Cisco TelePresence SX Series – Part 1

The majority of these Cisco TelePresence units are in specifically-developed rooms and built right into the rooms, which means they are pretty expensive; and after 1600 units, Cisco divisions are purchasing fewer. But this is not halting the demand as staff video demand is continuing to go up. Video is rapidly transforming into the new audio at Cisco. Even as Cisco needs more TelePresence, end users couldn’t really meet the expense of more – until now.

The Cisco Telepresence SX and C Series and MX Series have now been launched, and after testing and appraisal, Cisco IT is beginning to install them in sites around the world. Most enterprises will already have a plethora of standalone video display screens installed in their buildings – the mmjaority of which are in conference rooms, for sharing presentations during conferences and meetings. The new Cisco SX series and C series hardware is a low-cost method of transforming these display screens into complete, low cost, HD Cisco TelePresence. These endpoints function with preexisting video display screens to provide you with a great video TelePresence experience.

The Cisco TelePresence SX Series in a Nutshell

The SX and C Series of TelePresence endpoints can transform any meeting room having a good video screen into a conference room simply by the addition of just 2 or 3 pieces of plug-and-play hardware. This is not only an awesome engineering feat; it also makes a lot of business sense for many Cisco divisions. The Cisco TelePresence SX Series ranges from the Cisco TelePresence SX10, for teleworkers to the Cisco TelePresence SX20, for medium-sized conference rooms, to the Cisco TelePresence SX80, for bigger meeting rooms. The Cisco TelePresence SX10 is portable, so Cisco and Cisco partner sales teams can transport the endpoint in bags when they are required to visit customers; in fact, anybody is able to host conferences and meetings anywhere by carrying their Cisco TelePresence SX10 or SX20 from one office to another. Enterprises are also installing the larger Cisco TelePresence SX80 in bigger meeting rooms, where they are able to connect numerous presentation display screens, numerous microphones, and numerous PC inputs.

The Cisco TelePresence SX20’s are not as portable (although, they will do for some end user requirements); they have quick-fit units designed for different-sized meeting rooms. The camera with this unit is flexible and having 4X optical zoom abilities and we have been able to interconnect the camera to nearly any surface, like wall-mounts, a stand or even on television display monitors.

When making use of the Speaker Track 60, you will find that it brings an added advantage that you will not have seen before: no more people will be audible if they are off-screen. One end user gushes: “As a participant of the Advanced Cisco Experience group, we get to test all our technology and we have to say, the Speaker Track 60 is really one of the finest solutions.

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Cisco TelePresence SX Series – Part 2

The Speaker Track 60 is armed with 2 cameras and these are able to track whoever is speaking, they can focus on that speaker for a clearer image, and then switch automatically to that speaker. When a different speaker chimes in, the 2nd camera is able to track them so that when the 1st speaker has finished, the camera then displays the 2nd speaker. The outcome is a lot like having an expert camera team (one having 2 unconnected and moving studio cameras) following all the speakers and continuously moving to the active speaker at the correct time, which provides you with a really professional studio feeling.

Having a ton of features, like tabletop microphones, remote control for a camera with pan/tilt/zoom features, and Cisco’s TelePresence Touch, the SX Series employs your preexisting video display screens for a very cost efficient substitute to some of your current Cisco TelePresence units, and these hardware devices are a component of your single video architecture. They employ SIP protocols and are compatible with all of your systems, including Jabber and IP phones, WebEx, and mainly all your other Cisco TelePresence units. It does necessitate CUCM 8.6 or higher; you can just move all your clusters to 10.0, so that will be no issue.

