Sometime next month, Microsoft will release a new video conferencing camera called RoundTable.

Microsoftroundtable2 It has five little camera, six microphones and works with Live Meeting.  It looks like a droid out a sci-fi film — and seems to be quite "smart" in following speakers and their movements, as you’ll see in our little demo.  The price tag is around $3,000.

Beet.TV’s video producer David Kavanaugh was in Redmond last month where he taped Michael Kerle, Senior Product Manager.  Very snazzy editing, David!

It’s been getting some good reviews in the trade press.

Video conferencing systems have been extremely costly and limited in use.  Perhaps RoundTable will change this.  We shall see.

Grab the code of this interview.

MSN Video Launches

MsnvideologoMore news out of Redmond:
The site formerly known as SoapBox was relaunched today as MSN Video.  We have not had a  chance to check it yet, so read what Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web says about it.  He’s impressed.  Beet.TV wonders when MSN Video will use Silverlight to stream videos.  right now, we see Flash video.

— Andy Plesser