“Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending
the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing.”
~ Seth Godin.
A while ago I wrote a post about the sisyphic nature of our work, where generations come and go but the market demand remains forever. My bottom line was that as there is never enough processing power, you should always be planning your next generation.
“Next generation” in Hebrew is “Ha-Dor Ha-Ba”, and so when Einat, the Next Generation Project Manager, was looking for an internal name to call “the next big thing”, two years ago when this was only slideware, I offered the name Dora, which not only sounds phonetically similar but also continues a long tradition of naming hardware platforms after cartoon figures.
And so the road to Dora began.
Requirements, Requirements
Writing down marketing requirements required a lot of hard work and a slight sense for prophecy, as we were looking to define the different scenarios and use-cases that will be popular in 2010. These include resolution, bandwidth, capacity, and of course COGS limitations (or as Einat defines it beautifully- “do more with less”).
Everything, and I mean everything, will connect to each other seamlessly
These high-level requirements had to be translated to requirements for our new platform, something we can use to plan and execute. When you look at them from a tech perspective, you get:
Support 720p@30fps as a default working point with highest quality possible
Allow every port to reach 720p@30fps
Support 1080p@30fps
Allow for maximum connectivity between ports
When you’re selling a technology, you should know its ins and outs. You should be able to recite your elevator pitch in your sleep. . But when we were designing the technology for the next generation product, we focused on the flaws and imperfections. We were looking at “new things” to improve our product, for new technologies to take advantage of, just like in Seth’s quote above.
Scalability, Usability
To make the dream of seamless connectivity and scalability a reality, we chose to make our product ATCA compatible, which not only adds advanced hardware redundancy and management capabilities, but also, a high speed backplane connectivity, which allows our solution to be highly scalable.
We based the solution on the latest in DSP technology. This means that our CPU power can scale all the way from CIF to 1080p, allowing for a flexible resource usage, where resource allocation is done on-demand and dynamically, so that the user can enjoy the most out of the platform.
Usability was another goal. From the very first step, we wanted to make the next generation product something that is designed by the users (and administrators) for the users. The emphasis was put on usability and simplicity, while our engineering forces worked hard on making it happen from the technological side.
Behind this great usability, a lot of work went into figuring out how to automatically adjust the capabilities of a “port” (encoder, decoder, etc.) allocated for the user to best fit each of the users at any given time. This includes video resolution, codec, bandwidth; audio codec and bandwidth; division of bandwidth between audio/video and data; even the choice of layout (personal layouts). Every little detail was debatable, well thought out, and fully designed.
Take a look at the new look-and-feel at the amazing on-screen information display at our management suite. I must admit, video conferencing used to require a great deal of work, before and during the call and I’m happy that the new SCOPIA Elite is far more natural and more usable than what all of us were accustomed to.
The SCOPIA Elite in play in InfoComm
Next Generation, Present Generation
RADVISION has always believed in a “solution”, rather than any particular product. When designing Dora we wanted to make sure that the complete package, what will be known as Version 7.0, will have everything that users and administrators need, from the desktop client to the management suite.
But when planning the “new thing”, you can’t (and must not) give up the “old thing”.Especially the bits everyone really likes. With 16 years of interoperability know-how behind us, including every conferencing gear in the world (signaling and codecs), and with our strong partnership with partners like LifeSize, Aethra and Cisco, the next generation stands on a great foundation..
Not only that, but the new MCU was required, from the initial planning stage, to fully integrate with the “current” SCOPIA MCU, allowing customers to choose between the two or opt to integrate the two seamlessly.
The road to Dora began, as always, with dozens of engineers working on both “the old thing”, which was pretty new back then, and “the new thing” in parallel, struggling to make both happen. This was a very long and rigorous process, which involved investments, in capital and work force, which were unprecedented, especially in the turmoil of the last year or so.
Of course, no one in our industry, in any industry, can rest on their laurels. As Seneca said, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. As soon as you launch the “next generation” it becomes the present generation, which means a new “next generation” project begins. I guess this is what is exciting (and yes, a bit sisyphic) in our line of work.
I would like to thank Einat Yellin, my partner in crime on the long road to Dora and on this post.
[Vince Chavy, Product Manager for SCOPIA Desktop, is back, after the very successful launch of SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, to discuss the SCOPIA Desktop in a bit more detail.]
