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Vidyo Releases Room Videoconferencing System: Page 2 of 2

Vidyo also uses the public Internet as its transport mechanism, bringing the cost of videoconferences down significantly over traditional systems. It recommends at least a 2 Mbps connection for the best conferencing quality. Despite relying on the Internet, Shapiro claims Vidyo's proprietary technology minimizes the effects of latency and packet loss.

The Vidyo system has the ability to encode 720p and 1080p videoconferencing streams, and one HD-220 endpoint device can drive two streams. It can also encode video at up to 60 frames per second (FPS). That compares to 30 FPS with many of its competitors, and in real terms translates into a slightly smoother picture.

There's always someone screaming something along the lines of "this is the year for videoconferencing." However, the industry may finally be nearly ready to bloom. Bandwidth continues to drop in price while video quality continues to rise. Gartner recently predicted that by 2015, more than 200 million people worldwide will have desktop videoconferencing capabilities at work. With Logitech buying LifeSize and Cisco buying Tandberg, it's clear somebody is buying into the broader market.

Vidyo has been backed by $45 million in venture capital funding from Menlo Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, Star Ventures, and Rho Ventures. Though Vidyo is a young company, its partners already include Google (which licenses Vidyo technology for use in Google Video), Hitachi, and Teliris. More than 20 regional service providers offer Vidyo teleconferencing as a service, and the company has more than 250 enterprise customers. Next up, Vidyo may move into the mobile world. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, Intel demonstrated Vidyo running on a mobile device powered by Intel's forthcoming Moorestown chip.

InformationWeek has published a report on how telepresence is turning video communications into a near in-person experience. Download the report here (registration required).