January 7th, 2005
Motorola's got their Ojo video phone working
Video telephony is a big subject of discussion at the Consumer Electronics Show. True, CES showcases products aimed mainly at consumers, a new video phone is being shown at the event that blurs the lines somewhat between the enterprise and consumer IP telephony sectors.
How about a mass-market video phone that is usable for point-to-point calls, not only home but from say, you to a prospective client - even if they do not have the same device?
What about a video phone from a company with a brand name cachet that spans, the enteprise, SOHO and consumer sectors - thus greatly increasing ubiquity, familiarity and comfort level?
The Motorola Ojo Personal Videophone is one such device. Being shown to much fanfare at CES, this SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)-compliant phone can be used for IP video calls, VoIP voice-only - or if you insist, regular old dial-up calls over PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).
Ojo optimizes the MPEG-4 coding standard (H.264), to offer 30 frames-per-second video on a 16:9 LCD display. Audio is synchronized with video by means of the iLBC (internet Low Bit Rate) audio codec.
Ojo can work within cable broadband and DSL upstream data rates, not overloading your broadband connection.
Interoperability? Glad you asked. It’s my job to intuit what you might be thinking. Ojo is compliant with NCS (network-based signaling), making Ojo compatible with other video phones, and even PC-based video applications.
I like the feature set as well. Ojo’s got a miniature camera, a picture-based phonebook and caller ID,as well as video and audio privacy controls.
But you know how audio and video phones sometimes sound tinny in the speaker mode you prefer for conferences? Don’t you just hate that? Well, I am happy to report that Ojo’s speaker phone has an Adaptive sub-band echo cancellation feature that works great.
Ojo isn’t available yet, but will be working its way through various retailer, systems integrator, plus telephony and broadband provider channels over much of this year. It’s listed at $799, plus monthly access fees.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