The new SCOPIA Desktop is out on the market, and I thought I would share with you my 7.0 reasons as to why the SCOPIA Desktop version 7.0 is such a success:
1. Scalable Video Coding (SVC)
There were manyposts and articles on this new and exciting technology, so I will spare you. All I want to say is that there is nothing like seeing it in action on the desktop. I have been in the desktop video world for a long time, and this is one of the few things that really amaze me. I still find myself messing with the configuration of the SCOPIA Desktop client in meetings and enabling/disabling SVC to appreciate the difference. It is one of those assets where you wonder how you did without it.
I believe that over the years we, as video conferencing users and as an industry, have became experts in blaming the ISP, the saturated DSL connection of the hotel, the NIC cards, the wireless connection, anything really, for the bad video experience. . How many times were you in a meeting where the video of a participant on the road was terrible and everyone ignored it and pretended everything was ok? Well, guess what? With SVC there is no need finger pointing - it just works! You can now have a decent meeting experience despite network glitches.
And the best part about it, and the uniqueness of it, is that our SVC approach does not see that SVC world as a different solution, with gateways connecting the two worlds. In our view, SVC is another technology, which our MCU is making sure will interoperate with any other technology or device. No blame, no pain, just gain.
2. Presence Based Calling
It took some time, but we wanted to get it right. We now have a super easy-to-use contact list-it doesn’t get any simpler than this. You are one double-click away from calling another desktop user or a meeting room. You can select multiple users or rooms and invite everyone to an ad-hoc meeting. Even better - when you are in a point-to-point call, inviting another user or room will automatically escalate the call to a conference via MCU, it’s not a problem.
There is of course a lot of technology and protocols behind this simple contact list. Presence is based on the XMPP protocol, signaling is SIP, and NAT Traversal is STUN. If something goes wrong and the call cannot be established, the SCOPIA Desktop server will host the call automatically without any user intervention.
Since we believe in all-inclusive package, this is part of the SCOPIA Desktop Pro. There is no need to buy complex options or install extra hardware. Everything is there.
3. Effective Invitations
We also made the invitation process - inviting other participants while you are in a meeting - easier and more powerful. You have access to your contact list from the meeting console, you can access any participant or room system from your company’s directory (Microsoft Active Directory or Lotus Domino). - If a user invites another participant by phone, the administrator can make sure that the best telephone gateway is used in order to minimize operating costs.
4. Usability Enhancements
SCOPIA Desktop 7.0 introduces a new modern “look-and-feel”. All the components of the SCOPIA solution will soon be using this unified layout.
We made a lot of “look-and-feel” changes, in the end user and administrator interfaces. As an example, the component needed for presentation or application sharing is now embedded in the installation. This means that the complete SCOPIA Desktop experience is now available to you, even if you do not have administration rights on the PC. This is just an example of many other enhancements made in terms of usability.
The New SCOPIA Desktop Look-and-Feel.
On the administration side, the interface has been reorganized to better match the different types of deployments available via SCOPIA Desktop, from basic deployments to a geographically distributed application. We also added a monitoring component, that allows the administrator to access server utilization.
5. High Definition Recording
You can now record and play back any meeting in high definition. This goes for the video and the presentation.
6. Offline Playback
Call me old school, but I am not sure I am all for Internet access on airplanes. This is one of the few places left, where you can truly be offline. No phone, no instant messenger and no new emails. Well guess what - on top of doing offline emails to keep your inbox to a decent size, you can now also watch the meeting that you missed a week ago or refresh on a meeting you attended a while ago. You will be able to watch the training that you missed, because all the recorded SCOPIA Desktop meetings can now be downloaded and saved on your laptop. And, of course, you do not need to be online to watch. With SCOPIA Desktop 7.0 you can attend offline meetings.
Conference recording playback on a PC screen and iPod at InfoComm (video here)
7. Oh, And There Is One More Thing
As one of my high tech heroes would say, there Is One More Thing! And I feel I can steal that line because what follows is all about products of the company he created… J. We did some changes to our recording architecture, especially to the format of the recording files. Witha little effort, you can now save recordings and convert them so that they can be viewed using your iPhone, iPod or Apple TV. Amazing how a boring meeting gets more interesting if you watch it from your couch on your big LCD screen, streamed from your Apple TV.
