Duke Telepresence –
Fuqua’s (Duke business school) been doing telepresence for over a decade. Challenge was to find a room that would accommodate 90 people. Room opened in 2008, seats 140, and there was some thinking about telepresence as it was designed. About 1/3 of the schools in the room have Cisco telepresence.
They wanted a 3-screen system and everyone in the room to be able to see the remote presenters well. Wanted the local presenter to be able to see the remote participants without turning around.
Camera system in the room – standard is the 3 camera mount under the big screen array – shoots the room in 3rds. On either side are two pan-tilt-zoom cameras. There are 70-something microphones around the room – press and hold to talk. As you speak, camera on your half of the room pans and tilts to show you, and one of the screen shows you. There’s also a camera that shows the local presenter – follows the actions of the person at the front of the room, replacing the image on the center screen.
People are getting used to using the room. Haven’t had any regular classes using the resources, so continuously getting faculty up to speed. People are learning, and will be able to use it themselves.
Harvard has 12 CTS 1200 and 1300 units on campus. Installed a 60-seat classroom in a local high school that’s connected to Harvard. Averaging 25-40 hours a week on the units, with peaks up to 60 hrs. Majority of calls are interop with h.323 conferences. Done mobile interop with Mobi (Tandberg). Added interactive presentation capabilities. Working on FaceTime and Skype tie-ins. Looking at backside integration with WebEx and other collaboration tools.
Duke is creating a smaller version of the three screen room to talk to a remote site for the School of the Environment.
Lots of high schools are adopting this technology. Smithsonian has four units that are now online.
Haven’t done any QOS on network – works ok over the R&E networks across to China.
Harvard has integrated with Exchange. Users can use it with one button, unless they have to do h.323 interop, which requires some intervention.
Eventually you’ll see all the Tandberg gear integrated with Cisco’s call manager.
Oren Sreebny 