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Join Me at Interop

By Greg Zweig – May 3, 2012

If you are headed to Las Vegas next week for Interop I hope you take a moment to listen in on my panel “Value of Video in Collaboration”.  Wednesday, May 9 2:00 PM–3:00 PM – (Location: Breakers F).  I’ll be joined by a few peers from Cisco, Polycom and LifeSize, it should be a good discussion.  I certainly expect that there will be a fair bit of discussion about the direction of video conferencing and I look forward to discussing our new Video Conference Streaming Gateway Module for the DME.

In addition, I hope to expand the conversation to discuss content management and distribution.  As you know, the proliferation of mobile devices is changing how video is created and where it is displayed; not to mention the exponential increase in total content available.  It’s time we started thinking about video content more holistically, not in silos based on the creation tool.  Organizations need one place to manage and control all of that content whether it was created by VBrick encoders, a Polycom Video Conference unit in a boardroom (connected to a DME…) or an iPad in a classroom.  Unfortunately, many smart IT folks assume they can just use SharePoint or the “T” drive to store video but history has shown that those solutions don’t solve distribution, scale, search or format issues that make video different than Word files.

I hope to see you there.

 

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VBrick and Dartmouth Streaming Formula Hybrid

By Mary Maguire – May 2, 2012

More than 30 colleges and universities are gathering together this week in Louden, NH for the Formula Hybrid Competition.   VBrick is streaming the event live directly from the race track.

The Formula Hybrid Competition features high-performance hybrid and electric race cars built by teams of undergraduate and graduate engineering students.  Like Formula SAE®, students compete in all aspects of design, acceleration, handling, and endurance of their vehicle following a specific set of rules.  Formula Hybrid teams are also faced with the additional challenge of optimizing both energy efficiency and sustainability of materials used in their cars.

Watch live at  http://www.formula-hybrid.org/live.php.and follow on twitter at @FormulaHybrid12

 

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Corpus Christi Army Depot — Leveraging VBrick to Train More than 6,000 People !

By Mary Maguire – April 12, 2012

The Corpus Christ Army Depot is Texas is the world’s largest overahaul and repair facilty for helicopters, where everythign from engines to complete aircraft are repaired or rebuilt to ‘good as new condition’ and returned to service.  With over 6,000 workers at a facility that covers nearly one square mile., the Corpus Christi Army Depot is the area’s largest industrial employer. Educating, informing and training all of these workers used to require frequent and costly interruptions in work to assemble everyone at the facility for live presentations and instruction.

To alleviate the disruptions caused by these live presentations, the Depot began installing VBrick IP-based video solutions. The initial effort kicked off in 2006. That deployment has grown and today the Depot uses VBrick’s VEMS management software, encoding appliances and digital signage products. All of these solutions are used to help capture, manage and distribute video over a private intranet to stay in touch with everyone on the base, 24×7.

According to Walter Sheehan, Multimedia Information Officer at the Depot, “VBrick systems have not only improved communications; they have also saved millions of dollars by eliminating so much training downtime.”

To read the full case study, click here http://vbrick.com/docs/VBrick__CorpusChristi.pdf

Posted in Digital Signage, Encoding, Uncategorized.

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Top Ten Considerations When Deploying Streaming Video in a Microsoft UC Environment

By Mike Chapman – April 10, 2012

Did you know that all branches of the US Military and more than 100 US Federal Agencies are VBrick customers !  Pretty amazing.   This week, we are talking to many folks in the maritime services at Microsoft’s Navy and Marine Corps Symposium in Redmond, WA.  We are showing how VBrick’s Lync Streaming Gateway integrates VEMS Mystro™ video content management solution with Microsoft’s Lync Unified Communication (UC) client.

If you want to learn more about how to best deploy streaming in a Microsoft UC Environment, click here to download a white paper http://www.vbrick.com/campaigns/uc/  —-   and read on for our  Top Ten UC Considerations….

TOP TEN CONSIDERATIONS WHEN DEPLOYING STREAMING VIDEO IN A MICROSOFT UC ENVIRONMENT

10.  Determine the type of video solutions which fit best with the requirements of the organization:  Streaming video, video conferencing, web conferencing.

9.  Determine that the number of participants supported in a single session is consistent with the planned uses of the UC solution.

8.  For a streaming solution, ensure that all of the types of video streams required are supported:  TV distribution, live and on-demand training, one-to-many video broadcasts, mobile video, emergency preparedness, situational awareness.

7.  Determine which UC tools the participants will use to access video streams – OCS, Lync, or SharePoint – based on corporate infrastructure, use cases and user preference.

6.  Define whether employees will need to collaborate while accessing the video streams.  If so, OCS or Lync would be the best choice.

5.  Ensure that Presence Icons are supported and correctly displayed for live broadcasts.

4.  Review the security plan for your UC solution – can access to video assets be authorized by group or by single user using Active Directory?

3.  Determine how easy a solution is to deploy – will it require desktop downloads for the required capabilities?

2.  Make sure that the video portion of the UC solution is part of a bullet-proof ecosystem and not a standalone product.

1.  Carefully consider all portions of the deployment when selecting a solution to ensure it meets the requirements of the organization.  Ensure that the investment is in a deployment that ultimately delivers a UC solution that will meet the use case, strategic, technical and financial goals of the organization now and in the future.

Posted in Lync, News, VEMS.

