I have an interesting situation here...
 
I have a witness who needs to be in court for a trial case here in San
Francisco. Unfortunately he will be in Sydney, Australia on the day of
the trial. But he needs to be seen and questioned on that day. Is it
possible for me to video conference him from Sydney here in court? I
understand that the court here does have a broadband connection.

If somebody could list me the technology options I could use in this
situation, and possible pricing and bandwidth implications, it would be
wonderful. (For eg: I could arrange for my client to go to a place
like Kinko's (If there is such a place) in Sydney and seat him in front of
a WebCam, use WebEx and project him onto a screen here in court...)

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Request for Question Clarification by ericynot-ga on 12 Mar 2003 08:54 PST

Please clarify:

1) does the SF courthouse already have video teleconferencing in place?
2) what kind of budget do you have?

Thanks,

ericynot-ga

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Clarification of Question by primemate-ga on 12 Mar 2003 10:47 PST

I was told by the court authorities that we can use a broadband
connection. They don't have video conferencing available tho. (That
would have made my life a lot easier!)

Regarding the budget, I basically didn't want a solution costing too
much. My budget looks like 1k now...

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Request for Question Clarification by ericynot-ga on 12 Mar 2003 11:41 PST

I should have asked this before: when does your witness need to
testify? How much time do you have to get things set up? I might have
a good, low cost solution for you.

ericynot-ga

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Clarification of Question by primemate-ga on 12 Mar 2003 13:58 PST

Pretty soon actually. Before the end of this month. So I will probably
have a few hours to set it up in court before proceedings...

primemate...

Aside from NetMeeting, which is a free video-conferencing application
included with most/all versions of Windows (and which includes text
or audio conferencing), Logitech IM Video Companion is also a free
application which integrates with AOL IM 4.7+ and MSN Messenger 5:
http://companion.logitech.com/companion/downloads.html?countryid=19&languageid=1&ad=support_im

If this serves to satisfy your needs, let me know, and I'll post it
as an answer.

sublime1-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Video Conference equipment can be rented by the day (Polycom, however
you will need ISDN circuits into the courtroom. These can be ordered
from the local telephone company but often require 10 days to get in.
In Australia video conference testimony is not unusual and I know two
people who have testified in this manner.
Hope this helps
callcenterexpert-ga