It was announced recently, with some aplomb that video conferencing manufacturer Lifesize has just shipped its 1000th High definition system. The company founded in 2003 has acheived this milestone over the previous seven months. We would like to congratulate them on this, but must question how pivotal this achievement is? Is HD video conferencing the ultimate Holy Grail, of which Lifesize may have the march on thier competitors, or is HD simply a phase of inevitable technological advancement whose affect will cause no more than a ripple on every day life?
It is impossible to escape the presence of the letters HD at the moment, with High Definition everywhere we look. Whether its computers, televisions, DVD players or broadcast companies; HD is on everybody's lips. As a mere consumer, the manufacturers would have us believe that HD is the best thing since sliced bread, and an experience like no other. From a technical aspect the facts are impressive - 1080 active interlaced or progressive lines (standard TV signals are 625 lines) and resolutions up to 1920x1080. However, will this evolution in technology really heighten our visual and audio experience to the extent boasted? Aside from the technical purists, who lets face it never step outside their front door, does anyone complain about the quality of television, DVD or Broadcast images? Certainly not enough to be willing to invest the extra money required currently for this technology. Of course prices will tumble, but we wonder how much better can this quality get to the naked eye - 100%, 50%? We would guess more like 5-10%.
Regarding the implementation of HD into video conferencing there are similar obstacles to overcome. Firstly, how much better can the video experience get? Imagine your home PC with its 100GB memory, and you are offered a disk drive of 200GB. If this additional space was free of charge then you would probably snap it up, but ask yourself, would you actually use all the additional space. In fact you would struggle to use all your original 100GB. Are you getting any benefit from it? Very unlikely. I would suggest that HD video conferencing compares to this, a case of evolution not revolution, and that the introduction of H264 has been far more important and far-reaching than high definition is ever likely to be.
A second question to be answered is, will organisations actively change their whole infrastructure and products for the benefit of HD? Lifesize currently states that their HD video conferencing is only achievable at a bandwidth of at least 1Mbps. How many video conferencing calls are actually made at 1MB per site using H264? A four-way multipoint call will require at least 4Mbps (1Mbps per site) “free bandwidth" to allow for HD. The videoconferencing market is a growing one, but is still relatively small with the use of Broadband as a means of communicating still at an embryonic stage. I would be surprised if many of the enterprises utilising DSL would have the infrastructure in place to allow for 4Mbps for videoconferencing. Certainly users of ISDN will not be queuing to install extra lines for HD video conferencing. This may change, but not overnight.
Another important issue is that of compatibility. Are there any interoperbility issues for HD with other systems? Consider the prospect of being only able to achieve HD by communicating only with the same manufacturer. I would imagine that the manufacturers need to sit down collectively and ensure that HD is not proprietry facility.
According to analyst firm Wainhouse Research, HD is inevitable and “most mainstream videoconferencing systems or product lines will support HD within 12 months." We at C Hear Ltd concur with this statement and understand that there will be an improvement. Technology, by its nature, perpetually improves and we must acknowledge the efforts of Lifesize in bringing HD video conferencing to the fore. However, we suspect that there is an inevitability that Polycom, Tandberg and Sony's HD products will dominate and with less product differentiation in the market, it will become increasingly difficult for those manufacturers with a small foothold in the industry to compete.