VVX

A Practical Application For Virtualization In The Home Office

Polycom-VVX-600-300pxA short while ago I spend a little time dealing with some Polycom phones in my home office. This time around I needed to perform some firmware updates, but it was little more complicated than normal. The tale highlights how we can make use of a VM in an incidental but convenient role.

The phones I had to update were a mix of Polycom VVX-1500, VVX-600 and VVX-500  models. Some were devices that I had purchased that run release software. Others were devices from  beta programs. Those can only run beta firmware releases. I had several different releases to accommodate.

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Polycom’s VVX-500 Finds A Home On My Desk

polycom-vvx500-300px At long last I’ve purchased a Polycom VVX-500 for my desk. A year ago I participated in the beta program for this outstanding desk phone. A such I’ve had one to use well before they launched in October 2011.

However, Polycom devices involved in a beta program ship with a boot loader that will only load beta firmware. Once the device was officially shipping and release firmware available I could not longer update the VVX in my possession. This wasn’t initially an issue, but when OnSIP started to support Polycom UC v4.0+ firmware with their provisioning server I thought it would be good to more completely integrate my desk phone with our OnSIP account.

I might like to review the VVX-500, but that seems a little weird. As I was involved in the beta program I was bound by the companies standard non-disclosure agreement during the period of the beta. Once the device launched various other people reviewed it. I’m not sure that it’s worth my time to commit to a full length review, but there are some items worth noting about the VVX-500. I can certainly point these out from time to time.

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Experimenting With The Plantronics MDA200 & Various Cordless Headsets

A few people have commented offline about my recent review of the Sennheiser DW Pro2 DECT headset. The major thrust of opinion seems to be that the DW Pro2 is simply unreasonably expensive. As I said in the review, that’s your call to make dear reader. However, such commentary has driven me to consider an alternative.

For the past week I’ve had a Plantronics MDA200 in-house. I’ve had some time over the holiday break to try it with the various headsets that I have on-hand. It happens that I currently have a Plantronics Voyager PRO UC v1, Voyager Pro UC v2, Savi Go and Savi W430 hereabouts. This assortment seems a reasonable basis for experimenting with the MDA200.

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VUC Video Calls: A Two Act Play

As many of you may know I’ve been trying to put together a video call for the VUC over the past few months. After a lot of thought, but little action, act one of this little project will get underway this coming Friday, August 13th at 1pm EDT.

The basic idea for the project has been with me for a year, ever since I trialed the Polycom VVX-1500 video phones last summer. It evolved as I was later asked to research video conferencing systems for my employer, a project which was eventually tabled in Q4/09.

There are quite a number of factors to consider when you’re thinking about implementing a video conference solution. At its most basic I needed in some substantive way to grasp the difference between one-to-one video calling using desk phone, traditional video conferencing and “Telepresence.”

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VUC Aug 13th: Blink Mind On Video Calling

This coming Friday, August 13th will be yet another Voip Users Conference double-header. Starting at our usual 12 Noon EDT we have an overview of the Freetalk Connect SMB PBX featuring Skype integration.

Then immediately following, at 1pm EDT, we have Chris Veazey, VP Engineering of Blink Mind, to discuss the current state of the industry with regard to multi-media phones and SIP-based video calling.

Blink Mind has agreed to provide a video conference bridge (MCU) as part of their appearance. Further, as Blink Mind are a Polycom partner, Polycom has graciously provided a pair of Polycom VVX-1500 Business Media Phones on loan. One VVX is at Randy’s location in California, and the other in my home office.

As we aim to explore the capabilities of the VVX-1500 and similar desk phones, the video portion of the Blink Mind call with be limited to CIF (352 x 240) resolution using H.264 compression.

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