Network World’s Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick ended up talking to the CEO and Senior VP for Marketing of Vidyo, a company that makes high definition teleconferencing solutions. Vidyo’s differentiation? It uses the Internet.
This wouldn’t be such a big deal – Skype has had video capabilities for three years now – except that in the corporate environment, it eliminates the need for network capacity dedicated directly to teleconferencing, and allows desktop users – even ones connected to the network via VPN – to join in the conversation instead of relying on specialized rooms dedicated to teleconferencing, where network throughput can be controlled and limited.
That’s all well and fine, except that there is a tradeoff. (There is always a tradeoff.)
Vidyo’s solution uses scalable video coding, which, in essence, means that when networks become oversubscribed, the teleconference app will lower the bitrate of the video on the fly. This can cut down on problems due to lack of capacity, and as such, it can prevent some latency due to oversubscription, but it does not address latency problems directly. Additionally, latency is less predictable in Internet-based apps than apps that run on private networks.
Videoconferencing, of course, is notoriously susceptible to latency and jitter problems.
Still, having a little stuttering is better than having no videoconferencing capabilities at all, and a solution like Vidyo’s brings teleconferencing to more endpoints, cheaper. If performance, rather than extensibility, is of utmost concern, you’re probably looking at something more traditional in a teleconferencing solution.
Whatever the teleconferencing solution, however, networks need to be monitored to preserve telecommunications performance and to make sure that teleconferencing applications do not take vital resources away from business critical applications.
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