Monthly Archives: September 2010

The business case for video conferencing

Posted by admin on September 30, 2010 No comments

One of the most compelling cases for video conferencing technology has to be the reduction in travel costs.

Many businesses increasingly view travel as a drain on time and budgets. You can understand why when most business travellers admit that only half of the time spent on a business trip can be classed as productive working time. Not only could you reduce your business travel bills by up to 30%, but you could also improve employee productivity by cutting back on idle hours.

 

Allied to the reduction in travel time and costs is the environmental argument. Video conferencing uses little energy – no petrol, diesel or aviation fuel, only a few units of electricity. The technology can help the business reduce their carbon footprint and environmental impact. To demonstrate the point, a UK environment minister gave a keynote speech at the Climate Change Conference in Sydney via video conferencing. This saved 60 hours of travel time and 6.2 tons of CO2 emissions.

 

Your business could benefit in other ways too. Video conferencing gives you the flexibility to hold ad-hoc meetings; you don’t have to plan weeks in advance. This flexibility could speed up decision-making and response times, which will also benefit your customers.

 

 

Why invest in video conferencing now?

In the past, video conferencing has had a bad reputation. It’s been seen as expensive, complex to implement and delivering low quality, jerky images. However, these arguments are losing ground as the technology rapidly evolves and affordable fast connections make high definition video conferencing a reality.

 

Traditionally, you would have needed an ISDN network for video conferencing, but today’s IP-based networks are fuelling an interest in converged voice, video and data communications. IP lends itself to cost-effective voice and video conferencing and has the added benefit of allowing users to collaborate on documents simultaneously. Cisco estimates that global IP traffic will increase fivefold over the next four years. The company also estimates that all forms of video traffic will make up 90% of global consumer IP traffic by 2013.

 

Video conferencing shopping list

There is a video conferencing system for every budget, ranging from personal desktop systems using low cost webcams, through to specialist video conferencing equipment designed for use in meeting rooms and other shared environments. However, the essential components of any video conferencing solution are camera, microphone, monitor, speaker and codec.

 

For most organisations, high definition video conferencing is the most readily available option and offers good quality on a limited budget (usually between £1,500 and £5,000).

 

Your next consideration should be the number of point to point video-enabling terminals or ‘endpoints’ needed. If you specify too few endpoints users could get frustrated that they do not have access to the technology. You need to balance the cost of the video conferencing equipment and services against convenient access to the network of endpoints.

 

Video infrastructure – a high definition video conferencing service may require an investment in additional network infrastructure, such as a dedicated line or circuit for each endpoint. Each session will demand connectivity of around 1Mbps for clear video and audio. Deploying high definition video on the enterprise network can cause problems; the network may not be able to handle real-time video, while video activity may compromise other enterprise tasks. The right media-ready network is vital to the delivery of business video applications.

 

Extra peripherals – you might also want to invest in additional peripheral devices to enhance the video conferencing experience; this could include high definition and wide-angle cameras, upgraded speakers and microphones. You may also want to connect your systems to DVDs, VCRs and document and multimedia applications via a PC.

 

Test the water with web conferencing

If there’s some resistance to investing in video conferencing solutions, one way of proving the benefit to the business may be to experiment with lower cost web conferencing solutions. These could not only demonstrate cost savings but also lead the way to more sophisticated technology.

 

Web conferencing allows your staff to share what’s on their desktop with people in other locations. Typically, this happens in conjunction with a phone call or audio conferencing session. Additional features include the ability to share documents and to work collaboratively on projects.

 

Why telepresence could be the next step for video conferencing

John Chambers, Cisco chief executive, has compared telepresence  to “Star Trek teleporting”. Telepresence offers ultra high resolution, which makes video conferencing an even more immersive experience. Spatial audio allows the transmission of every nuance of a conversation, while huge screens and high quality cameras capture every detail of an expression.

 

Fabulous as this sounds, telepresence remains an expensive technology to implement at present. It requires a high-bandwidth connection and a specifically designed room at each location.

Second Generation Wireless Car MP3 Player Review

Posted by admin on September 30, 2010 No comments

If you had a personal car, you must be can’t help improving your love car’s audio system for the fun of driving will be reduced by half if there is no music in your car. So that choose an ideal car MP3 Player is inevitable. But the question is do you know the Car MP3 player deeply or don’t know it at all. Now let me introduce it and give some tips for you that may be useful.

Car MP3 player vs CD player

Compared with car CD player that used in car before, Car MP3 player is thinner, more convenient, more portable and powerful performance with reasonable price. So it is a trend that CD is replaced by MP3 player.

Wired Car MP3 player and the wireless

According to the signal transmission method, car MP3 player can be divided into two major categories that is the wired and the wireless.

The so-called wired Car MP3 player refers to those that transmit the encoded audio signal to the car stereo speaker through dedicated line. Wired Car MP3 player features low noise, high quality audio output. If you have high demands on sound quality and know how to install audio system, you can choose this kind of Car MP3 player.

As for the wireless Car MP3 player, it can be able to transmit audio signal that from MP3 to Car speaker in the form of wireless FM. Result from Car MP3 player no need circuit connection and fits almost all the car, it has already occupied the main territory of car audio devices system market.

So now let’s say something about the Wireless Car MP3 Player in detail and it is the theme of this article.