Important Benefits

  • Easy, plug-and-play video for all your meetings
  • The SX10 camera orientates itself irrespective of how it’s setup on a display monitor so that the receiver of your call can always see you right-side up.
  • Staff members can take the SX10 home with them and connect it to their HDTVs for completely faultless, 1080p video calls (as long as they have access to good Internet bandwidth).
  • The dual-camera Speaker Track 60 that adjusts the active camera to continuously transmit the active speaker in the conference room.
  • Power over Ethernet (PoE) to minimize cables and ensure energy efficiency.
  • HDMI ports are available to plug in output devices, like laptops for presentations on-the-go.
  • Red Dot Award for the best endpoint with an industrial design, attractiveness, and attention award for ground-breaking products.

When Cisco is done, they will have taken advantage of in excess of 200 video display monitors in Cisco conference rooms positioned all around the world, and the addition of 200 more Cisco TelePresence units.  (It is early days yet for Cisco Telepresence expansion, so Cisco is not sure how many they will end up with). This should help to put a dent in the increasing customer demand for more virtual global conferences and meetings, more TelePresence to bring together Cisco employees with each other and with customers. But Cisco is aware that all this is not going to be enough. There will still be a plethora of locations having no spare video display monitors that Cisco can take advantage of. Cisco has already begun deploying Cisco TelePresence MX Series solutions in numerous select Cisco sites to further their goal.

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Setting the Record Straight for Five Cisco Telepresence Myths

Cisco Telepresence is too expensive and only for large enterprises

Cisco Telepresence offers a simple and vibrant method for distributed teams to modernize, troubleshoot and cooperate in real-time and is inexpensive for businesses of nearly all sizes. The expansion of technologies, particularly via the cloud, is making the advantages of Cisco telepresence available to companies all over the world. Smaller businesses are quickly grasping the business value and quick Return on Investment which Cisco telepresence solutions provide and are assimilating this with their wider cooperation stratagems.

Online Web-based services are good enough

Customer-grade video services fall way short of what companies require in a video solution in numerous key areas, like security, quality, flexibility and richness of features. Customer video suppliers have continuously guaranteed lifelike experiences, but the actuality is most solutions give you poor image and audio excellence that are likely to be unclear and irregular. While this is usually suitable to customers as it’s cheap or free, it’s not a reasonable solution for conducting business functions efficiently.

Software vs. hardware

Market tendencies are displaying a rise in software-based Cisco telepresence solutions, but this should not be an “either this-or-that” conversation. We are living in the midst of a 24×7 global economy where both software and hardware video endpoints are necessary to function in tandem to provide scale, mobility and the preferred experience. Implementing a hardware-only or software-only implementation restricts the cooperation experience — it is about implementing the correct mix and flexibility to interconnect in-person via a desktop, conference room or on the go.

Cisco Telepresence is too complicated to install and use

Cisco Telepresence deployment models are developed to be customized to the client’s requirements and level of IT support available. With flexible installation options available — like the cloud, on-site, or hybrid — the setup for Cisco telepresence doesn’t have to be complicated. New advances have made it simple for end users to start video collaboration inside or outside the enterprise, join using their personal mobile devices and share content with members in real-time.

The profitability is restricted to travel

With Cisco telepresence, potential ROI goes way beyond travel. Nearly all workflow processes can be enhanced via video, generating results that are quantifiable and measureable. It can enhance relationships, raise team and staff morale, minimize product-time-to-market, sustain a distributed workplace and very rapidly resolve issues. Video collaboration software solutions and applications exist for nearly every facet of a business, ranging from management and sales and marketing to human resources (HR) and Research & Development (R&D).

Although these myths are not meticulously compiled, they embody what I hear most of the time. Next time you are faced with a myth about Cisco telepresence, do not take it at face value. Do the requisite investigation and you’ll find out what you need to know!

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Enhance Your Video Implementations via Cisco TelePresence

How does Cisco TelePresence Optimized Conferencing work?

