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A group of my colleagues from different offices recently attempted a multi-party videoconference, brutally showing the continued need for a better method of video communication.
While three of us were fine with our individual laptops, webcams and headsets, another participant joined with two people sharing one notebook where the audio was horrendous -- they didn't have a headset or good microphone.
Three other people on the call also shared one notebook -- they were in a conference room and setup their notebook at the end of the conference room table so we could see all three of them in the single shot. But this meant that they had to shout for the entire meeting in order to be heard on the notebook's microphone.
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Clearly, we would have been better off with an in-room videoconferencing system, but the high costs of those systems ($5,000 to $10,000 in some cases) prevent most offices from investing in them. While you may see interest from large corporations for their executives, it's highly unlikely that ground troop-level employees will have the access (or skills)...