Vidyo ups ante in video conferencing with new low-cost 1080p telepresence offering

Startup Vidyo has launched a low-cost personal telepresence solution that it says costs less than one-tenth of top-of-the-line products offered by its competitors.

The New Jersey-based company said its VidyoPanorama will allow users to connect between three and nine screens, compared to the two to four screens offered by Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Polycom (NASDAQ:PLCM) for $300,000 to $500,000. A 20-screen release is planned for later.

And, it contends, its solution, sold through resellers, delivers a high-quality picture and audio because of new compression technology that uses bandwidth in small doses. VidyoPanorama offers 1080p 60 fps video that can be viewed in multi-screen telepresence rooms, on desktop and laptop computers and on iOS and Android smartphones and devices.

"Traditional telepresence systems promised an ‘in-person' experience when optimized in settings with limited participants and unlimited budgets," said Ofer Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of Vidyo. "In reality they have failed to deliver immersive multi-point experiences in large group meetings when people ‘disappear' each time the number of remote cameras exceeds the number of screens. .

"VidyoPanorama breaks the choke-hold by being the first to deliver the screen real estate required to have full interaction in large group meetings at full 1080p 60 fps with immersive interactions and seamless flexibility to engage from telepresence rooms, desktops or mobile devices running over every day networks."

Both Cisco and Polycom are looking at similar technology to Vidyo's, which consists of an application that controls the decoding of video across multiple screens, an executive tablet, an off-the-shelf high definition camera and audio system.

"Cost has been the single biggest barrier to the adoption of telepresence, and when these systems were first introduced IT had no option if it wanted high quality resolution than to rebuild their network," said SVP of Global Enterprise at Yankee Group Zeus Kerravala. "Companies who believe that telepresence is beyond their budget should revisit that decision with VidyoPanorama."

For more:
- see this release
- see a VidyoPanorama video
- see this article

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