Polycom supports H.264 High Profile video compression technology

February 16, 2018

Polycom, Inc. today announced support for a breakthrough, standards-based video compression technology, H.264 High Profile, that will reduce the bandwidth requirements for high-definition (HD) telepresence and standard definition (SD) video conferencing by as much as 50 percent, representing substantial network bandwidth cost savings for customers.

The reduced bandwidth requirements will also serve as a catalyst for broader video deployments, creating a network effect that will deliver greater customer benefits as the Polycom Open Collaboration Network™ of partners drive telepresence and video conferencing adoption within Unified Communications (UC) environments.

Breakthrough Video Performance

Through coding efficiency innovations, Polycom’s support for H.264 High Profile will deliver breakthrough video performance at any bandwidth, including full-motion HD video quality starting at just 512 kbps, and full-motion DVD-quality SD video starting as low as 128 kbps.

“Polycom is giving customers the best video experience in the industry at half the network bandwidth requirements of competing solutions, a substantial benefit that will drive wider adoption and greater return on investment for customers,” said Joe Sigrist, senior vice president and general manager of video solutions at Polycom.

“Polycom continues to drive visual communication innovation through our best-in-class solutions, our industry-leading infrastructure platform, and through the Polycom Open Collaboration Network of leading UC and network partners.”

Polycom’s support for H.264 High Profile will play a key role in its recently announced alliance with Juniper Networks, which is focused on improving the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of video networks.

“Juniper and Polycom are creating the first scalable, ‘conferencing-aware’ network solution which will enable carriers to maximise the value of their existing networks to deliver high quality video services,” said Gerri Elliott, executive vice president for strategic alliances, Juniper Networks.

“This will help carriers to move away from siloed networks toward more intelligent and efficient converged networks which are more sustainable and profitable in the long-term.”

The reduced bandwidth requirements will also help drive broader use of video within UC environments through efforts with Polycom Open Collaboration Network partners Avaya, Microsoft, IBM, Siemens Enterprise Communications Group and BroadSoft.

“Siemens is excited about its partnership with Polycom and the support for H.264 High Profile, which will give our customers added cost-effectiveness and faster return on investment for their UC-enabled video solutions,” said Gerald Kromer, senior vice president of services and solutions for Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN).

“Video communication is becoming a key component of UC, and helps to dramatically improve the productivity of our customers.

“Working with Polycom enables us to deliver on our Open Communications commitment and enhance our leading OpenScape UC platform with a full range of video solutions that deliver exceptional performance at any bandwidth.”

“We see tremendous value in Polycom’s support for H.264 High Profile. It further enhances and broadens video use across our organisation, without significantly impacting network requirements or cost,” said Ben Weinberger, CIO at Lathrop & Gage.

“Lathrop & Gage uses Polycom telepresence to connect our geographically dispersed lawyers face-to-face in real time to help us better serve our clients and increase productivity while reducing costs.”

Benefits for Remote Workers

Higher video quality at lower bandwidth will drive greater video use among mobile and home office workers, and increased adoption overall will drive greater intercompany collaboration.

These applications often involve calling across less-than-perfect networks or between corporate networks across the public internet.

To ensure a more consistent, high-quality experience, the new H.264 High Profile video technology is complemented by Polycom’s innovative Lost Packet Recovery™ (LPR™) quality of experience (QoE) technology.

With LPR, Polycom protects voice, video and content quality during packet loss and network congestion.

New Low-Cost Telepresence System

Polycom today also announced an expanded telepresence product portfolio with the new Polycom HDX 6000™ View, a full-featured HD room telepresence system, and the Polycom HDX 9000™ 1080, an HD room telepresence system for integrators demanding the benefits of 1080p video resolution.

“Polycom continues to address the key barriers to adoption for visual communication through a standards-based approach that will drive industry growth,” said Sigrist.

“Businesses of all sizes and across industries want the productivity and cost-saving benefits of visual communication, and Polycom is driving the total cost of ownership down to make it more affordable and accessible to a broader range of customers.”

Further Technology Innovation – Full SVC with Interoperability

While continuing to provide solutions that broaden adoption, Polycom also announced today that it will deliver the industry’s first “Full Scalable Video Coding” (Full SVC) solution in 2018, which will further address reduced bandwidth requirements, error concealment during packet loss, enhanced scalability for multipoint calling and universality – or interoperability across a broad set of video protocols.

Today’s limited SVC solutions (SVC is the Annex G of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard), attempt to address these issues, but lack standards-based signaling, which precludes interoperability with any other SVC-based systems, and, more importantly, lack interoperability with all standards-based telepresence systems, desktop video collaboration applications and legacy video conferencing endpoints.

Polycom intends to deliver the first Full SVC solution that addresses all of these issues and provides unmatched interoperability.

With Full SVC deployed across video endpoints and infrastructure, Polycom will extend the benefits of SVC universally, allowing modern video systems from across multiple standards to fully interoperate with SVC systems, legacy systems, H.264 systems, Microsoft RTV systems, etc.

Availability:

Support for H.264 High Profile on Polycom HDX room and personal telepresence systems is planned for April. Polycom also plans to support H.264 High Profile across its visual communication infrastructure and recording and streaming solutions, and across its immersive telepresence solutions in the coming months.

The Polycom HDX 6000 View is planned for availability in April with a starting list price of €3,999/£3,439/$5,199.

The Polycom HDX 9000 1080 is planned for availability in April with a starting list price of €21,999/£17,199/$28,599. Polycom solutions are available through certified Polycom reseller partners.