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[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 many posts 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.