Tandberg uncorks telepresence package

Tandberg is introducing a room-based telepresence package it says can integrate with existing videoconferencing gear so businesses can upgrade with out dumping the equipment they now use.

Called Telepresence T-3, the gear consists of three 64-inch, high-definition monitors, high-definition speakers and microphones all connected in a free-standing unit that includes three tables for participants to sit at. The tables each have a 22-inch touch screen for controlling the system and for sharing documents during conferences. (Compare Collaboration products.)

The package would be installed in a room, and comes with lighting and blue, back-lit wall panels that are part of the package to enhance the images shot in the room. Tandberg is also announcing a set of services to evaluate customer sites, install the gear and manage and maintain it after it is deployed.

The idea behind telepresence is that it projects such high-resolution, life-size images of participants in an environment that makes it seem that they are actually sitting across the table in the same room. Cameras are located so when participants look at the image of other participants, it seems they are looking them in the eye.

Backdrops, lighting and furniture are all standardized to further the impression that all the participants on the screen are sitting at the table.

Telepresence T-3 gives Tandberg a product that can be dropped freestanding into a room or integrated into the room, expanding its telepresence line so it matches those of other vendors, says Ira Weinstein, an analyst with Wainhouse Research.

The gear costs about $300,000 not including the backdrops and wall finishings, which cost another $39,000. That's ballpark with what such vendors as Cisco, HP, Polycom and Teleris charge, and the high overall price doesn't matter, Weinstein says. "When you get a solution like this, you don't count nickels and dimes," he says.

The Tandberg system is compatible with other vendors' gear that builds its products to the Session Initiation Protocol, H.323 and, via a gateway, H.320, Tandberg says.

Tandberg is also introducing Telepresence Server, a hardware blade with software that plugs into its MSE 8000 video bridge chassis. The server can manipulate images during conferences involving more than two sites to give customers five options for how to display them.

The system can show on all three screens just the person onsite who is talking and switch to another site when someone there starts talking via a feature called room-switched display.

The system can also show three tables from three sites, one on each screen, displaying those tables from which someone has most recently spoken. When someone new talks, that table is switched in. This is called a one-table display.

Smaller images of the sites that have not spoken recently can be superimposed over the bottom of either the room-switched or one-table displays. These are called room-switched continuous and one-table continuous displays.

Finally, Telepresence T-3 can show all participants from standard and HD-equipped sites equal in size and stacked up like "Hollywood Squares" contestants.