Yesterday an AverMedia QuickPlay came in the mail from Troxell Communications. We ordered one to see if it would work for our RUS Grant building carts. This will allow the teachers to hook up a computer to share their presentations for the project VCs with other classes.
I’m really pleased with the little unit. It’s so easy. I tested a Mac and a PC and they worked great connecting S-Video into the document camera input on our Polycom VSX 7000s.
Now I know some of you are thinking, why aren’t you using H.239? Because my experience with it has been less than ideal. I’ve seen it fail most of the time it’s used. Most of our connections are with everyone under the sun, and so we never know what type of unit we’re connecting to or if they can receive H.239. I’ve seen the following points of failure:
- The endpoint can’t receive H.239
- H.239 is turned off on the endpoint
- The firewall is blocking H.239 traffic
- The bridge/MCU in the conference path is blocking H.239 or doesn’t have the feature turned on
So, I’m sticking with the tried & true scan converter method of hooking up a computer. Of course the easiest method is to zoom the camera in on a laptop screen. No wires! 
Call me old-fashioned, but hey, it works consistently with whoever you connect to!
