Sony's IPELA system: pricey HD video conferencing

The in-laws have been pestering you to do a little video chatting so they can see their grandkids a bit more, right? But we're sure the thought of digging out the 'ol webcam from 2001 brings up repressed memories of jerky, tiny video chatting. Well Sony may have the solution -- albeit an uber-pricey one -- but still, it's a high-def solution in the form of its new IPELA package. The large pictured box (PCS-HG90) converts the captured HD video stream to H.264 (1,280 x 720 at 60fps) and shoots off the data to the receiving box via the Internet -- sending the video of your child's smiling face to his/her grandparents' HDTV. Plus, there isn't a cheap webcam in the system: Sony has bundled a 1.12 megapixel, 3CCD camera to get the best picture quality possible. While this system could theoretically work for remote family reunions, its $42,000 pricetag (you need two of each component, after all) would indicate that these units are aimed more towards the corporate market. Then again, you simply cannot put a price on your parents seeing every last feeding, diaper change, or spit up, now can you?

[SubGenius @ Sep 27th 2006 11:12AM]

Stringer is going to flip out when Steve introduces the iSight HD for $199.
Oh and the Mac mini will run another $599 and you need two of everything so....about $2000.

$42,000 or $2,000 Hmmm?

[Scott @ Sep 27th 2006 12:02PM]

At the article : your math is a bit fuzzy. The unit is 25k and the camera is 11k. The camera is not bundled with the codec http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/docs/whitepapers/pcshg90_specsheet.pdf . So your total investment is more like 72k at the end of the day and its not even capable of multipoint conferences, as Tandberg's HD line is.

To SubGenius : iChat isn't appropriate in a corporate environment for a number of reasons. Its not really an apples to apples comparison. If you want to videoconference in the workplace, you're still using a stand alone codec unit.

[Jim L. @ Sep 27th 2006 12:06PM]

Not sure I want to see many of my colleagues in HD...

[Typist @ Sep 27th 2006 12:07PM]

This is clearly meant for business and the pricing is set accordingly. iSight is hardly a competitor in this field.

[Brian @ Sep 27th 2006 12:46PM]

"I Ka Barra (Your Work)" - Habib Koit� and Bamada.

Oh, this isn't a contest? >:-D

C'mon... I could really use one of these >_>

[Rick Lyon @ Sep 27th 2006 12:48PM]

Sony+Expensive? Nahhhh

[Seshagiri @ Sep 27th 2006 2:03PM]

Forget Sony. The ultimate video conference is here.

http://www.hp.com/halo/index.html/?jumpid=ex_hpwwipg_yahoo_halo

[Zaxo @ Sep 27th 2006 5:07PM]

yeah, seeing the staff in HD would be pretty depressing...

[tta @ Sep 27th 2006 11:22PM]

The Sony does *real* 720P...� 60 frames per second.� Gotta like that at least.� The real question to me is whether the approach Sony takes it worth it.� The halo system mentioned, and the handful of others in the same space, take a fundementally different approach than the Sony, Polycom, Tandberg types.� The latter try to squeeze everything into a single screen, albeat an increasingly higher res, probably larger screen, while keeping the costs down (Compare several hundred K a side for halo vs. 36K for Sony, or much less for typical Polycom/Tandberg/etc.).� The former think that it is worth "doing right" and making the experience feel natural and real by using multiple screens, high res, high framerate, correspondingly high bandwidth, and tying it all together to make it easy to use.� Look at www.telanetix.com for example.� Their system is a fraction of the price of the halo room, but same basic concept of naturalness and presence.��You walk into a room where basically one wall of the room is transparently connecting you to somewhere else, with you able to look straight at the other people, rather than looking at a small (even if high-def) image of some portion of the remote room.�
Which approach is right?� Maybe both, for different needs, though if you were paying as much as the Sony system for basically a high end version of the same old thing, I don't see why you wouldn't want to look at one of the other more telepresence (vs. videoconference) oriented products.

[keith waddington @ Sep 28th 2006 1:46AM]

erm ichat uses h264 codec also. I can hook up my HD video cam instead of my isight; the problem is quality, after a certain point, is dependent on the speed of the internet connection. i chat is 30fps. ichat can do 4 way video conferencing. no headsets required.

and actually this is a perfect comparison. Thos of you who have used ichat with the external iSight camera and super fast internet will know it's pretty much like being in the same room as the person. Also this solution is used in the corporate world: my wife works for a multinational branding company and that's have started using. They also plan to loan imacs to some of their clients for daily contact without travel.

So, erm, i'd say the sony thing is a pretty expensive solution that is only on par with ichat and a 3ccd or HD video cam, or marginally better than the standard ichat experience.

waddo
http://www.waddo.net/