Posts Tagged ‘video conferencing’

Google Meet Video Conferencing Solution To Become Free

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020

Google Cloud will be making Google Meet, Google’s video-conferencing solution, free for everyone with availability starting in early May.

The new expanded tiled view in Google Meet.

The new expanded tiled view in Google Meet.

Anyone with an email address will be able to sign up for Google Meet to enjoy many of the same features available to G Suite’s business and education users.

These include features such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including the expanded tiled view.

Google Meet operates on a secure foundation, keeping users safe, data secure, and information private—including between patients and caregivers in a TELEHEALTH environment.

Google Meet operates on a secure foundation, keeping users safe, data secure, and information private—including between patients and caregivers in a TELEHEALTH environment.

Starting in May, Google will be gradually expanding Meet’s availability to more and more people over the following weeks.

While users might not be able to create meetings at meet.google.com right away, they can sign up to be notified when it’s available .

More details below from Google.

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New Arrival: Plantronics Launches Polycom Studio Video Bar in Singapore

Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

Plantronics offers business class video collaboration to huddle rooms with Polycom Studio. Available in Singapore from 28 February through channel partners and distributors at an RRP of US$949.

The new plug-and-play Polycom Studio HD video-conferencing solution transforms small meeting rooms into centers for collaboration.

The new plug-and-play Polycom Studio HD video-conferencing solution transforms small meeting rooms into centers for collaboration.

Plantronics, an audio pioneer and unified communications technology leader, today announced its first entry into the huddle room video market with its new plug-and-play video bar, Polycom Studio.

“With an increasingly mobile workforce, workers are no longer bound by physical limitations when it comes to having meetings and collaborating. There is a growing need for companies to equip their workspaces to enable workers to work smarter, collaborate more and achieve greater productivity.  With the HD audio and video clarity that Polycom Studio provides, even the smallest of spaces can have boardroom capability,” said Low Mei Lin, Director, APAC solutions marketing at Polycom.

Packed in a transportable USB device, the plug-and-play video bar immerses small meeting groups in an upgraded collaboration experience with Polycom’s HD audio and video quality.

The video bar is compatible with PCs or Macs for video collaboration on popular Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Google Meet, Cisco Webex, Amazon Chime, among others.

With a simple USB connection, any PC or Mac can leverage the power of Polycom Studio to elevate audio and video meeting experiences.

Its patented NoiseBlock and Acoustic Fence technologies reduce or eliminate distracting noise from office environments for professional-sounding communications.

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Forrester ranks Polycom top for video collaboration

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

In a new independent report from Forrester Research, Polycom has been ranked top for video collaboration strategy and current offerings.

Cisco was ranked a close second while Huawei was out of the top three.

The Forrester Wave: Room-Based Videoconferencing, Q3 2012 Report

The Forrester Wave: Room-Based Videoconferencing, Q3 2012 Report

Polycom received perfect scores in the categories of quality of experience, interoperability, product roadmap, partnerships, security and compliance.

“Polycom has a diverse portfolio of endpoints including a range of options that run the gamut from mobile and room-based systems to immersive telepresence,” wrote Phillip Karcher, the author of the Forrester Research report.

Polycom is a global leader in open standards-based unified communications (UC), with a global ecosystem of over 7,000 partners.

The report, titled “The Forrester Wave: Room-Based Videoconferencing, Q3 2012”, uses 39 criteria to evaluate the top vendors in the industry, looking at video collaboration solutions for every work environment – from mobile and desktops to room systems and immersive telepresence – along with the services that support them.

The Forrester Wave report also discusses the growing interest in “face to face” video collaboration, which is helping businesses increase productivity, improve employee engagement and trust and lower costs.

“Polycom will also continue to offer the industry’s broadest multi-vendor integration and lowest TCO. For our more than 415,000 customers globally, Polycom is delivering innovations in video collaboration that are changing the way people work, collaborate, learn, govern, create and even help save lives,” said Andy Miller, CEO Polycom.

Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions deliver secure, high-quality video to companies of all sizes, so that teams can meet face-to-face with colleagues, partners and customers anywhere people work ― in the office, at home, on the go, or on the manufacturing floor, in a hospital or, at a movie set.

The RealPresence Platform provides the robust provisioning, management, scalability, reliability, flexibility and security required both for video enterprises and their private video clouds serving thousands of users, as well as for Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) delivered from the cloud potentially to tens of millions.

Read more about the Polycom RealPresence Video Collaboration Solutions below.

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Video conferencing from Vidyo

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

During CommunicAsia2012, I took a look at the telepresence solutions provided by Vidyo.

They offer at affordable prices full telepresence solutions with 9 screens to soft-client applications that allow individuals to join a video conference session via their personal smartphone, tablet, notebook or desktop computer.

VidyoPanorama set up with six screens, two of which are used to share data/slides. The thin console at the bottom is the VidyoRouter.

VidyoPanorama set up with six screens, two of which are used to share data/slides. The thin console at the bottom is the VidyoRouter.

Vidyo is a US-based company that offers personal and mobile telepresence solutions for individuals and telepresence solutions for enterprises.

Marty Hollander, Senior Vice President, Market Development at Vidyo. Here he's showing VidyoMobile on an iPad endpoint.

Marty Hollander, Senior Vice President, Market Development at Vidyo. Here he's showing VidyoMobile on an iPad endpoint.

Many systems on the market today require an initial cost of $150k for a 3-screen dedicated room with an ongoing monthly fee of $10k per month.

Using these systems, a 3-hour video conferencing call from three sites could cost $3,600,

Vidyo claims its solutions would cost only a fraction – in most cases only a tenth.

It does this by controlling access and delivery with innovative components that turn ordinary IP networks into sophisticated yet affordable video communication systems.

The infrastructure that enables this comprise the VidyoRouter, VidyoPortal, VidyoGateway and VidyoReplay.

The conferencing endpoints, on the other hand, consists of VidyoMobile, VidyoDesktop, Vidyo Executive Desktop, VidyoRoom and VidyoPanorama.

A maximum 9-screen VidyoPanorama room setup, together with VidyoMobile clients (Android and iOS smartphones and tablets), and VidyoDesktop on a 1440p Mac monitor.

A maximum 9-screen VidyoPanorama room setup, together with VidyoMobile clients (Android and iOS smartphones and tablets), and VidyoDesktop on a 1440p Mac monitor.

You can find details of each of the above components in the brochure that I’ve attached at the end of this post.

Vidyo had the VidyoPanorama (with 6 monitors) system and VidyoMobile/VidyoDesktop clients set up to show how it works and the performance and latency (or lack of) involved.

They had temps manning some of the endpoints so that visitors like myself could video-conference with them.

The performance was pretty good. Resolution was good and there wasn’t any noticeable latency.

I like the patented Adaptive Video Layering technology underpinning the solutions.

Essentially, the VidyoRouters dynamically optimises the video stream for each endpoint based on its capabilities and its local network conditions and bandwidth.

H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC)-based compression technology and Vidyo’s Adaptive Video Layering removes the need for transcoding by the Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) in traditional systems, offering high error resilience and low latency rates over the Internet, LTE and 4G networks.

This allows VidyoPanorama to connect over low-cost broadband networks with participants from any location.

The optional VidyoGateway extends the solution to existing H.323 and SIP endpoints; and clients using other videoconferencing systems – such as those from Cisco or Polycom.

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