And, in the long tradition of “one more thing”s, I find this last piece of technology a real exciting thing. As everyone, everywhere, seem to be walking with an iPhone and/or iPod in hand (and forgive me, all other vendors), this means that (most) people can “take out” their conference archive with them, to review at any time, without carrying a laptop or using a different computer. And no - you (still) can’t download conferences from iTunes. Sorry.
[Two weeks ago I posted the pre-show post, inviting you all, physically and/or virtually, to join RADVISION in InfoComm09. Well, the show is over, and the many significant announcements we made made a huge impact. And so I wanted to share with you some great videos that Teddy Flatau, AVP Products in the Networking Business Unit (NBU), took in our booth , using his Flip HD camera (remember?), accompanied by great commentary written by Bob Romano, VP Marketing NBU.]
At the cornerstone of RADVISION’s new announcements was the SCOPIA Elite MCU, a powerful new MCU built on a brand new ATCA architecture and utilizing advanced DSP technology to bring a new price-performance level to the market with uncompromised support for HD up to 1080p. We introduced 3 MCU models, supporting 10, 15 and 30 ports of HD calls, but with a variable capacity capability, that can accommodate up to 4 times that capacity when devices connect at less than HD - that’s up to 120 ports of SD calls.
The SCOPIA Elite compliments the existing SCOPIA 100 and 400 models, providing a full range of price points and performance options for customers. The SCOPIA Elite was demonstrated in InfoComm, showcasing a 1080p conference with a variety of the latest endpoints from the leading vendors connected. The quality was stunning.
Yaniv Levi, PM of Scopia MCU, showcases the SCOPIA Elite MCU.
Perhaps the most unexpected announcement and demonstration was made by RADVISION and Samsung, announcing a jointly developed HD desktop video device comprised of a Samsung high resolution 24 inch monitor, into which has been integrated a Hardware based HD conferencing system. With integrated HD camera, speakers, microphone and echo cancellation, it provides a complete stand-alone HD video conferencing system, that can also function as a PC monitor. And the market changing element of it is the price, just $1,999 - ¼ of comparable systems on the market, from the likes of Polycom and Tandberg. With Cisco and now Samsung (both RADVISION partners) jumping into the video conferencing market, things are sure to change.
Amir Zmora, VP Marketing of the TBU, showcases the VC240.
Technology meets the Desktop
On the technology front, we demonstrated our new Scalable Video Coding technology, providing unprecedented error resiliency in lossy networks. Using H.264/SVC multi-layered video streams, and by utilizing error correction and protection schemes on the base layer, RADVISION provides dramatically improved error resiliency, without the large overhead these schemes usually introduce. This was demonstrated by showing two SCOPIA Desktop 7.0 clients in a call together on a network segment that had generated 3% packet loss. One of the clients was utilizing our SVC technology, while the other was not. The difference in quality was night and day. After watching this demo you would not want to use anything but our SVC, especially on networks with loss, such as public Internet.
Bob Romano showing the SVC demo.
On the desktop front, RADVISION continued to extend its market lead with several enhancements to the SCOPIA Desktop line. Most impressive was a new directory that allows one click calling to other desktops and room systems. Desktop-to-desktop has media flow directly between desktops, while calling a room system goes through the MCU, ensuring uncompromised interoperability. What is unique in this solution is the ability to “escalate” a desktop-to-desktop call to a conference seamlessly. The user just adds more participants and the point-to-point call is transferred onto the MCU automatically, without any user intervention.
David Bundy, CTO Desktop Technologies, shows SCOPIA Desktop P2P capabilities.
Also on the desktop front, RADVISION demonstrated integration of HD video into the leading Unified Communications platforms. The demon showed 3 laptops connected together in a HD conference: One with Cisco’s WebEx, one with IBM’s Sametime and the other with Microsoft Communicator. The WebEx and Sametime clients had RADVISION’s desktop video client integrated into them, showing full 720p HD video. Microsoft Communicator connected using the native video capability of the Communicator.
Billy Smith, Director Pre-Sales Engineering, shows the IBM Sametime Integration.
This really demonstrated how RADVISION adds high quality HD video to the market leading UC platforms, and how the SCOPIA MCU can allow interoperability between all of these, including Microsoft’s OCS platform. The WebEx integration was particularly impressive since it is a new offering from Cisco.
Cisco WebEx with RADVISION’s desktop video client integrated.
