford wrote:
>I understand from the documentation that an H.323 node can gain access to 
>an AG meeting, but we have the opposite problem.  We have built an AG 
>node, but now find that our group also wants to regularly participate in 
>H.323 meeting.  It would seem the best solution for us might be to add 
>this capability to our node, and I was wondering if anyone knew anything 
>about setting up a dual setup like this: hardware suggestions, things to 
>watch out for, etc..  Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

I don't think a node can do this (H323) by default. I often have to use 
H323 with webcasting and its just an integration issue.

If the customer has money, I use a Polycom Viewstation and use the VCR 
ports to give video and audio in and out. That then goes into my sound and 
video mixers and gets mixed down like any other source. A copy of the 
webcast video then gets fed down to the other end.

The audio is a little trickier (without a Gentner), so I use the mix minus 
technique on my mixer and gate the audio manually if I get stuck. Not great 
but works.

We get multi-party H323 by using a commercial conference bridge. (I think 
its the Radvision MCU)

If the customer doesn't have money (common outside the commercial arena), I 
use the D-Link i2eye DVC-1000. it costs around NZ$800, so thats US$400 or 
less. It doesn't allow me to feed it video, so place the unit at the front 
of your AG room. Feed the video from your DLink into one of the video 
inputs on the AG so that it pops up on the screen. Feed the audio into your 
gentner and feed audio out from the gentner to the D-link (into the mic 
connex).

And it should all work.

There is a VERY nice H323 card thats used in flyaway codecs for broadcast 
(like the Scotty or talking head) but they will only sell to me in OEM lots 
of 10, which works out at NZ$30K. You could install that into your node and 
it would integrate really well. But I don't have a spare $30K <sigh>.

rich