Cisco umi how does it work

That's because life happens as a greater framerate than that. However, considering that this is a consumer or pro-sumer product that's meant for the living room, this is a smart move.

You plug the Umi in as the last device before your TV. This means you can get calls when you're watching TV and the Umi "cloverleaf" interface will pop up and allow you to answer the call. If I'm playing Xbox I can still answer a Umi call.

The Cisco Umi interface is spartan in look, speed and style. In fact, to call it spartan my be unfair to the Spartans. It's basic to a fault. It's dry and uninspired. Fortunately as soon as the call starts you don't look at it again. Oddly, while the video runs at a buttery smooth 30fps, the user interface for the Umi feels very 10fps, you know?

It feels underpowered and pokey. However, this is a nit as you only see it doing setup, answering and adding contacts. Both the UI and the Cisco Umi website are surprising in their lack of polish, but this isn't a deal breaker.

A designer maybe from the Xbox or PS3 teams and a nice visual refresh of the admin website would really make a huge difference in the overall fit and finish. Why's my buddy holding up chips? Well, there's an audio issue in the current version of the Umi.

In some rooms with some TVs not all, as I've seen it work fine in other situations the Umi is a little aggressive with the audio noise cancelling. In an attempt to prevent feedback, the Umi software "clips audio" when two people talk at once on different sides of the call. That means if I Vishal says something or crinkles his bag of chips suddenly he can't hear me talk. Like, literally the sound is cut off completely. It works fine if we take turns, but life isn't that convenient.

People interrupt and talk over each other. Am I being too harsh? When was the last time you had your conference speakerphone or Skype cut someone off or mute them? Never, because it doesn't happen. Skype is absolutely brilliant with this. Fortunately I have it on good authority from some very cool and very responsive Cisco Umi support guys that the engineers know about this audio edge case and are on it.

My Umi auto-updated itself the first time I plugged it in, and I'm hoping that one day in the next few months this problem will just be solved. I'll update this post when that happens. It's unfortunate because the Cisco Umi is supposed to have this amazing array microphone that is smart about picking up sounds and from my and my team's perspective, it's no better than a speaker phone, and in most cases much worse.

For now, this audio issue - in my room, given my constraints of very free-flowing conversations - is so irritating that we call the Umi then mute the audio. This works near-perfectly, and as an individual in a home office allows me also to use headphones. What, Skype HD to good for you? Live Messenger? Skype is stingy about HD video.

They have been for four years. You used to be able to hack it I know, because I did but currently there appears to be a white-list of supported cameras, specifically Logitech ones.

There's obviously some kind of deal going on where they don't want to allow it for anyone on any camera can has the ability. A few technical points first. Pushing HD video is hard. Also, there are both driver issues and hardware issues.

You can use the default driver that includes some filtering, color stuff, and animated fish nonsense, or you can use a default driver that just pushes out MJPEG Motion JPEG as fast as possible, unfiltered.

In order to get p 15fps yes, 15 you'll need at LEAST a quad-core processor to squish the frames as well as at least 1. Also note that you're not actually sending or receiving HD until the receiver's video window has expended to a size that is near xp. This is a clever optimization. And so is a ticket. Or mileage, or a hotel. This whole system is about the same as one trip, except I use it daily.

I've said before, spend money and don't feel bad about it when it's something you use every day. But the best quality in all these things. The Umi was a bargain. If I had relatives with decent bandwidth who lived more than 4 hours away I'd spend the money in a heartbeat so they could see my kids.

If your parents are far away and have 3 to 4Mbps of bandwidth to spare, that's a hell of a deal. This is over the 13th. Note, this is NOT an affiliate link and I don't get any money for any of this. I'm not attached to Cisco at all. Ya, that is lame.

It's the Umi tax. They have a cloud with support for visual voice mail, routing video calls to Google Chat, email notification, etc. He covers enterprise networking infrastructure, including routers and switches.

Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register. Latest Insider. Check out the latest Insider stories here. In addition, Umi has certain user controls that will allow owners to block unwanted callers, and lock the Umi system so that others can't use it in your absence.

There's also a privacy shutter that clicks off the camera and goes into audio-only mode for those moments that aren't fit to be viewed. If p isn't available, Umi will adapt the bandwidth to drop down to p or even p quality. Cisco will make Umi available on November 14 at Best Buy, with preorders beginning today.

The hardware components will also be available at Magnolia Home theater. In addition, Cisco and Verizon will bring Umi to Verizon Fios fiber-optic network customers early in Cisco will market its Umi system with a mall tour to give prospective customers a chance to try the product hands-on. In addition, Cisco will likely air commercials featuring Canadian actress Ellen Page, in a reprisal of her role in a series of ads to promote Cisco's telepresence for business.

In reaction to Cisco's Umi, Skype invoked Moore's Law, the essence of which is that technology gets faster, smaller, and cheaper over time.