Where we belong
Another notable demonstration was of our recording, streaming and playback capabilities using the SCOPIA platform. RADVISION has added HD recording and playback of both the video and the data shared. This recording can later be played back on a PC or Mac connected to the network, or the recording file can be downloaded and played off-line, for instance during a flight. These recordings can also be viewed on handheld devices, and RADVISION demonstrated conference playback on an iPOD Touch.
David Bundy showing conference recording and playback on PC and iPod.
All in all, this was a very impressive demonstration of RADVISION’s new technologies and market leading features and products. To quote one of the senior analysts covering our industry, “it is nice to see RADVISION regaining its technology leadership, where they belong“.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Although I am an avid writer, I couldn’t agree more.
A video can have hundreds, thousand, sometimes millions of pictures. That would be worth a whole lot of words.
I decided to share with you this promotional video for it showcases all that I have been talking about in this blog over the last month, specifically in regards to InfoComm.
[This week, at InfoComm, we officially launch the MCU SCOPIA Elite. I asked Yaniv Levi, SCOPIA Product Manager, to introduce the SCOPIA Elite here, in case you are not attending the show. If you ARE, Yaniv will be waiting for you in booth #3479.]
It’s been more than 2 years since the launch of the SCOPIA MCU.
During this time, the video conferencing market has evolved in a rather dramatic way: to one extreme, you have high end high definition systems, where bigger is better, while on the other extreme, you have video conferencing in high definition on every desktop.
It is true that predicting the future is normally difficult, but when we created the original design for our “next generation” MCU (and that was a long and difficult process), we were able to pin-point the ways in which we can take our already brilliant product and bring it to the next level:
First of all - HD, HD, HD
High Definition will eventually reach the desktop
1080p will become a reality
Everything and I mean everything - room systems, desktop, telepresence - will connect to each other seamlessly.
These may sound as reasonable requests to an end user, even to a marketing guy, but to the techies, it meant LOTS of hard work. Creating and incorporating these requirements for an elite video conferencing system that can cater to any demand meant more than two years of hard labor. From the very moment these requirements were laid out, everyone was asking, “How soon?”
Well, “How soon?” is now. I can honestly say that the new SCOPIA Elite 5000 MCU Series is all of that, and more.
High Definition Video In Supreme Quality
The new SCOPIA Elite delivers high definition video in supreme quality. To do so, it uses the latest in state-of-the-art DSP technology. It can connect to high end systems, such as Cisco’s Telepresence, high definition room systems or even to desktop clients in high definition, depending on the needs and capabilities of each user. The best thing about it is that it can do all of this at the same time, as part of the same conference.
This means that multiple users can connect to a single conference using all possible communication tools; desktop clients, room systems and telepresence. They now can share the conference and enjoy the same look and feel, without any limitations or any restrictions. The new MCU is flexible enough so that it will give each and every participant an optimized experience, based on their resolution and bandwidth capabilities, along with the any other necessary requirements, while not affecting any other user. Needless to say, this also utilizes resources in the best way possible, as each user uses their optimal amount of resources.
Our SVC technology has previously been discussed in length and the new MCU uses SVC’s ingenious technology to bring a high quality experience, even in cases where network conditions are far from perfect. SVC is not only used between the MCU and the endpoint, but between MCUs that are distributed throughout the enterprise. This allows for a distributable solution to be highly resilient to network problems while providing a high quality experience.
The new MCU also offers great innovation in terms of usability. It offers personal video layout preferences, allowing every user to view the conference in a manner that best fits their needs. It also has an option for a variety of on-screen information overlay that gives a great deal of information during the conference, without disturbing the audio or video connection… For instance, if an audio-only participant joins the conference, his details will be shown for a few seconds over the video. The same will happen if an audio-only participant is speaking. Another example of its benefits is that in case the meeting is recorded or encrypted, there will be a clear visual indication for this.
Video Conferencing, Anywhere and Everywhere
The new MCU introduces a new set of control options, including a new auto attendant that allows users to fully configure and operate the MCU, before and during a call, without the need for using a web interface. Using DTMF, you can join and control the conference, change the layout, invite participants, and more. The best thing about this feature is that it is distributed, meaning, when connecting to the system, you will connect to the “closest” MCU for the “welcome menu”, but you can join any conference in the system, even if it is located in a different and remote MCU.