Two generations of Wireless Car MP3 Player

The Wireless Car MP3 Player can also divided into two generations. The first generation is powered by cigarette lighter and can be connected to cigarette lighter directly, which can still be found in the market about 10 kinds. The second generation of Wireless Car MP3 player comes with cell phone size, larger capacity and high quality audio output, which features audio controlled by the driver that can offer more secure using experience to the user.

Second Generation Wireless Car MP3 Player vs First Generation

1. Tone quality

The first generation wireless car mp3 players mainly apply rough radiating circuits to save cost, so a larger noise can’t be avoided. The second wireless car mp3 players are made of the latest transmit chip, which ensures the audio with high quality tone.

2. Working life

Powered by cigarette lighter that has no regulation system, the first generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player risks hidden damage problem caused by voltage surge. So that almost all manufacturers will warn their users do not plug Car MP3 on the car cigarette when the car just started or may cause over-voltage burn.

If you follow the guide fully, you must plug and pull-out repeatedly on your way, as a result it can easily cause damage to the cigarette lighter and even the MP3 player itself. So a ideal working time of the first generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player can’t be secured, however, the second generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player doesn’t have so kind of problem at all for its no need compatible with car cigarette lighter. In a conclusion, the second generation gets longer working time than the first generation one to a large extent.

3. Memory capacity

The first generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player only comes with 128M memory with merely dozens of songs, while the second generation is packed with 1GB or more memory capacity that can save more than 300 songs.

4. Frequency domain

The first generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player only gets 2 or 3 frequency domains, so it can not play once encounter interfering signal, while the second generation has 200 frequency domains for widely choose from.

5. Practical applicability

The first generation of Wireless Car MP3 Player can only play with car cigarette lighter or it will not work. The second one can become an ordinary MP3 player as long as you plug a headset in it even if you turn off the wireless signal transmitter, which features cool voice control.

6. Voice control system

Voice control technology has made considerable progress for recent years and has step into a very practical stage. It is worthy mentioning that the second generation of Wireless Car MP3 player features voice control. As long as you speak out the song name, a couple of seconds, you can get the right one from hundreds of songs. It is so convenient that can get rid of some uncertain factor when driving. It can be said that the voice control feature is just the second generation’s sweet spot and the most competitive advantage.

7. Price

Finally let’s talk about the price, the first generation of Wireless Car MP3 player priced from dozens of dollars to hundreds of dollars, the second generation costs around $100. Usually the first generation gets a price advantage and has larger price range, but the second generation has a higher price performance. It is obviously that you should not only consider price, but comprehensive consideration needs to be done if you want to select an ideal MP3 player for your love car.

Questions & Answers About Satellite Radios

Posted by admin on September 30, 2010 No comments

Question: A Brief Overview of Satellite Radio
Answer: Satellite radio means pay-radio or it may also be called a subscription radio. It is a little bit like the traditional one, but it has more programs than the traditional one does. It’s available in Africa, Asia and Europe due to the services provided by WorldSpace and in North America by Sirius and XM Radio.

Question: What are the advantages of Satellite Radio?
Answer: There is a wide variety of programs that includes: (rock, modern rock, alternative, classical, pop, hip-hop, country, jazz, electronic, Christian, Latin), weather, news, traffic, sports and entertainment channels—-no commercials—-.
Satellite Radio has a clean, digital signal and it is close to the quality of a CD. It has no static and no interference.
You can get satellite radio not only in your car, but anywhere you like: in your house, in an Rv, in your boat so that you can enjoy the programming variety that this radio is offering whether you are relaxing in your sofa, if you are in a vacation or if you are in your car on a business travel. The only thing you must do is to properly install the equipment that you need.
Purchasing the equipment, you will also have information which will be displayed on the radio receiver about channels, music, songs and artists.

Question: Any Disadvantages?
Answer: Unfortunately, Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. Territories can’t receive the satellite radio’s signals.
There are no local stations, but you will have local traffic and weather channels provided by XM and Sirius.

Question: What does provide XM and Sirius radio?
Answer: There a few differences between them. For example, the XM provides more that 150 channels and the other one more than 120 channels. The first has two Nascar racing channels, Major League Baseball, PGA TOUR coverage, plus ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-10 football and basketball coverage and the Sirius has Live NFL, NHL, and NBA play-by-play, plus English Premier League soccer and college sports game. But they have the same price $12.95/Month

Question: How do I install satellite radio?
Answer: There are a few things that are necessary to get satellite radio.
First you need a satellite radio antenna that picks up the signal from communicational satellites and then delivering it to you.
Then you need a satellite radio tuner that passes the signal from the radio antenna to the receiver. There are three basic types of radio turners. There are the Plug-and-play satellite radio tuners that can be used in the car or at home or with a portable boom-box wherever you have satellite signal and they only need one subscription. There are three types of Satellite radio tuners for the car: universal tuners, “Satellite radio-ready” in-dash receivers and in-dash receivers with a built-in satellite radio tuner. The last basic type is the Home satellite radio tuners perfect for using them in-door.
The third item is a satellite radio receiver which helps you to select channels and categories, to view various songs or artists information.
Last but not least is a subscription to XM or Sirius radio that must be acquired in order to receive programming.

If you want to have the best quality sound in your car you can choose between these three options:
1. in-dash receiver with a built-in satellite radio tuner
2. “satellite radio-ready” receiver connected to an external satellite radio tuner
3. Plug-and-play satellite radio tuner connected to your car stereo’s auxiliary input.