How often have your attempts to set up a video conference been marred by locked conference rooms, double bookings, faulty equipment, incompatible systems and limited support? Even when it’s up and running, both video and audio quality are so poor, it’s practically useless.
TENET, the Tertiary Education Research Network of South Africa, has introduced a new video conferencing service, aimed at fulfilling the conferencing needs of the South African Higher Education and Research communities. Their chosen delivery platform for this service is Vidyo.
Vidyo is a video conferencing platform developed to address the problems of traditional video conferencing by integrating with existing video conferencing systems. This means that no upgrades for existing room systems are required, i.e. no expensive video conferencing hardware is needed.
Desktops and laptops can be used as video conferencing tools, as well as any tablet or smartphone. You can display conference participants and shared content simultaneously on a laptop or desktop screen. Vidyo automatically adapts to the hardware to deliver the best possible experience.
The Vidyo client software is Windows, Mac OS and Linux compatible and VidyoMobile™ supports both Android and iOS devices. This means that you can participate in a conference from your smartphone or tablet on-the-go. Access is possible from anywhere, anytime – all you need is a webcam and internet enabled device.
Vidyo was used at the recently held National Telecommunication User Group (NTUG) Conference in Bloemfontein, allowing delegates from all over the country, who were unable to attend in person, the opportunity to participate online.
While Vidyo works well in normal and high bandwidth environments, it is also designed to operate when very little bandwidth is available. This makes it ideal if you’re on a slow connection. No more unintelligible conversations and blurry images.
Telephone bridging allows others to join your conference by phone and a recording and replay appliance allows recording of meetings. A large number of participants can be hosted, even if they use different brands of video conferencing equipment.
When it comes to video conferencing, the buzzword on everyone’s lips is collaboration. You can use this service to meet and consult instantly, share documents and images, exchange ideas and mentor and teach students.
The Vidyo service is available free of charge to all eligible academic and research institutions. We have created 46 Vidyo accounts of which 10 are used with existing video conferencing equipment on campus.
To use Vidyo, send an e-mail to telecom@sun.ac.za requesting a Vidyo account.
- You will receive an e-mail containing a link to the Vidyo client, as well as a username and password to access the service.
- Download and install the Vidyo client.
- Log in with the following details:
VidyoPortal: http://sun-vc.tenet.ac.za
Username: as specified by IT
Password: as specified by IT
Useful links
TENET Vidyo Blog
Vidyo Knowledge Center (Videos)
Getting Started with Vidyo
[ARTICLE BY ANDRé ELMS]
