[AG-TECH] Sending audio/video/desktop from Access Grid PCs to traditional conferencing systems (Tandberg, Polycom)

[Lloyd Pearson]

Hello Quang Tran,

We have used Sony EVI-100P cameras connected using composite video captured through a Spectra8 capture card and also using the S-video output captured using a "Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 DVD Creator" Model F5U228. (The Belkin device captures composite or S-video to USB.)
Image quality was significantly better via the S-video and Belkin than with the composite video into the Spectra8 card.  

However the cable quality in both cases was highly significant for image quality: Composite was close to S-video quality when a high quality coax cable was used, but very much poorer when audio type RCA-Phono leads were used.
S-video quality was also very noticeably affected by cable quality. Of four S-video cables tested, all about 6m long and with molded connectors, the quality varied from excellent to poor. The better two of these cables were about 8mm in diameter, the poorer two were about 5mm. I don't know the construction of any of these, but twin-coax is almost certainly going to be better than simple 4-core. 

We have used Mirial for H.323 communication on our Access Grid PC's running Windows XP.  It has one significant problem:  When using the Spectra8 capture card, the maximum resolution available is 352 x 288.  No similar restriction when using the Belkin device whether capturing composite or S-video.

We have been unable to use multiple Belkin devices successfully on one PC - a second Belkin tends to drop frames and give jerky video, but I haven't investigated this in any detail.

Regards,
Lloyd Pearson
AVCC Operator
University of Otago
Ph +64 3 479 8997
lloyd.pearson at otago.ac.nz


-----Original Message-----
From: ag-tech-bounces at lists.mcs.anl.gov [mailto:ag-tech-bounces at lists.mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Tran, Quang V.
Sent: Thursday, 4 March 2010 7:53 a.m.
To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: [AG-TECH] Sending audio/video/desktop from Access Grid PCs to traditional conferencing systems (Tandberg, Polycom)

Hi All,

We are testing 2 software from Polycom (Polycom PVX) and from Tandberg
(ConferenceMe) that will allow us to connect existing Access Grid PCs to
traditional video conferencing systems.  These software work on Windows
platform and they allow us to join traditional video conference by
connecting to a Tandberg or a Polycom bridge.  We install the software
on our existing Access Grid computers and are able to send
audio/video/desktop to the bridges.  
Both software only work with USB or DV cameras.  They do not work with
video capture cards but we think that it is possible to convert S-Video
or composite feed from our Sony EVI-D100 PTZ cameras to DV using the
Canopus ADVC110.  More testing will be done and we will post the
results.

Thanks,
Quang Tran
IT Analyst
LSUHSC - New Orleans
(504) 568-2877 Office