Really wish Hangouts would switch to WebRTC.
They announced that this is planned the last time they did a big hangouts update.
http://gigaom.com/2013/08/28/hangouts-hd-vp8-webrtc/
How does Hangouts work today on ChromeOS?
Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
61–70 of 161 posts
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#62Serious question, given that this solution appears to be: 1) based around Google Hangouts, and 2) targeted at enterprise customers:
Does using it require Google Plus?
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#63Anyone else notice that the remote for this thing is almost identical to the boxee box remote?
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#64Serious question, given that this solution appears to be: 1) based around Google Hangouts, and 2) targeted at enterprise customers: Does using it require Google Plus?
It looks like you can access it via UberConference or Vidyo, but a Gmail account is strongly encouraged.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#65I wonder how well this works over T1's. We have 5 offices that this would work great for, and would be far, far less than the $10k/site we paid for LifeSize video conference systems (excellent, by the way) at the last place I worked.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#66Serious question, given that this solution appears to be: 1) based around Google Hangouts, and 2) targeted at enterprise customers: Does using it require Google Plus?
Exactly my question. I could do away with some awful solutions, but I don't want to merely switch to different awful problems.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding your desire for the Chromecast to have a webcam hookup - one factor that might play into why it doesn't is that in general encoding video is somewhat more computationally expensive than decoding it.
Just have an ASIC do it. No need for a general purpose processor.
Especially since they probably already have a hardware h264 decoder, which is part of the reason decoding is so much faster.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#68I don't get why this is so expensive. What's the $250 a year get me? I'm used to Chromeboxes costing about $300, and web cams cost about $100 for an awesome one. So, $400 makes sense to me...?
I don't think HN is the target audience for this product. Many of us can roll out our own cheaper solution. This is targeted towards the non tech-savvy managers that want a cheaper video conference solution. The 250 dollar a year fee is tiny for a large company but large enough to prevent home users from adopting it.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I don't get what "support and maintenance" means. I currently have a set-top box (Apple TV), webcam, HD camera and speakers, and don't pay a yearly "maintenance" for any of them. Why would running a teleconferencing software on such a setup cost $250/year? The only motivation I can see is: "well the competition charges a hefty recurring fee, so why shouldn't we", but then the competition isn't doing all that…
You don't pay a yearly maintenance for any of them because if they break, you're going to have to fix them yourself. Most companies prefer to actually have a support plan, because if they don't, the alternative is to pay their own people to fix them, and it's usually cheaper to not pay someone full-time to have expertise in that area. This is a business-focused product offering.
I work in a shop that buys IBM. We love our support contracts.
Despite that, I'd be very leery about purchasing this, as Google doesn't have a reputation for stellar support, or even _reachable_ support.
Re: Chromebox, now for simpler and better meetings
#70It's only mentioned briefly in the blog post, but one of the biggest wins with this system (and the aspect that I absolutely love when using it internally at Google) is the simplicity of screen sharing into a meeting. Anyone who wants to present can simply join the hangout from their laptop and then share their screen. Not only does it mean you don't have to fuss with cables/adapters (which can also break/wear out),…
See, that sounds awesome. However, my company uses Google Hangouts exclusively for our weekly business meeting (owing to everyone being remote), but we can't afford the price tag of the Chromebox.
If there was a cheaper (order of magnitude cheaper) version, we'd be interested.