Citrix made a great move announcing HD Faces™, a high-definition video conferencing technology, for its products GoToMeeting®, GoToWebinar® and GoToTraining®.

The technology will feature the innovative new Citrix Multistream HD™, which will let the attendants to participate in a video conferencing with up to six people.
The total maximum resolution allowed for the session is 1920p x 960p, making it the first in the market. The technology will also allow people to view video and the presenter’s shared desktop in the same screen.

The software featuring the new technology HD Faces™ was previewed at Citrix Synergy Berlin and will become commercial available for the first quarter of 2011.

“When customers say they want video capabilities combined with web conferencing, they don’t mean tiny choppy images – but that’s what they currently get with the products on the market today,” said Bernd Christiansen, vice president and chief technology office of Citrix. “What they actually want is to see the details in others’ facial expressions just like in a face-to-face meeting or training session. That’s why it was so important to us to incorporate high-resolution video into our collaboration products. I’m confident that we’re the first to combine web and video conferencing the right way and – most importantly – to make it delightful for customers to use.”

“We’ve made it so easy and natural to work on a shared document in a video conference that I can’t imagine why any businessperson would ever want to use a standalone desktop video conferencing solution again,” Christiansen added.

Below is the demo presentation of Gotomeeting with HD faces. Just click in the video to watch it.

Of the many Webcam’s out there, Microsoft feel they can offer a true HD experience with there Microsoft LifeCam Studio. While the initial price was closer to £80, it has dropped all the way down to £50 which means its is either very good value or it was not quite as good as first thought and is not selling. I had the chance to try one out for a brief period and everything recorded was using the supplied software and office style lighting. The question on your lips when you stand in the store will be “Is this worth the money and should I buy it”. I hope the video and pictures presented can in some way help you make that choice.

The Webcam itself

The webcam comes with a built in mount that can either mould to a screen, stand on its own or be screwed to a standard tripod mount. While it looks well made, it does feel a bit on the cheaper side but given the now much cheaper price, this is not a major concern. The web-cam part swivels 180 degrees in either directions which is handy for showing behind the monitor and such. It comes with a Lens Can which I almost threw out – I imagine this is not something you want to use but it is there if you want it.

Pictures

Using the software that comes with it – I took pictures at HD resolution – given the good and consistent lighting as afforded to by most offices, this is were the camera will look the best.

Video

I recorded a Short clip – again this is through the software and at HD (1280×720).

HD Recording

While it says on the Box it does HD, the highest option to record at in the software is 1280×720 which is not 1080p but if you use ‘other’ software such as virtual dub – you can record at the full 1080p resolution. The Logitech C910 on the other hand can record in full 1080p using the software supplied (or so it says).

Thoughts

In the choice between the Microsoft Lifecam and the Logitech C910, it comes down to price and low light features. The Logitech C910 is still £60 on-line while in many shops I have seen the price as high as £90. The Microsoft Lifecam by comparison be bought as I mentioned for £50 on-line, Remember though that the pictures and video above was taken in a well lit office, your mileage might vary in a normal bedroom with one light source.

At work I got a replacement phone, the current model they hand out now is the HTC HD Mini which runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 and has a sense UI bolted on front to give it a Android type look. What HTC did was take the HTC HD2 and shrink it down to a more manageable size – of course going down in size means they had to cut back on some items such as screen size and processor speed.

Phone specifications

The CPU is a 600Mhz Model, this falls well under the 1ghz seen on newer and better phones and probably means games and such will be slow. It has 512MB ROM and 384MB RAM along with a Micro SD slot that takes up to 32GB cards. It runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional with HTC Sense bolted on the front. The camera is 5 megapixels with auto focus but no flash and has built in G-Sensor, Proximity sensor and finally Ambient Light sensor. Battery life (Quoted) is 400 Minutes Talk time and 500 Hours Standby time along with 12 hours of Audio Playback time.

The screen is Capacitive and runs at 320×480 HVGA – the phone weighs 3.88 ounces (110 Grams). Size wise – its 103.8mm in height, 57.7mm width and 11.7mm thick.

