Polycom Leads The Advancement of Video Communications Following Approval of the H.264 Video Standard by the ITU
Announcement posted by Polycom 19 Jun 2003
Polycom first to deliver benefits of H.264 to customers; reinforces commitment to supporting H.264 across video conferencing product lines.
Following the recent approval of H.264, the next generation video compression standard, by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Polycom(r), Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM), the world's leader in video and voice conferencing, conference bridges, and integrated web collaboration solutions, has reinforced its commitment to extending support for the H.264 standard across its industry-leading video conferencing solutions.
Polycom played an important role in developing the new video standard and is one of a select number of companies to hold intellectual property in the standard. As evidence of its involvement, Polycom was the first video conferencing manufacturer to deliver the benefits of H.264 to its customers in February 2003. To date, Polycom delivered the benefit of H.264 end-to-end on both video conferencing systems and infrastructure equipment with the iPower video conferencing systems and MGC video conferencing multipoint control units.
H.264 provides significantly higher compression efficiency as compared to the older H.263 and H.261 standards, which enables video conferencing users to experience nearly twice the video quality over the same bandwidth they are currently using. This makes more efficient use of a customer's existing communications infrastructure and increases the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of business-quality video conferencing.
"Polycom continues to demonstrate technology leadership with its involvement in developing the H.264 standard and being the first to deliver the benefit of H.264 to customers," said Ed Ellett, senior vice president and general manager of video communications for Polycom. "We have conducted extensive side-by-side testing with users comparing H.264 video versus H.263 video at twice the call rate. Our results show users prefer the H.264 video ? a 2x improvement in compression efficiency ? meaning our customers may now enjoy the high-quality video they're accustomed to at 768Kbps while using only 384Kbps of bandwidth. This is a significant cost and resource efficiency and makes business-quality video conferencing more accessible to a broader base of potential customers."
"We are committed to supporting the new standard across our product lines," said Ellett. "As other video conferencing manufacturers follow our lead, we look forward to working with them to ensure the highest level of H.264 interoperability. Until that time, our customers are enjoying the benefits of H.264 video today."
For more information on Polycom's involvement in leading communications technology standards development see the Polycom "Industry Standards" white paper at www.polycom.com (under "documents" icon ? bottom left).
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. is the world's technology leader of high-quality, easy-to-use video, voice, data and web conferencing and collaboration solutions. The Polycom Office(tm) is our continued commitment to make distance communications as natural and interactive as being there by providing best-in-class conferencing solutions that are interoperable, integrated and intuitive to the user. The Polycom Office is based on industry standards and supported by an open architecture that promotes interoperability in multi-vendor environments and complements leading network infrastructure platforms. For additional information, call 1-800-355-355 or (02) 9978-8018, or visit the Polycom web site at www.polycom.com.au
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Polycom and the Polycom logo are registered trademarks and Polycom Office, iPower and MGC are trademarks of Polycom in the U.S. and various countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (c)2003, Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
Polycom played an important role in developing the new video standard and is one of a select number of companies to hold intellectual property in the standard. As evidence of its involvement, Polycom was the first video conferencing manufacturer to deliver the benefits of H.264 to its customers in February 2003. To date, Polycom delivered the benefit of H.264 end-to-end on both video conferencing systems and infrastructure equipment with the iPower video conferencing systems and MGC video conferencing multipoint control units.
H.264 provides significantly higher compression efficiency as compared to the older H.263 and H.261 standards, which enables video conferencing users to experience nearly twice the video quality over the same bandwidth they are currently using. This makes more efficient use of a customer's existing communications infrastructure and increases the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of business-quality video conferencing.
"Polycom continues to demonstrate technology leadership with its involvement in developing the H.264 standard and being the first to deliver the benefit of H.264 to customers," said Ed Ellett, senior vice president and general manager of video communications for Polycom. "We have conducted extensive side-by-side testing with users comparing H.264 video versus H.263 video at twice the call rate. Our results show users prefer the H.264 video ? a 2x improvement in compression efficiency ? meaning our customers may now enjoy the high-quality video they're accustomed to at 768Kbps while using only 384Kbps of bandwidth. This is a significant cost and resource efficiency and makes business-quality video conferencing more accessible to a broader base of potential customers."
"We are committed to supporting the new standard across our product lines," said Ellett. "As other video conferencing manufacturers follow our lead, we look forward to working with them to ensure the highest level of H.264 interoperability. Until that time, our customers are enjoying the benefits of H.264 video today."
For more information on Polycom's involvement in leading communications technology standards development see the Polycom "Industry Standards" white paper at www.polycom.com (under "documents" icon ? bottom left).
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. is the world's technology leader of high-quality, easy-to-use video, voice, data and web conferencing and collaboration solutions. The Polycom Office(tm) is our continued commitment to make distance communications as natural and interactive as being there by providing best-in-class conferencing solutions that are interoperable, integrated and intuitive to the user. The Polycom Office is based on industry standards and supported by an open architecture that promotes interoperability in multi-vendor environments and complements leading network infrastructure platforms. For additional information, call 1-800-355-355 or (02) 9978-8018, or visit the Polycom web site at www.polycom.com.au
# # #
Polycom and the Polycom logo are registered trademarks and Polycom Office, iPower and MGC are trademarks of Polycom in the U.S. and various countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. (c)2003, Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.