asterisk users - Sep 2008 - Grandstream Video Phones & Asterisk..

Well, the recent talk about video phones and a project I've had lurking 
which has come to the top of the pile recently made me go out and buy a 
pair of Grandstream video phones.

And stack-me-sideways they "just work".

Amazing little boxes too (actually not that little with a 5.6" screen!)

They even have a web browser built-in with lots of "stuff" in the
config
screens I've not even looked at yet, but their actual configuration is 
easy if you've ever configured up another type of Grandstream in the past.

Oooh - built in digital photo frame too... (I like my new toys!) (2 x USB 
sockets on the back too)

Now I'll have to go and lookup what the pro's and con's of the
various
video codes it supports. The phones seem to be using H.263 by default 
which with the default settings of 15fps, etc. seems to use about 
128Kb/sec of bandwidth most of the time.

Incidentally, I'm using asterisk 1.2.30.

Trying to trunk a vido call over IAX doesn't seem to work... Maybe I 
shouldn't expect it to with 1.2.30 - what's worse though is that calling
a
non video phone over an IAX trunk results in horrible noise on the line - 
unless I disabled the video phone on the GXV3000 first. (Same goes for 
calling into a GXV3000 over an IAX trunk, so it suggests to me that I keep 
the video blocked all the time unless I really want to make a video call!)


Only using it over a LAN right now - but will wander down to a friends 
shortly. (As a remote friend seems to be struggling to make X-Lite work - 
audio is fine, but no video )-: He knows the camera, mic & speakers work 
as he uses it with Skype... X-Lite is such a PITA to configure though.

So all I can say right now is; Woo Hoo ;-)

Gordon
(trying to remember to stop picking his nose when on a call now)