Video Chat

At CES, we had the opportunity to see a couple of HD videoconferencing systems in action. At ShowStoppers, we saw the Vidyo teleconferencing system, and later, on the show floor, we stopped by to learn more about Biscotti. Vidyo Vidyo is aimed at SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) who want the high end teleconferencing features provided by vendors such as Polycom and Cisco. However, they add a twist to their solution by using commodity hardware in their systems. The most interesting aspect of their encoding system is the use of SVC (Scalable Video Coding), one of H.264's recent features. In layman's terms, the encoding is done in layers, such that decoding of the video stream is possible at different qualities depending on the network bandwidth available...