Vidyo Video Conferencing Platform Now Available For Cloud Providers

Video conferencing provider Vidyo is now offering a version of its platform that can be used by telecommunications and other companies to deliver video conferencing technology as a cloud service. On Tuesday, Vidyo introduced VidyoRouter Cloud Edition, which uses the company's patented version of the H.264 scalable video coding (SVC) compression standard.

The technology delivers high-definition video over the Internet and conventional IP networks to a variety of endpoint devices, from HD TVs to smartphones. Vidyo says that its platform of networked Vidyo routers is simpler, more flexible and scalable, and cheaper to use than dedicated telepresence technology from bigger players such as Cisco Systems and Polycom. Cisco's and Polycom's offerings are based on a multipoint control unit (MCU) architecture.

MCU-based systems require a dedicated network connection, expensive hardware and the construction of studios, all of which can limit the number of video conference locations a company has available, says Ashish Gupta, chief marketing officer and senior VP of corporate development at Vidyo. In other instances, an executive may have a workstation-size video system costing $15,000 in his or her office, but that system can't do anything but video conferencing.

Vidyo's technology, on the other hand, works with general-purpose machines like desktop, laptop or tablet computers, says Gupta, as the Vidyo router adjusts the network bandwidth, resolution and frame rate to the capabilities of the endpoint device. The company claims VidyoRouter Cloud Edition delivers video conferencing at as little as one-tenth the cost of MCU-based systems.

Vidyo has been busy in recent months rolling out its VidyoConferencing technology. In November 2010, HP announced that three of its new Visual Collaboration video conferencing products would be based on Vidyo's technology. In December, Vidyo said that the Japanese telecommunications carrier KDDI will be adopting Vidyo to offer a video conferencing service to its customers."[Vidyo's] architecture lends itself extremely well to service providers that want to deliver video conferencing as a managed service. You'll find that service providers can leverage their infrastructure a whole lot cheaper than [with] the other platforms that are out there," says Irwin Lazar, a VP and service director at Nemertes Research.

Although Vidyo, with its H.264 SVC technology, has an edge over MCU-based systems, those bigger companies are catching on, says Lazar. Polycom recently announced support for H.264 SVC in the future and also has developed a protocol that it calls High Profile, which is designed to reduce bandwidth requirements for high definition. Meanwhile, Cisco has  announced that it would support SVC for its WebEx high-quality video service.

"You're seeing vendors move in that direction, and I think you'll see more of that over the next year," Lazar says. Vidyo will also have a hard time selling to enterprises that have already invested in immersive telepresence systems and aren't ready to give up on them.

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