The Initial Setup

The Boot up time seem to take a long time indeed compared to many other phones I have seen such as my HTC Hero and the iPhone. It takes you through setting up any email accounts you may have and then moves onto the likes of Facebook and Youtube. Now while I managed to sign into facebook, no matter how much I tried, it did not seem to want to log into Youtube via the setup wizard.

The Various Screens

The first screen is the Home Screen and you can see that it displays the time and the weather (animated), if you now swipe up on the part that says Call History – it takes you to your Quick launch applications (which you can customise).

The next Screen is along is contacts – here you can add people so you can quick dial them, if they have no picture, it lets you select one or use any part of a large image for example. Finally we have the SMS Screen which you can swipe to read and reply to if needed.

The internet part is a choice of Opera Mobile 8 or Internet explorer (not sure what version). You get to add two main sites on the front screen and unlike the Android – it does not show a preview of the site. I have opened up my site as you can see and for most part it displays this just fine. I tired the various flash sites and this is were it fell over straight away. I tried to get Skyfire for this but no such luck installing the software. You can see the Calendar and as this is a business phone – this gets it from my Outlook at work. I am not sure how this ties in with say Google Calendar which my ANdroid Phone does very well indeed.

The email screen allows you to swipe you way through the emails as well as manage them from this screen, if you double tap on one email, it opens up in full screen. If you have many accounts, it displays various envelopes to show un-read messages in each.

The Music player looks quite good, you can quickly get to your library stored on the phone or the memory card. What I could not find though was a way to link to my NAS Box and play the music across the network. The Pictures slide shows both pictures and video’s and you can swipe through them, play them and so forth.

How did I get the screenshots?

Finally the Settings Screen, this is the button that looks like the Windows Flag – this allows you to get to installed programs and various settings of the phone.

I went to the market and installed a program (which was free) called Wifi Remote Access and this sets up either by wireless or USB a connection and a password. You then go over to your computer, bring up a web browser and insert the IP Address the phone has got, the phone will prompt you if you want to allow this computer to connect. You can now browse the phone contents, FTP into the phone (using any FTP client) and as you can see, look at the phone screen in almost real time (minus animations) and even control the phone from that web page.

Wi-Fi Router

As you can see on that screen above – you can use the phone as a 3G router, this is as simple as setting up a WEP key and such and away you go. You would of course need to make sure your data plan could withstand such a thing as the computer will be pulling a lot more data then using the phone. This could be very handy, say in a hotel to access your work and check the internet type thing.

My thoughts on the phone itself

I was never really a fan of Windows Mobile 6.5 and even plastering on Sense UI does not hide that this is not in fact an android. The market place for example has hardly any applications listed compared to Android and Apple. I could not find Skype, seems that Skype has pulled the only version they had and now concentrating on Windows Phone 7. I could not find a VNC Application, animated wallpapers and so forth.

What is more worrying is that the phone has no method for updating itself it seems, surely Microsoft has been updating windows for some time now yet struggled with 6.5? In the end I had to go off to HTC Main site, spent ages trying to enter my serial number and finally getting an updated ROM. The ROM Update actually failed twice before I finally managed to get it installed and my phone was back to Day 1, I had to set it up all over again.

The screen may well be Capacitive and I can pinch and zoom with the best of them but no matter how much I stabbed at that screen, more often then not it either picked a different row on the keyboard or never responded to my stabbing action. Every time I place the phone down, the dialler seems to come up – am I pressing a button by accident or is the phone sensing that by placing the phone on my desk I might want to ring somebody?

If I had a choice between an Android phone and a Windows Mobile 6.5 – i would choose Android every single time. It feels snappier than my HTC Hero on some parts but harder to understand on some other parts. Its nice and small, its provided by work and it’s free – so I should not grumble. 

(Betamax for the win)

Technology moves on and people try and find easier and better ways to manage and watch media, be it video, pictures or even music on there TV. It was not that long ago that it was quite simple, you bought a DVD Player that suited your price range and features, plugged it into your TV and you can now go out and buy movies on DVD. Storing 100′s of Movies presented an issue and there had to be a better way – and now there is, media streaming devices come in many shapes and sizes as well as cost and functions – this post serves as a grounding on what to look for.