Video Conference using the SCOPIA Elite
The new SCOPIA Elite is a high quality MCU, which is why we chose to set the standard definition resolution at 360p. This means that even on limited bandwidth/CPU systems, such as desktops or legacy equipment, users will be able to enjoy a high quality experience. The new SCOPIA Elite supports all legacy systems, including the SCOPIA MCU and all video conferencing endpoints. It also supports a variety of UC clients, such as Cisco’s WebEx, Microsoft’s OCS and IBM’s SameTime.
After 2 years of hard work, it’s a real pleasure unveiling the “next generation” and making it the present. The new SCOPIA Elite allows you to enjoy a high quality video conferencing experience anywhere and everywhere, from the desktop all the way to telepresence, and the best thing about it is that it’s available NOW.
* “How Soon Is Now?” is a song by the British rock band The Smiths. It is considered “the people’s favorite” and was also often dubbed as “The ‘Stairways to Heaven’ of The Eighties”.
I returned to Tsahi’s post the other day, when I was thinking about the RADVISION solution. And I say “solution”, because this is how RADVISION sees and promotes its “solution” way of thinking, for the past few years.
This week, at InfoComm, RADVISION is not just unveiling version 7.0 of its video conferencing products; it releases Version 7.0 of its video conferencing solution, which in our view, serves the visual communication needs of everyone, and works the way you work.
What’s in a Video Conferencing Solution?
So what do you need in order to have the best video conferencing solution?
For starters, you need an MCU. This MCU should be able to cater to the needs of everyone in the organization, the who or where shouldn’t be important. High end, high def, legacy, desktop - any way a user wants to connect, he should be able to. We want to be able to give him the best experience possible, while not negatively affecting anyone else’s experience.
Then you need video conferencing clients. If you want to use endpoints, be my guest. But most users either don’t have endpoints or want to use video conferencing from the comfort of their desktops. Some of them are already using UC products, such as WebEx or OCS, so you want to be able to connect to them through their system.
Others want you to provide a client that has presence information, state of the art error resilience, the ability to connect from any location (be it home, office, airport) and of course, great connectivity.
Naturally, all of these have to connect to the MCU infrastructure and provide a great experience. It means that somewhere, there should be a management tool, that enables the system administrator to easily control the infrastructure, servers and endpoints. This management suite should make the infrastructure work as seamless as possible, providing valuable feedback (reports, UI) in real time, and solving scalability and distribution issues.,
And last but not least, there should be a way to view conferences, even if you don’t have a client at your disposal, or if you were occupied during the meeting. Streaming and archiving video conferences should be part of the solution.
Sounds like a great solution, isn’t it? Well, the only problem with this solution is … making it happen.
RADVISION’s Solution, Version 7.0
As we announced today, and as I already described partially in my InfoComm pre-show post, RADVISION presents its Video Conferencing Solution Version 7.0 today at InfoComm 09.
All of these are great products, in it of themselves. I have written extensively on the importance of each of them, so that’s not of any consequence now..
We are not building penknives in RADVISION. We are looking for that Swiss army knife kind-of-feeling. Giving the customer an all inclusive solution that will enable him to solve any problem, a tool that works the way he wants in the way that he works.
A great example of this is the RADVISION“Virtual MCU” concept. - As I already explained in a previous post, our patented dynamic distributed architecture enables high-scale, distributed video conferencing deployment.. Having an over-all solution, that manages all parts of it, in synergy, means that the users should not be aware that there are different MCUs in different locations with different specifications. The user can use one access number for all conferences that will be created dynamically and seamlessly; the entire infrastructure will behave as one powerful MCU.
There are more examples and more use-cases, but the bottom line is that Version 7.0 is the Swiss army knife of video conferencing. Pick one up and start building your video conferencing experience in the way that you want it.
[Last month RADVISION participated in the Wainhouse Research Collaboration Futures Summit in Berlin. Apart from breaking our big news about SVC at the summit, RADVISION shared with the audience our view on the boundaries of video conferencing, and how we can overcome them through future technologies and solutions. Moshe Machline, our VP of Corporate Marketing, gave such a wonderful presentation, I just had to bring him on for a guest post, to share his ideas with you]
Video conferencing was designed more than a decade ago, primarily for conference rooms. The idea was to connect these dedicated rooms one to another, based on ISDN connectivity (which was the connection-of-choice back then). Today’s reality, surprisingly enough, is not very different than the way it started out, with most organizations using very limited dialing plans, pre-scheduled meetings in most cases, and homogeneous, limited-scale, limited-quality deployments.
