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PictureTel's audio and video were not perfectly synchronized in our LAN and WAN tests, but none of the other products were synchronized either. In our LAN tests, all of the products had about the same amount of delay between voice and video. Intel's BVS had noteworthy audio and video, but the overall quality was not quite on par with PictureTel. During our testing, PictureTel maintained higher audio and video performance without sacrificing video quality.

Performance across the WAN with other systems was the only sticking point with PictureTel. Over our 128-Kbps ISP connections and our 512-Kbps frame relay corporate network, conferences between the Intel BVS and LiveLAN failed midstream during a transmission on our benchmark video tape. From our sniffer traces on a LAN, we determined that LiveLAN didn't adjust its bandwidth to that of the remote peer. The H.323 specification requires systems to offer the ability to dynamically match the calling party's "maxi mum bandwidth" settings. LiveLAN simply blasted away at whatever preset speed it had and forced the remote system to deal with it. We didn't experience these problems at LAN speeds, except when connecting to White Pine's MeetingPoint server, where connections attempted by the LiveLAN system failed. Neither White Pine nor PictureTel figured out whether it was the bandwidth negotiation problems of the LiveLAN system, or if the problem resided in the MeetingPoint beta. All of the other clients worked with MeetingPoint, however. Unlike Intel, PictureTel has its own LiveShare collaborative tools that enable fully functional T.120 interoperability. We interactively shared and collaborated applications and documents with other vendors' products, such as Microsoft's NetMeeting. We easily shared whiteboards and maintained text-based chats in multipoint collaboration sessions.

Intel Corp. Business Video Conferencing System 3.0
Intel Business Video Conferencing System (BVS) is well-suited for SOHO implementation because it not only connects to H.323 systems, but it also ships with support for H.320. This flexibility gives the remote user access to IP-based connections, as well as connections to room-based systems. Not surprisingly, Intel has designed BVS to perform exceptionally on Intel MMX processors.

BVS excels in interoperability. It maintained high-quality audio/videoconferences with every other system without causing us to tweak the software and without any problems maintaining connections. It worked very well with White Pine's beta version of MeetingPoint server, and it connected with all of the other systems with little effort. We added BVS sessions with CU-SeeMe conferences in a multipoint configuration and with simultaneous, multipoint data collaboration.

For data collaboration, Intel has chosen to integrate Microsoft's NetMeeting, which is gaining ground with other vendors. BVS offers full audio and video with its own sof tware and collaboration via NetMeeting's APIs. Hence, the BVS doesn't have its own native collaborative tools, but still enjoys the functionality of NetMeeting's fully T.120-compliant collaboration program, retaining the higher quality video of the BVS. Its dependence on Microsoft's product caused us concern initially, but we found the marriage blessed. BVS and NetMeeting integrated as seamlessly as PictureTel and its native LiveShare.

BVS' performance was decent. The only times we received glitches in audio and video were during our WAN tests across the Internet. All of the units displayed this behavior because of the variable delays that these mediums create. Performance was exceptional across the LAN, and the video was clear, even while transmitting video with intense movement. However, we still found the LiveLAN video smoother and clearer during these benchmarks.