Monthly Archives: August 2013

Video Calling 3: Brightlines I/S-22 LED Conference Lamp

i-Series-with-desk-clamp1 copyIt’s been a month or more since I took delivery of a Brightlines I/S-22 light for use in my working life. I noted it’s arrival to my small circle of associates, who seem to be happy with the result. With the I/2-22 providing even fill lighting I’ve not appeared as a disembodied head on any video calls.

As was mentioned previously, the I/S-22 has three possible mounting options; a VESA bracket with a 6” gooseneck, a table clamp with a 22” long gooseneck, or a heavy round base with that same 22” gooseneck.

The VESA mount allows the light to be  mounted to the back of a monitor, presuming that the monitor is not itself mounted to a VESA type arrangement.

My situation seemed best addressed by the long gooseneck with the table clamp. This allows me to mount the light to the edge of the table immediately behind the HDX-4500. The HDX is a large and rather heavy device, and does not have VESA type mounting holes. Happily the I/S-22 on the long gooseneck rises to an appropriate height, about 4 inches above the top of the HDX.

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LifeSize On WebRTC

LifeSize_Icon_SeriesLast week LifeSize had a webinar on the topic of WebRTC. I took an hour to listen to what they had to say and pose a couple of questions. Their target audience appeared to be people who might have heard some of the hype about WebRTC, but were not otherwise familiar with this new phenomenon. Suffice it to say that the material covered was introductory.

The webinar started with a pre-recorded video of Casey King, LifeSize CTO and Simon Dudley, who is described as LifeSize video evangelist. Their pre-recorded conversation was followed by an audio-only live segment where they answered questions arising from the audience, which was reported to be over 1000 people.

If you care to view the event after the fact you’ll find a recording of the webinar here.

During the live event I posed a couple of questions in the text chat. I asked if they had any plans to support the Opus audio codec and VP8 video codec. These are core aspects of WebRTC, although the debate about whether VP8 or H.264 should be “mandatory” rages on.

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PLT Labs: Plantronics New Skunk Works

plantronics-voyager-legend-bluetooth-headset-300Plantronics has recently opened PLT Labs, a skunk works intended to help developers access the functions of the new generation of wearable technology. They propose to offer access to the new APIs exposed by prototype devices.

One of the more magical feature of the Plantronics Voyager Legend is the way it knows when you’re wearing it. If the headset is paired to my cell phone and I’m wearing the headset it will answer an incoming call.

If I’m not wearing the headset and I answer the phone using the handset itself, the headset knows to not involve itself in the media handling. It remains paired but switches the phone out of headset mode.

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Living With Technology: Sennheiser DW Pro2

It’s been just over two years since the Sennheiser DW Pro 2 DECT headset arrived. It’s been a very reliable device, seeing almost daily use over that period. This past weekend I had to effect a small repair. The issue was very minor, but worth noting if you own a similar device.

The DW Pro2 headset returns to its desktop base for charging when not in use. Normally it connects to the base in a firm manner, the blue LED on the earpiece indicating a charging state.

I had noticed that a couple of times that it wasn’t quite so firm in how it was received by the desktop base. If I wasn’t careful the headset would appear to be on the base, but the blue LED would not light and it would not charge. The upshot being that the next day when I went to use the headset it would not be fully charged.

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Mix-Master Mike*: Bridging The Bridges Then & Now

Mocet-Communicator-White-VUC-Composite copyDo you remember way back when VUC calls were don using Talkshoe? That was the service that Randulo used to create the VUC, and it remained the primary conference  used until the end of 2008. It was in November 2008 that I arranged to have David Frankel of ZipDX make a VUC guest appearance.

David’s visit was unusual in that we used it as an opportunity to expose the assembled audience to conferencing using HDVoice. David was kind enough to provide some licenses for Counterpath’s G.722-capable Eyebeam soft phone. This allowed us to have a dozen people on ZipDX in HDVoice, while the rest of the audience remained on Talkshoe. You can still listen to the archived recording of the call if you’d like.

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