A few significant barriers have been keeping video conferencing as a siloed world for much too long. Today, we as an industry are finally throwing a serious punch in order to break down the walls around us. We are using a powerful hammer, built from combining newer and older technologies, which - I feel - can finally break the boundaries and expand the adoption of video conferencing and the integration of it into our everyday business world.
Physical Location
The first and most considerable barrier is probably the physical one. Conference users do not want to limit themselves to conferencing rooms. They want to connect using desktops, mobile handsets, PDAs, you name it - just like they do with their other communication tools.
Additional infrastructural components, such as 3G gateways, are already shattering this barrier. The addition of new desktop clients, capable of using new technologies such as SVC, is another big break-through in creating a location agnostic world.
Network QoS
As many organizations often rely on public internet as a means to connect different physical location to one another, and as telework becomes more popular, network quality becomes a real barrier for the successful deployment and use of video conferencing.
New technologies, some of which were already introduced publicly, can help clients and servers optimize bandwidth usage and offer better error resilience, thus eliminating the need for a guaranteed QoS on networks used.
Inter-Organization Communications
A couple of months ago, John Bartlet from NoJitter wrote a piece on Business-to-Business Telepresence, or should I say he wrote the piece on the Business-can’t-connect-to-any-Business issue. Even those organizations who successfully deployvideo conferencing and are using it for their day-by-day work struggle with connecting others outside of the organization - customers, partners, suppliers - to the company network. The transition from ISDN to IP connectivity has only enhanced this barrier. And while this, as many claim, is a great business driver for service providers, inter-organization communication is hard to find.
The introduction of web-based video conferencing agents, such as SCOPIA Desktop, does not require pre-installed components, and so, effective firewall traversal solutions are incorporated into it. This is a key in a successful shift towards achieving B2B connection. I am proud to say that RADVISION is already practicing what it preaches by using video conferencing for communicating with in our own organization, and with our partners and suppliers..
UC Platforms Connectivity
As already explained in this blog, video conferencing is just one piece of the unified communication puzzle. While we believe that video conferencing should be the way to deploy UC within an organization, when other collaborative solutions are deployed - with presence, instant messaging, and voice - there is a growing need to connect video conferencing to these systems, allowing every employee to benefit from this synergy.
Video conferencing clients that are integrated into a UC system as a plug-in, help this become a reality. Infrastructure designed to connect UC systems with traditional video conferencing systems (Gateways, MCUs) are already present. All of these components make video conferencing a success.
Port Price and Scalability
This barrier is possibly the most important issue for decision makers, but is ignored most of the time. For video conferencing to catch, price port should be appropriate. A telepresence room “port” should not cost as much as a conferencing room system “port”, and a desktop client “port” should not cost as much as a room system “port” . There should be a correlation between the price of the endpoint and the price of the port.
The introduction of next-generation architectural hardware, innovative software, infrastructure products, and the combination of those, can lead to a scalable, affordable solution, which can support the vision of “a video port per employee”.
Temporal Proximity
Finally, in today’s world video conferencing is mostly limited to real-time use. This means that a meetings’ content are not available after the meeting has ended. And if it is available, there is no real ability to easily retrieve and access the meetings information.
Introduction of new archiving and retrieval solutions, with indexing technologies and smart playback, can help mine the valuable information in video conferences into gold.
RADVISION’s view of a truly connected world
In RADVISION’s “holistic” view, the conferencing server connects telepresence rooms, executive and room systems, legacy systems, desktop clients using scalable video coding, and UC clients so that all of us will be able to enjoy meeting without any walls.
RADVISION has developed, and is currently developing, various technologies to in order make this vision a reality. Powerful media processing platforms, scalable video coding techniques, web-based desktop client, virtual MCU concepts, and SW/HW architecture along with RADVISION’s other technologies, enables them to deliver the visual experience.
With 30,000 professionals from more than 80 countries, InfoComm is the premier event for the audio-visual, information communications and system integration industries. InfoComm showcases the latest technologies in audio, video, display, conferencing, networking and more, and this year RADVISION has chosen InfoComm09 in Orlando to announce its new and exciting line of products.
I will dedicate the whole month to discuss the many products and various new features that they bring with them, but I would like to kick-off the InfoComm special with some details on what you will be able to see and experience in our booth (#3479) at InfoComm:
SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, which we already announced a couple of weeks ago. This new version of our desktop client bring high definition everywhere, and you can experience it either in point-to-point or in group conferencing. It works the way you work!
