Cisco VT Advantage Overview

Cisco VT Advantage brings video telephony functionality to the Cisco IP Phone 7940, 7960, and 7970 (and later) models. Cisco VT Advantage software coupled with the Cisco VT Camera (a USB camera) allows a PC connected to a Cisco IP Phone to add video to telephone calls without requiring any extra button-pushing or mouse-clicking. When registered to Cisco CallManager, the Cisco VT Advantage-enabled Cisco IP Phone has the features and functionality of a full-featured IP video phone. Supplementary services, such as call forward, transfer, hold, and mute, are also available for video calls and are all initiated through the Cisco IP Phone. Cisco VT Advantage is intended for desktop-to-desktop IP video telephony environments, not as a general-purpose videoconferencing solution for use in conference rooms.

Cisco VT Advantage Components

To deploy Cisco VT Advantage, the minimum requirement is Cisco CallManager Release 4.0(1) with Service Release 2 or higher. Currently, you can enable video on Cisco IP Phone 7940G, 7960G, and the 7970G (and later) models. The Cisco VT Camera is connected to a PC (via USB) where Cisco VT Advantage software is installed. Cisco VT Advantage software works only with the Cisco VT Camera.

Note

Cisco VT Advantage and the Cisco IP Communicator (Softphone running on a PC) can run on the same PC; however, Cisco VT Advantage is not supported to interconnect with Cisco IP Communicator.

Cisco VT Advantage software provides the user with an easy-to-use graphical interface, with these options:

• Receive Only Mode Users can choose to view incoming video only and not transmit video.
• Video Check Users can check their video before calls are placed or received.
• Mute Video on Audio Mute When users mute the audio on the IP phone, video is automatically paused until the audio on the IP phone is restored.
• Video Signal Indicators The quality of the incoming and outgoing video is graphically displayed.
• Connectivity Indicator Graphics are used to indicate the state of the connections from the PC to its associated Cisco IP Phone and Cisco VT Camera.

Users can operate the Cisco IP Phone as they normally do. The Cisco VT Advantage software is controlled from the PC connected directly to the access port labeled "PC" on the back of the Cisco IP Phone. The PC and the Cisco IP Phone that is registered in Cisco CallManager as a video-enabled device build an association. The voice Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) streams flow between the two IP phones, as in a normal voice call. The video streams flow between the two PCs where the Cisco VT Advantage software is installed.

Cisco VT Advantage Supported Standards

Cisco VT Advantage, like any other application that runs on a PC, has an impact on system performance that should be taken into consideration. Cisco VT Advantage supports two types of video codecs: H.263 and the Cisco VT Camera wideband video codec. Of these two types, the Cisco VT Camera wideband video codec places the least demand on the PC. Therefore, if your network has plenty of available bandwidth, you can use the Cisco VT Camera wideband video codec and save on PC CPU and memory resources.

When you are using a codec that performs compression, more CPU power is needed. The H.263 codec is more demanding of PC system resources, but it requires less bandwidth. Therefore, if you want to use H.263 compressed video to conserve bandwidth on the network, you should ensure that your PCs have enough CPU and memory resources available. The Cisco VT Advantage H.263 codec supports a range of speeds up to 1.5 Mbps.

Regardless of the video standard used, the VT Advantage supports video formats with up to 30 frames per second (fps) at the following resolutions:

• VGA (640x480)
• CIF (352 x 288)
• SIF (320 x 240)
• QCIF (176 x 144)
• QSIF (160 x 120)

Table 29-1 lists the video codecs that Cisco VT Advantage supports.

Protocols Used by Cisco VT Advantage

Cisco VT Advantage supports several industry-standard and Cisco networking protocols required for video communication. Table 29-2 displays an overview of the supported networking protocols.