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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

I don't mean to be critical, but I am underwhelmed.

From the initial picture, I was expecting a homegrown alternative to Cisco's Telepresence which, is actually quite awesome, if not really really expensive.

What I got instead was an iMac and a monitor.

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There can be value in simplicity. Years ago I worked for a company that had to do a monthly teleconference with its largest client. The setup and hardware required was expensive and the experience wasn't even that great. It's a testament to how fast technology moves when now anyone with a computer can teleconference.

That's exactly our feeling. I've seen the Cisco/Polycom systems, and they look great, but they're also a lot more expensive, and for what we (and many other startups) need, the value isn't there.

So just say you use Skype with a big screen TV. I opened the link expecting to see how you replicated Cisco/Polycom telepresence using off the shelf products at a fraction of the cost (Which is possible btw)

Yeah, totally pointless post. Buy it, plug it in, install the software. Great.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of distributed startups have had these 'video portals' going at one time or another. I know we have.

Generally use drops off (in favor of standard one-on-one or one-to-many videoconferences) after the novelty ends. Primarily because the fidelity sucks and there are better uses for a large monitor, like watching YouTube videos during lunch.

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