Our SVC technology will be demonstrated, showing the state-of-the-art in error resiliency tools, enabling high quality video under extreme network conditions with full room system interoperability. We will show this technology embedded in the new SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, so you too can get a glimpse of how this technology can change the way you work.
[UPDATE] The new SCOPIA MCU, Scopia Elite, which we officially announce in InfoComm. As this baby is the fruit of a lot of hard labor, including my own personal one, I will devote a few posts to it. But at this stage I can tell it’s an impressive piece of technology - bringing uncompromised, high scale high definition video, with full 1080p room and Telepresence connectivity.
We will showcase our SCOPIA solution, embedded in various market-leading Unified Communications solutions. You can now enjoy SCOPIA video conferencing using Cisco’s WebEx, IBM’s SameTime, Microsoft’s OCS and Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch.
And last, but not at all least, we will finally uncover the amazing project RADVISION has been working on, which I briefly mentioned in my post on video innovation in Israel: A high definition system, developed by a great partner, a world leader in high-tech electronics and digital media, based on RADVISION’s BEEHD technology. This all-in-one system will offer a superior videophone in a great new form factor.
I must admit this baby amazes me every time I look at it. You are invited to take a look yourself.
As you can see, there’s going to be a LOT of new and exciting announcements in InfoComm, and I will try and review them all here in my blog (in case you are not attending). I suggest you follow our “InfoComm Special” all through this month, and you are welcome to follow the RADVISION website and my twitter for news, press releases and more.
You are invited to meet us in booth #3479 at InfoComm. Enjoy the show!
Well, in a couple of weeks, at InfoComm 09, RADVISION will announce a new version of SCOPIA Desktop, version 7.0, which is an exciting evolution of the previous versions. And as I was excited, I decided to ask Vince Chavy, the Product Manager for SCOPIA Desktop, to tell the tale about this new release]
As some of you might know, the technology behind SCOPIA Desktop comes from CU-SeeMe, one of the first video conferencing clients, developed by the Information Technology department at Cornell University, and later released for commercial use by First Virtual Communications (FVC).
Back then it was all about calling: Calling someone, calling a server, calling a room. Since evil firewalls and NATs were not around yet, calling was very easy. You just had to make sure that the other party had a listener running and waiting for the call, and… wham! The magic of calling took place.
Then, a bit later, someone decided it was not about calling anymore. It was all about meetings: People wanted to schedule meetings. Enterprise users wanted to have ad-hoc meetings. And so CU-SeeMe became Click to Meet. Calling was no longer the priority, Meetings were.
After this, meetings got professional. RADVISION bought FVC, and Click to Meet morphed into SCOPIA Desktop. PC processors were stronger now, and users could meet in High Definition from the comfort of their desktops. With virtual rooms, it was even easier to meet. Your room or my room?!
And here we are now… 10 years after CU-SeeMe Pro, calling is possible again with SCOPIA Desktop 7.0. And it’s not only possible, it’s comfortable, it’s natural. We have a contact list with presence information, and you can call other desktops point to point. Calling, simply calling.
I know what you are thinking now. You are wondering what really changed in 10 years? Well let’s have a closer look using the table below:
Get more IP Addresses - Just get a Class B IP Address
STUN - TURN
One of the most important things in calling is establishing the connection. Everything you need to traverse the jungle of network devices (NAT, Firewall, Proxies, Accelerator, Shapers, etc…) is now included. We even embed a relay server that will host point-to-point calls that cannot be established. When you buy a car, are the shocks included or is it an option?
Another important thing, second in its importance probably, is error resiliency.
A very important thing that really changed in version 7.0 is the way we abstract “the network” to the user. Before Version 7.0, network issues were part of the every-day video conferencing experience. In SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, we invested a lot of work and did a lot of improvements to make sure that network is not in your way.
Whether you are mobile, and packet loss is an unfortunate reality, or in a hotel sharing the same connection with everyone else - you still want to have a decent call experience. That is, without rainbow squares all over your face, or any of the other nasty artifacts network problems introduce. The new H.264/SVC based codec of SCOPIA Desktop 7.0 gives you this level of resilience.
Video calling has been around for a long time. But with SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, you will rediscover video calls. Video calls that work, without ever having to worry about anything else. So it’s time to open your client. With SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, You Can Call Me Again!