What have you got now?

Let’s begin with what you have now and how you plan to consume your media. If you collection is based on DVD for example then you are going to need something that can play DVD or a means to convert the collection to a media format (such as handbrake). If you have a large collection of files already on a hard drive for example – then maybe one of the many media streaming devices might suit you better and it also depends on what your TV is capable of and what media you might have to play now or in the future.

The Blu-Ray Solution

Steve over at TheTechBuzz did a review of the Visio VBR220 Blu-Ray player – this not only plays all your DVD collection and the Blu-rays of course but can also stream as it has inbuilt wireless which means you can can NetFlix and the like. While this is a good solution for some, it might not suit everyone.

The Media Streaming device

In this section we have devices such as the WDTV, WDTV Live, ASUS O!Play and many many others (there is a lot out there). the main features of these is that they are small, quiet and can play just about anything out there and most do full 1080p. Given that 1080p media would struggle over wireless, a lot of these support or only work with a Harddrive full of media plugged in.

There is a couple of ways to think about this – if you can store all your media on one (or more) harddrives and are happy to to copy across new stuff now and then, the WDTV would suit the bill, be aware that not all media players can play everything and you might be disappointed when you try and play that latest MKV 1080p movie and it fails to even see it there.

Limitations

I own the WDTV – this operates via a hard drive plugged in and it can indeed play just about anything you can throw at this thing. The issues comes when the movie you have is encoded with DTS Audio – the WDTV has no hardware to decode the audio – so you end of with silence. Now this is not the end of the world – you can use the free PopCorn Audio Converter to take the audio down to 5.1 with no loss of quality in the video. What this player can do is if you take an ISO of a DVD (which you need to remove the protection of course) or the files “as-is” – the WDTV can just play them, like I said these media players can play just about anything.

What about other services?

A lot of these media streaming devices are now offering extra on-line services such as NetFlix and other USA Based stuff (not sure what UK people get, probably just YouTube). This can save you switching on the computer I guess but how well a small YouTube video would scale up on a 42″+ TV is unknown…

Expandablity

One more important point – is there a growing community so you can expand that device? This can add something to an older device, such as how I managed to Add Wireless support and various services (such as Apple Trailers) to my now ageing WDTV player – I agree it is not for everyone and you could ‘brick’ the device but good to know all the same.

Anything else?

Let us not forget the consoles such as the XBOX and the PS3 and also making a small desktop PC as a media centre – these give even more flexibility in that they can display any web page and you can watch streams on there and so forth – plenty of options on the table my friend – just a case of you working out what is best for you, for the money that you can afford and what you want to do.

As ISP’s provide faster bandwidth speeds, webcams get higher resolution and computers get faster and more core’s – it begs the question – can you now stream in full HD resolution to offer the best video possible as well do it on a free service? I recently watched what was claimed to be full blown HD Stream but after making this full screen and seeing ‘jaggies’ on the diagonal lines (such as the nose for example) – I questioned if this was really HD and what was at fault.

Bandwidth requirements

• 720p60: 1280×720 gives 0,92 megapixels per frame. If we take a 24-bit color value per pixel (RGB), this means 2,76 MB data per frame, which multiplied with the 60fps gives 1,3 Gbps or 165 MB/s.
• 1080i60: 1920×1080 means a 2 megapixel frame which translates into 6,2MB per frame. The interlacing cuts the bitrate in half: 6,2MB x 60 / 2 = 1,49 Gbps or 186 MB/s.
• 1080p60 is obviously double the throughput of 1080i: 2,98 Gbps or 373 MB/s

Hardware

I am using the Logitech 9000 Pro and going from the spec’s page:

• High-definition video (up to 1600 X 1200*) – * Enhanced from native 2-MP sensor.
• 720p widescreen mode with recommended system

Now when I tested this HD mode – I need to add that it was dark and only had one light on – that means the camera had to work harder and probably make the image worse that it could have been.