  • Frugally scales-up video implementation by enhancing resource apportionment—animatedly coordinates the utilization of bridge assets, pools and gathers multiparty units, and supplies the correct level of service for each and every deployed endpoint
  • Interconnects natively with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM)
  • Supports everything ranging from mobile clients to completely-immersive Cisco telepresence systems, guaranteeing a reliable video experience across all your company’s deployed endpoints

The end result is an over 70% more proficient utilization of your company’s bridge resources in mixed mode (Full High Definition (FHD), High Definition (HD), Standard Definition (SD)) conferences or meetings. Provided via software-only updates, it is obtainable via the newest releases of Cisco TelePresence Conductor, Cisco TelePresence Server and Cisco TelePresence Management Suite (TMS).

As video implementation is becoming more and more more universal in enterprise establishments, Cisco telepresence solutions like this one will become more and more critical for an efficacious video stratagem, particularly one that speaks to the mobile and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) tendencies. Cisco looks forward to and is continuously endeavoring to joining with their clients to make use of Cisco TelePresence Optimized Conferencing for easy, cost-effective methods designed and developed for any video collaboration for the complete enterprise.

To learn more, please see the Optimized Conferencing webpage on Cisco.com.

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Cisco Telepresence Experience Rated by Four Top US Universities

This partnership comprises members from George Mason University, James Madison University, University of Virginia and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and has been dubbed 4-VA. The 4-VA’s objectives are commendable and determined at the same time: To make higher education in the country more inexpensive, enlarge the quantity of degrees awarded in the state of Virginia and reinforce participant educational institutions–independently and cooperatively.

Nearly a year after commencement, the association has made some major progress in its undertaking to transform Virginia’s higher education system via the utilization of modern day collaboration technologies.

How were they able to accomplish this great feat? The root of their triumph was the capability to leverage physical and virtual assets available across all four university campuses. Via Cisco TelePresence, participants can simply share educational and academic resources over high-definition (HD), real-time video that produces a life-like setting.

The immersive experience was dubbed a “transformative technology” by these 4-VA participants, and fairly so!

Via Cisco TelePresence the 4-VA has revolutionalized Virginia’s higher education. With the use of video, the participants have augmented research partnerships, shared instructive infrastructure and become empowered to tap into exclusive know-how no matter the locality of professionals. Now, pupils are able to meet using Cisco telepresence for progressive Chinese and Chinese business language lectures, proving that while they may be physically detached they can still get the best learning experience in real time.

Content with the development and the Cisco telepresence expertise, the 4-VA is hoping to enlarge its utilization. They are even developing a distance education pilot project targeted at community college alumni in countryside areas that will concentrate on technology modernization and private enterprise.

In this modern digital age, the employment of collaborative technologies like Cisco telepresence will become more and more crucial for the delivery of higher education all over the world.

To learn more about how Cisco TelePresence assisted the 4-VA leverage assets and resources to enhance educational tools, check out this video.

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Cisco TelePresence MX Series in a Nutshell – Part 1

We were forced to custom-construct the rooms, put in place extraordinary lighting and tables, and much more. Each new room required an additional overhead expense. We have to confess, though, the end result was overwhelming. Collaborating with your teams over immersive telepresence, we pretty much overlook the technology behind it after a few minutes, and we are not actually conscious of anything else but being present in the same room with the team members in front of us.

The Cisco TelePresence SX Series allows us take advantage of preexisting, standalone video displays (or standard home High Definition HDTVs) to produce low-cost, high-definition video conferencing endpoints. As there are a large number of rooms in our organization that don’t have preexisting video display screens, we are starting to use the Cisco TelePresence MX Series to create video conferencing in just a couple of minutes, without needing to rearrange and restructure a complete conference room from scratch. Not just that, but the Cisco Telepresence MX Series utilizes less bandwidth, so it is a comparatively inexpensive to support. The Cisco Telepresence MX Series is ideal for business startups, small to medium sized businesses, and people just starting out with video and hoping to save expenditures in locations where internet bandwidth is costly: Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia are good examples of regions with expensive bandwidth. But it also is ideal for large companies that need to install broadly all over their companies.  Cisco’s talented IT teams are in process of accomplishing just that, adding to their videoconference proficiencies worldwide at a decreased cost.

