Hi All,
We manage a relatively large number of organizations in the Public sector (Education, Governmental and non-profit etc) here in Wales (around 75+). We provide them with the necessary infrastructure to make a receive video calls, and we manage their internal video conferencing systems - the infrastructure essentially boils down to Cisco VCS devices that enable gatekeeper and SIP registrar functionality, dial planning, and firewall traversal. A third party provides external MCU and videoconferencing booking facilities for pretty much the whole of the UK Education (and some public sector) community.
Each organisation has a limited number of video system and as such their internal infrastructure does not really require anything such as the RMX or DMA solutions. All of these organisation are more concerned with inter-organisation videoconferencing, rather than internal videoconferencing and as such the system works reasonably well.
However, many organisations are now turning to Lync to enable their internal users desktop conferencing facilities. Obviously, with the HDX and Group Series systems, there is the option of a Lync Interoperability and multipoint licence (TIP is enablesd as well, although this is something we would not reequire), and as such we have acquired a loan unit (Group 700 running 4.2) to test its capabilities. The ability to call a VC device directly from Lync would be quite appealing, however, after setting up the unit and connecting it with our Lync 2013 deployment, there are a number of questions that spring to mind.
- One of the most important feature in our community would be the need to share content between connected devices. I had interpreted (and re-read, probably misinterpreted), that the Polycom endpoint would be able to render and send content direct to Lync clients. I do understand that this involves the transcodeing of the secondary (H.239) video stream (that will use H.264 video CODEC) to RDP as used by Lync and vice versa, but has hoping that the Polycom device would have the CPU capacity to transcoded this on the fly. When I attempt to send content to the device form Lync, I am informed that the calling device cannot receive content.
- Assuming that I cannot send content directly to the endpoint form Lync (and vise versa), I'm guessing I would need the "Polycom Content Sharing Suite Software". However, on checking out requirements for this, am I right in thinking that this also requires both RMX and DMA to work?
- The Group 700 I have on loan has a multipoint licence installed that should enable 4 calls to be joined on the one device. However, will this enable both Lync and standards based H.323 calls to be joined into a single conference. It does seem possible to get both H.323 and Lync endpoints connected at the same time on the Group 700 (you need to establish the H.323 call first, then dial out to the Lync client form the Polycom - if you try this the other way round, the Polycom will either complain that the "meeting is full", or if you dial in, the only option you get is to Hang up the Lync participant to answer the H.323 one, or ignore the call). However, even with both in the call, I can't see any video or hear any audio on the Lync client, although I can hear the Lync client on the other endpoints (although no video is transmitted either). Is this expected behavior?
If anyone has thoughts or comments on this, I would appreciate it.
Cheers
Chris
