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MCU vs VCS

hgbtester
Level 1
Level 1

Hello,

 

Im pretty new to the conferencing and I got confused about the following scenario :

I need to make a conference for 13 calls from the head quarter to other 13 branches in full HD , now I need to deploy 5 monitors in the head quarter and 2 monitors in each site.

 

1. so I could view 5 full HD calls from selected 4 branches as maximum, and a thumbnail view of active presence for the rest 10 calls " as a small thumbnail screen " in the fifth screen .

2. I can view max of 2 full HD in each branch which is the main speaker with someone else .

 

My view for the equipment would be like following :

1x C90 in the main office DD, PR

13x SX20 in each branch with DD, PR 

1xVCS in the main office 

1x MCU 5320 

 

Anything else needed ? im pretty confused now .

 

Regards,

2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

The whole point of Telepresence server is to merge calls into one conference - it's essentially a different type of MCU :)

Also note that while the C90 is capable of 12Mbps full HD, that's when the C90 itself is hosting the call via its multisite feature.  It can host 3 or 4 calls at the same time into one conference, but you don't use or need this feature if you have an MCU or TP Server.

If I was you, my build would look something like this:

13 x MX200/MX300 (depending on what size screen you wanted - that's the only real difference between the two)

1 x VCS-Control + 15 non-traversal call licenses

1 x Telepresence Server 7010 + 12 screen licenses

1 x SX80 + whatever screens/monitors you wanted, although an MX700 might be a better choice (dual 55" screens with built in codec)

1 x Telepresence Conductor (free version).

 

Note that under this scenario, two of your endpoints would have to dial in at 720p, because 1 x screen license = either 1 full HD call or 2 x 720p calls and the 7010 can only host a max of 12 screen licenses.  The next model up can host 48 but is much, much more expensive.

So you would use conductor + TP server to host all your conferences, all your endpoints register to VCS and dial into the conference.

View solution in original post

The choice of codec is really personal preference and easy of use/setup, in short it depends on the type of integration you'd like to have.  The MX series have monitors and codecs built together, it's a self-contained system, unlike the SX series where you would need to provide a display and make all the video/audio connections yourself to the various peripheral devices.  In regards to the SX80, it's a better choice compared to the C90, in regards to what you're looking for as Nick suggested.

Yes, Conductor is free, the things to consider about the free version is: 1) there is no official TAC support from Cisco, support for the free version comes from the forums here, 2) it can only be used with one conference bridge, if more than one are needed, you'd need to purchase a release key.  There are actually 3 different versions of Conductor, each with there own capabilities of what it can support.  Conductor is available as a virtual server.

TelePresence Server vs MCU, this gets asked a lot, especially from those that have specific versions of MCU that can migrate to TPS.  There are some things that MCU has that TPS doesn't and vise versa.  As Nick mentioned, the Active Presence layout on the TPS is by far the best layout.  There are several discussions about the comparison of the two conference bridges, suggest you take a look and see some of the differences, here is one such discussion.  MCUs will be hardware based, however TPS is available as a hardware or virtual sever.

View solution in original post

14 Replies 14

outlooker
Level 1
Level 1

You need at least an extra VCS-E as firewall traversal server at your HQ.

So I need just 2 VCS-E and not vcs like the 7010 ? And why do I need an MCU in the head quarter ? Do I need an mcu in the branches to deal with the 2 screens dual display or the sx20 codec is enough for that ? Thank you very much

Quick run down, but you need the following based on your comments.  Also, some things to consider.

1 VCS Control that will sit within your network.  If the branch offices have a trunk back to the main office, that should be fine, however if they have separate networks from the main office, you'll need to add 1 VCS Expressway that will sit in the DMZ to allow external calls into the main office.  When paired together, they allow the video traffic to traverse the firewall securely between the internal network and DMZ.

1-2 MCU 53xx that will bridge all the endpoints at the different offices together into a single conference.  Depending on how many endpoints you want in a call at once as well what you expect the quality to be (ie: SD, 720p HD, 1080p Full HD) will determine the model of MCU 5300 as well as the amount of screen licenses you'll need.  Keep in mind, depending on what you'd like to accomplish with the number of simultaneous calls and the quality, you might need more than one MCU 5300, you can have up to two MCUs stacked (clustered) together to increase the license count in which will increase the amount of participants you can have connected at one time.

The only thing the dual screen option on the codecs allow you do is have the main video of the conference on one screen and selfview/content on the other depending on how you have the two screens setup.  Nothing to do with the MCU.

Why do you want a C90 at the main office, when you're looking to put SX20s at the branch offices?  I know you mentioned 5 screens at the main office, but is that really needed, what's the thinking on that?

Thank you verymuch patrick for the respond. About the c90 and sx20 in the branches is what I actually thought logical. Im not sure as I want to achive that scenario with lowest cost. Why is it a bad idea to use them both ? The 5 screens in the main office is to split the view as possible to see the 13 parties together. My recommindation was to put 3 screens and with the active presence feature coming from vcs-E we can see the other parties as in small thumbnails ... that is my plan. But thier plan is to make 1 screen showing all of the 13 other parties so the main office manager could chose to focus from that screen on whom he want to put in the other 4 screens as in fullHD . What do you think. is that possible ? Also what do you mean by trunk ?dot1q trunk to carry the vlans for the streams?

Sounds like you might be better off with Telepresence Server + Conductor (you can get a limited version of Conductor for free) rather than an MCU.

This will allow users with touchscreens to use the "Active Control" feature, which will allow you to change your layout easily etc, although I don't think you will be able to get 4 x Full HD streams to a C90 at the same time in either scenario.