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Check out these VBrick Education Case Studies

By Mary Maguire – March 27, 2012

Kids love video.   Progressive school districts are using VBrick solutions to help  students express themselves with video and – at the same time –  help teachers teach and administrators administrate.

There are many trends — the ‘consumerization of video’ and  ’flip the classroom’ that prove video is not only here to stay — but video is fast becoming the single most important medium in the world of education.

The consumeration of video - The lines between voice, text and video have blurred.  Students want to use the same tools in their school work that they use in their day-to-day FaceBook, YouTube and Twitter-driven lives.

Flip the Classroom -  Teachers are now recording  live lessons using screen capture software.  Students view these lessons online as “homework” so the actual coursework - traditionally considered homework –  can be executed and reviewed in the classroom - making the classroom a much more interactive environment and allowing teachers to be more hands-on.

As these trends become more pervasive throughout the K-12, Primary and Secondary school systems, many are turning to VBrick as the cornerstone technology ensuring the best and most reliable video user experience .

To learn more about how – Dickinson ISD in Texas, County Schools in Kentucky, and Morgan County Schools in Georgia — are benefitting from VBrick’s video streaming technology, click here:  http://www.vbrick.com/industries/educational-video-streaming.asp

Posted in Education, Uncategorized.

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VBrick “Student Victory” Video Contest

By Mary Maguire – March 22, 2012

The first-ever VBrick Student Victory Video Contest has been launched !  The contest is for students ages 5-17, K-12.  We are looking to see first hand the creative videos being made by your talented students with the help of VBrick technology.

There are three categories:  Morning Announcements, Event Broadcasting, Coursework

Deadline for submitting videos: May 25, 2012

First place winners receive: iPAD and a Playsport HD Video Camera

Complete details, rules and deadlines can be reviewed at: http://www.empoweredbyvbrick.com/contest/

 

 

Posted in Education.

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VBrick Recognized by Computerworld as a 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate

By Mary Maguire – March 19, 2012

Today, we announced that VBrick has been named a 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate.  We are especially proud of this award because, according to Computerworld, “the honorees apply information technology in a way that promotes positive social, economic and educational change.”

VBrick was honored for its work in the Safety and Security sector — highlighting the impact our technology has in emergency, life-and-death situations.  With VBrick video streaming solutions — emergency personnel can quickly understand the situation at hand, make intelligent decisions and communicate next steps to all departments involved, ensuring people in trouble are reached quickly and receive the best possible care.  As an example of our work in this sector, the award organizers referenced the VBrick deployment at San Diego 3Cs, where VBrick technology is used to stream high-resoluiton video from first-responding helipcopters to county-wide command centers.

We are keeping pretty good company with this award — click here to watch the video from last year’s award ceremony

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Apple’s Efforts Underlie Continued Demand for High-Quality Video in Business and Education

By Mary Maguire – March 8, 2012

Apple’s announcements today regarding Apple TV and the third-generation iPad are all about HD video.  Apple TV now delivers 1080p quality and the new iPad has 2048 x 1536-pixel retina display, 5-megapixel camera and 1080p video recording.   The efforts and resources Apple is obviously investing underlie the continued demand for high-quality video.  Every day we see iPads being deployed in corporate, educational, healthcare and government environments – they are moving from a personal convenience to a common and powerful business tool.  Apple is clearly committed to assuring that every one of these deployments has the potential to produce and consume HD video – it easily becomes a transparent part of business applications.

All of this only serves to underscore the value of having the right tools in place to manage and distribute the HD content being created by and for these products; both on the LAN/WAN as well as the Internet.  Organizations will need intelligent storage and distribution, centralized content management and powerful search tools.  No one understands how to deliver these solutions better than VBrick.

Posted in Apple.

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VBrick Chosen to be a Flagship Member of the Avaya DevConnect Select Product Program

By Greg Zweig – March 6, 2012

Today both VBrick and Avaya announced that VBrick Systems has been chosen to be a flagship member of the Avaya DevConnect Select Product Program. We are very excited that Avaya’s resellers now have a direct and easy way to arm their customers with the most sophisticated portfolio of IP video streaming solutions.
According to Unified Communications Strategies, the global market for UC products and services will reach $15.9 billion this year. Customers deploying UC products are asking for solutions that not just integrate UC and video, but incorporate UC video as a core service. By combining the Avaya and VBrick solutions — corporations, educational institutions, healthcare facilities and government entities have a clear path to offer UC video as a core service allowing them to stream live executive broadcasts to thousands of sites, extend video conferences to thousands of viewers and record and store all types of events for on-demand access

The entire VBrick organization is looking forward to engaging with Avaya and its resellers to better incorporate video into customers’ UC environments. Avaya partners please click here http://vbrick.com/partners/avaya.asp so we can help facilitate an introduction to your VBrick counterpart.

Avaya customers and resellers attending the Enterprise Connect Conference & Expo in Orlando (March 26-29) should visit VBrick in Booth 536 or look for the VBrick “pod” in the Avaya booth

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VBRICK BRIDGES THE GAP BETWEEN VENDORS

By Garth Leach – February 1, 2012

InAVate Magazine caught up with Greg Zweig of VBrick on the show floor at ISE 2012 in Amsterdam. Greg demonstrates the capability of the company’s solutions to integrate with platforms from the leading visual comms suppliers such as Polycom, Tandberg and Lifesize.

Posted in Video Conference Gateway.

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