The Cisco Telepresence MX Series are incorporated systems which have their own dedicated video screens. The Cisco Telepresence MX200 and MX300 are extremely simple to use, put in place and deploy for small-to-medium sized rooms. You can take it from box to call in as little as 10 minutes, but I’ve seen people do it in less than five minutes. The Cisco Telepresence MX700 and MX800 are larger and higher performance solutions – giving high definition (HD) audio and video experiences for medium-to-large sized rooms. They are lightweight considering their size, but you will still need help getting them out of the box, configuring and setting them up.

As an end user, we like how the Cisco Telepresence MX systems look so visually pleasing, and just like other Cisco telepresence hardware, they are still extremely simple to use. Being an IT person, I must appreciate the plug-and-play facility. Once you have planned out where you would like to put everything, and after you have done it a few times, it only requires around 10 minutes to set up the Cisco Telepresence MX200 or MX300 units. There is still a bit of planning involved: it is a lot like configuring a good entertainment system. You need to think about having windows and access to bright light in the room, and position the monitor to minimize glare. You must place the microphones in close proximity to where staff will be seated but far enough from each other to avoid interference. You are advised to place the speakers in a location where attendees will have access to the best sound quality. And when you are done setting it up, the video and sound quality is extremely impressive.

There is a bit more to it than all this though. For the optimal experience, you should set up the system preferences and settings for the audio equipment and cameras/visual apparatus, network connections, and security. The good news is that there is a simple web user interface to utilize and also some helpful user documentation that comes along with the system and walks you through it. Once you have done it yourself a couple of times, it comes quite easily.

The display screens are all high definition (HD) and are available from 42-inch to 70-inch options, so the Cisco Telepresence MX Series can accommodate just about any room or conference meeting size.

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Cisco Immersive Telepresence Celebrates 10th Anniversary

Cisco has already shipped their 1,000th IX5000 system, the next-generation immersive telepresence solution. This is the most rapid surge in the history of the immersive subdivision, occurring well inside the first year of the Cisco Telepresence IX5000’s launch. That is no small accomplishment for a product having a mighty $300,000 list price (a price which has remained unchanged since the 2006 launch, despite momentous improvements.)

What marks this milestone and makes it even more thought-provoking is that some experts had forecast the death of the immersive portfolio just a few years back. But Cisco Telepresence has persevered notwithstanding the pessimists. Why? Cisco Telepresence was powered by the same idea Cisco had over 10 years back:  To create a conference table, cut it in half, and put 5,000 miles in between the two meeting tables. And yet, it should still feel like all the meeting participants are present in the same room – life-sized, painlessly, and almost mystically.

Like it was more than ten years back, the consumers of today are enthralled the first time they witness immersive telepresence in action. For internationally dispersed industries, the advantages very rapidly become real. Establishments are fascinated with how it can transform their corporate business. Travel requirement circumvention is an apparent advantage, but the urgency of decision-making, the rapport- and trust-building, and the clout to cooperate over hundreds of miles are the true benefits. This is the motivation behind more than 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies purchasing Cisco Telepresence immersive systems.

During the fall of 2006, Cisco launched the Telepresence immersive subdivision with the CTS 3000 Series. It consisted of three 65-inch displays, stereo quality sound, and high-definition (HD) video all producing an awesome and movie-like experience. Cisco even brought in a famous Hollywood director to ensure the experience would be memorable. It was and still is!

If you fast-forward 10+ years, there are definitely more bells and whistles included with Cisco Telepresence. But the heart of the product has remained unchanged. It is a persuasive collaboration experience that is super spontaneous and dependable.

What has undoubtedly transformed is access, founded on the order of scalar rise in Cisco Telepresence products shipped. Today, the advantages of Cisco Telepresence immersive collaboration can range well outside the boardroom to worldwide project teams. Moreover, who doesn’t like be fascinated while they are getting business done? 🙂

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