Telepresence Server also offers what is in my opinion the best layout, where the active speaker is shown full screen while there is a "film strip" down the bottom showing all other participants, overlaid on top of the main picture.

Lastly, it might be worth looking at some of the newer models like the MX200/MX300 instead of(which includes a screen + PR + DD + touch screen for about the same price as an SX20) or an SX80 instead of C90 (includes DD + PR + touch screen, only has three video outputs though).  I don't see any scenario where you can make use of more than 3 video outputs, unless you were duplicating one output on multiple screens.

Nick thank you for the reply. And that is why I made the topic named mcu vs vcs . Because I am not sure why I need them both togethet. But does the telepresence server is able todo the mcu job of merging all the calls in one conference ? About the fullhd with c90 It gets 12mbps max for multiconference so fullHD i think not possible practically neither the codec is powerfull enough todo 4 fullHD streams...

The whole point of Telepresence server is to merge calls into one conference - it's essentially a different type of MCU :)

Also note that while the C90 is capable of 12Mbps full HD, that's when the C90 itself is hosting the call via its multisite feature.  It can host 3 or 4 calls at the same time into one conference, but you don't use or need this feature if you have an MCU or TP Server.

If I was you, my build would look something like this:

13 x MX200/MX300 (depending on what size screen you wanted - that's the only real difference between the two)

1 x VCS-Control + 15 non-traversal call licenses

1 x Telepresence Server 7010 + 12 screen licenses

1 x SX80 + whatever screens/monitors you wanted, although an MX700 might be a better choice (dual 55" screens with built in codec)

1 x Telepresence Conductor (free version).

 

Note that under this scenario, two of your endpoints would have to dial in at 720p, because 1 x screen license = either 1 full HD call or 2 x 720p calls and the 7010 can only host a max of 12 screen licenses.  The next model up can host 48 but is much, much more expensive.

So you would use conductor + TP server to host all your conferences, all your endpoints register to VCS and dial into the conference.

Dont you think sx20 or even sx10 + very nice samsung screen would be better of the price for the branches with the same performance instead of mx200/mx300? About the sx80 I was thinking about it and I think the idea of 5 screens not needed so I will change to sx80 with 3 screens . The conductor is free ? What about the Hardware ? Finally to get the confusion out of my head. The deference between the telepresence server 7010 and the mcu is just how to represent the calls in my screens ? Regardless of the transcoding power and price . Thank you very much Nick.

If you want any bigger than 55", then yes SX20/SX10 would be better, but otherwise I would reccomend the MX series every time.  It works so much nicer when everything is "integrated" - I manage around 150 video endpoints and by far the biggest cause of problems is third party AV equipment.  The audio and video quality on the MX series is excellent and everything comes in one nice tidy unit.

Conductor is free if you run it on VM and only manage one TP server/MCU, although there is a hardware version which costs money.

Advantages of TP Server + Conductor:
Best "Active Presence" layout as described above
"Active Control" via touchscreen (change layout from endpoint)
Supports TIP (which you don't need, but nice to have)
Resource optimization - 12 screen licenses can give you, for example, 10 full HD + 4 720p call simultaniously.  If you were running the MCU at full HD, then every call would take a full screen license regardless of if it was 1080p/720p etc.

Advantages of MCU:
Auto-attendant - only really useful when people outside your organisation dial into yours via ISDN (and you don't have a big enough incoming number range to accomodate your endpoints) or direct IP (old endpoints that can't dial SIP URIs or full H323 IDs).

More layout options, although still doesn't do the "film strip" version of active presence - many people like this, but personally I prefer TP server's layout.

 

I hope this covers things - please remember to rate helpful responses :)

I should also note that in any of these scenarios, you STILL need VCS.  VCS is your call control and registration, MCU or TP server is your "bridging" platform.

Perfect. That what I needed to know guys. Thank you very much patrick and Nick very helpfull answers made my day. :)

[...]Conductor is free if you run it on VM and only manage one TP server/MCU, although there is a hardware version which costs money.[...]

FYI, hardware version of Conductor is soon to be EOS later this year in Sept.

The choice of codec is really personal preference and easy of use/setup, in short it depends on the type of integration you'd like to have.  The MX series have monitors and codecs built together, it's a self-contained system, unlike the SX series where you would need to provide a display and make all the video/audio connections yourself to the various peripheral devices.  In regards to the SX80, it's a better choice compared to the C90, in regards to what you're looking for as Nick suggested.

Yes, Conductor is free, the things to consider about the free version is: 1) there is no official TAC support from Cisco, support for the free version comes from the forums here, 2) it can only be used with one conference bridge, if more than one are needed, you'd need to purchase a release key.  There are actually 3 different versions of Conductor, each with there own capabilities of what it can support.  Conductor is available as a virtual server.

TelePresence Server vs MCU, this gets asked a lot, especially from those that have specific versions of MCU that can migrate to TPS.  There are some things that MCU has that TPS doesn't and vise versa.  As Nick mentioned, the Active Presence layout on the TPS is by far the best layout.  There are several discussions about the comparison of the two conference bridges, suggest you take a look and see some of the differences, here is one such discussion.  MCUs will be hardware based, however TPS is available as a hardware or virtual sever.

You can also consider using Polycom Realpresence 800 VE as you H.323/SIP MCU with H.264 SVC support while using RPAD or VCS-E as firewall traversal server.

Conductor is a subset of VCS to control MCU using SIP signaling, and the Cisco's software Telepresence Server does not support H.323 natively.

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