In 1996 U.S. Congress authorized the distribution of an additional broadcast channel for each broadcast TV station, so that they could start broadcasting digital transmissions while simultaneously continuing with their analog transmission.
Later, Congress set June 12, 2009 as the final date that TV stations can broadcast analog signals. You read correctly - as of June 13, 2009 all US TV stations will only broadcast digital. In fact, from February 17 stations are allowed to drop their analog transmission and begin broadcasting in digital only.
One of the main benefits for the DTV transition is improved picture and sound quality and greater efficiency in transmission. Rather than transmitting a single analog program at any time, a digital broadcaster can offer a super High Definition digital program or multiple standard definition programs. Digital broadcasters can also provide interactive video and data services, which are not possible with analog technology.
A Technological Leap To High Definition
All of this is not surprising, especially if you have been reading this blog. It serves as another great example for what I’ve been saying here in almost every post: the world is going digital, the world is going high definition. Even Bart Simpson knows that, and he thinks it “is worth every cent”.
Add to that the fact that YouTube, the leader in online UGC video, has gone HD, adding a “watch in HD” option for any HD-enabled video (and so now you find out where the hell Matt is in full high definition…) and you get the full (HD) picture: there’s no point in building a video-based service if it’s not in High Definition.
High Definition Can Cost Less
Still, it took US TV 12 years to go all digital. In the visual communication arena, which has been around for about that long, the transition is quite similiar. No one in his right mind would buy a non-HD video conferencing equipement these days, but legacy equipement is still around, and it would take a few more years for the entire customer base to go “full” HD.
A recent Wainhouse Research document, analyzing “the fact and fiction” behind Telepresence adoption concerns, lists 3 key issues as obstacles for Telepresence, but also other high-end HD conferencing systems, to effectively conquer the visual communication world:
Cost
Interoperability
Bandwidth and network readiness
The authors, surprisingly enough, reached the same conclusion as Bart Simpson: HD is not trivial, not cheap, but worth every cent. For instance, Telepresence suites are reported to have usage rates far above the legacy video conferencing systems. This means that high definition systems can actually cost less per hour of usage than standard-definition systems.
Cisco’s Telepresence Suite. Source: Cisco.
Regarding interoperability, not only that more new high definition systems are now standard-based, bridges between high-end systems, which previously were considered “isolated islands”, and traditional systems are being starting to be deployed, connecting the high-end world to the standard world seamlessly.
It’s true that if you are talking about telepresence, there’s a big issue with interoperability between telepresence systems. The variety of configurations - screens, cameras, protocols, networks, etc. - is confusing and very problematic. But hopefully the TP industry will realized it and deal with it as well.
I discussed bandwidthproblems in length already in previous posts. The demanding needs of high-end high definition systems can add significantly to the overall cost, but again - if the experience is driving usage, the cost per use can even be reduced in comparison to standard systems, which often sit in meeting rooms and desks unused.
Once You’ve UCed HD, There’s No Going Back
A day will come when standard definition systems will be extinct, just like analog TV in the US. It will take some time, and a lot of money, but eventually the infrastructure and endpoints will all go high def.
When you’re watching YouTube in HD, or Homer Simpson for that matter, you realize that once you’ve UCed HD, there’s no going back. And if you still think otherwise, go the blackboard and write 50 times please “HD IS worth every cent”.
“Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending
It took some time, but we wanted to get it right. We now have a super easy-to-use contact list-it doesn’t get any simpler than this. You are 
[This week, at InfoComm, we officially launch the MCU SCOPIA Elite. I asked 
SCOPIA Desktop 7.0, which we already announced a couple of weeks ago. This new version of our desktop client bring high definition everywhere, and you can experience it either in point-to-point or in group conferencing. It works the way you work!
[UPDATE] The new SCOPIA MCU, Scopia Elite, which we officially announce in InfoComm. As this baby is the fruit of a lot of hard labor, including my own personal one, I will devote a few posts to it. But at this stage I can tell it’s an impressive piece of technology - bringing uncompromised, high scale high definition video, with full 1080p room and Telepresence connectivity.
We will showcase our SCOPIA solution, embedded in various market-leading Unified Communications solutions. You can now enjoy SCOPIA video conferencing using Cisco’s WebEx, IBM’s SameTime, Microsoft’s OCS and Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch.
And last, but not at all least, we will finally uncover the amazing project RADVISION has been working on, which I briefly mentioned in my post on 