The testing enviroment

Using the Core i7 machine armed with Flash media encoder 3.1 – I set the input and output to 1280×720 at 25fps, the bandwidth to 950 for video and the total bandwidth needed was 1014kbps. In theory I have 1500kbps – so I should have some headroom.  I also recreated the same settings on Wirecast and go to work recording some content and taking some pictures.

The first thing I noticed on Wirecast broadcasting was it was not as crisp even on preview and if you click the picture above to get the full resolution you can see that there is jaggy lines on the cup, the laptop and the words are not that clear.

Now let is turn to Flash Media Encoder 3.1 – straight away you should notice the much sharper picture, the lack of jaggies on the laptop, how easy it is to read the text. The lines you can see running through the picture is the camera trying hard to compensate for low light.

Thoughts

Wirecast will probably get better in Version 4 – as of now it downgrades the quality of either a webcam or a screen capture (a game for example). FME on it’s own of course cannot do camera swtiching live or capture the desktop but armed with the right programs, you could go so way to get them features.

The bottom line is just because you *think* you are broadcasting in HD does not mean the end result is true HD Quality. The stream above for example is still worse in Quality than a proper 720P Movie – streaming has a long way to go yet.

Spotted this on bigpockets.co.uk for £69.99 – seems like a good deal and a good device.

Supports All Popular HD Video
This product supports all popular 1080p HD video in the market, including H.264, MKV, Divx HD,
MPEG 2-TS, VC-1, WMV9, then you can enjoy HD video on your HD TV by HDMI interface.

Supports USB Host And LAN Samba Client
With a USB2.0 high speed host build-in, you can plug in your USB storage devices like USB hard
disk, USB flash drive and MP3 player to extend more storage space and playback your media direct
from these USB storage. Thanks to Samba supporting in this product, you can navigate your media
stored in your PC and playback them on TV, this is much helpful in sharing your media at home.

Supports Multi Memory Cards Media Input
With multi memory card reader socket, you can insert memory cards like SD, SDHC, MMC and MS cards into the product, then playback the media direct from the memory cards to TV.

HDMI Digital output
With a HDMI interface design-in, digital audio can output to TV with 1080p HD video signal. It enable user connect his video connection very easily.

PDF Sheet

SPECIFIACATIONS

∙Memory card
input Supports             SD, SDHC, MMC and MS cards
∙USB input                   USB2.0 high speed USB host x 2
∙Firmware                     Upgradeable
∙OS language                English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Dutch,
∙Audio file                     MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, LPCM, FLAC, AC3 & DTS
∙Video codec                H.264, MKV, WMV9, MPEG 1/2/4, HD Divx , Xvid, FLV, RM/RMVB
∙Video file                     mkv, ts, m2ts, mts, tp, trp, wmv, Ifo, iso, vob, dat, avi, mpg, mp4,
mov, rm, rmvb, divx, xvid, flv
∙Video resolution                       H.264, MKV, WMV9, TS and HD Divx supports up to 1920 x 1080p 30p
RM/RMVB supports up to 720p
∙Subtitle                                    sub, smi, ssa, srt, idx + sub
∙Photo file                     JPG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, GIF
∙Video out                    CVBS, HDMI 1.3(max 1080p)
∙Audio out                    stereo R/L, optical, HDMI digital
∙LAN                           RJ45, supports Samba client
∙Remote control                        Yes
∙Panel button                NO
∙power supply               Universal AC 100 ~230V 50Hz
∙Power rate                  DC 12V 2A
∙Product dimension       170 x 125 x 25 mm (L x W x H)

Thoughts

I do not own this device as I already have the WD TV which only plays any media plugged into the 2 USB Ports. The idea of a device that can stream media from wireless sounds interesting to me but I am not 100% sure it could cope with Full 1080P movie across wireless. They also sell another device – Sumvision Cyclone MKV FULL 1080p HD Player + Enclosure V2 which is the same as this but has the ability to house a harddrive as well.