H.261, H.263, H.264 La La Land
Is anyone other than me have a weird year with video protocols? It used to be that you just had to think about… is this call H.323 (IP) or H.320 (ISDN)? and connect accordingly. Now sometimes two video protocols (H.261, 263, 264) get in a call and have a fight with each other!
This year so far I’ve several strange things happening with calls with both Polycom and Tandberg units that can do H.261, H.263 and/or H.264. This morning I was troubleshooting a call with Andrea Israeli, NY and a ClicktoMeet site for Read Across America. Andrea and I have identical Polycom VSX7000’s on the same software rev and the ClicktoMeet site could call me but they couldn’t call her. Very strange. On a hunch, I suggested forcing the call down to H.261. Voila! It worked.
I feel like I’ve been sucked into 261/263/264 la la land. It’s a land where you never know if your calls will work. But it seems that forcing the call down to H.261 makes it work. Why is that???
I love the idea of H.264 working on low bandwidth sites with better quality. Another of my Read Across America connections is with a class in Alberta who called us at 128K. The quality was beautiful! Polycom People Plus Content came across great as well. I’d really like to see this work on a consistent basis. I guess we just have to weather this bump as the vendors work it out.
Crossing my fingers for 32 mostly Read Across America connections this week….
Andrea Israeli said,
February 27, 2006 @ 12:01 pm
Today I feel I officially entered the 261/263/264 la la land too. Thanks for figuring out the 261 thing. That put a smile on all our faces since the class is really looking forward to the Read Across America videoconference. I’ll let you know how the connection worked and looked after Wednesday 3/1. I also will be connecting with some schools in England in the coming months and will let you know about those too. Meanwhile thank you for all your help and support. I love the graphic!!!
Scott said,
February 28, 2006 @ 10:06 pm
Really. Wow. As a lowly teacher I can’t begin to imagine the mindset that makes hardware developers all keep working on different models, hoping that theirs will at least out-draw the competitors to create profitability and at best shut down all the rest. Okay, I can imagine it–I just did.
Janine I’m sending you a Sightspeed invite so we can try that one. It’s not peer to peer, it works nicely around most firewalls in my humble (okay, not) experience, and it’s free. Let’s test it. I’d just love for there to be a good IP alternative for the quick-and-unplanned connection between collaborators. My other contender is iVisit, by the way…
woodruff said,
June 12, 2006 @ 7:43 am
I love this site. Good work…