LifeSize Ties Skype in to Videoconferencing

Users of Big Passport video suite will be able to take Skype users in to videoconferences with a free LifeSize software upgrade coming this month.

The integration between Skype and the midrange higher-definition videoconferencing system testament allow many more people to enter in virtual meetings. LifeSize claims Passport volition be the first board-based videoconferencing system that can work with Skype. But users will ante up a cost in quality for the convenience of linking astir with Skype. All the participants leave move to the lowest common denominator television quality, which waterfall shortstop of HD.

Logitech, the parent company of LifeSize, has a presence in both ends of the videoconferencing line of work. In addition to room-settled systems such as Passport and the high end LifeSize Room weapons platform, it makes webcams priced low US$100. Qualification Passport systems work with Skype brings those worlds together. Because Skype also works connected many PCs and mobile phones, and has a vast community of registered users, the new integration could also thrive the puddle of participants in video sessions.

"For companies that ingest conference suite deployed and people out on the road or in hotels, I think the power to accept a Skype call when you need to accept a Skype call is a howling advantage," said Wainhouse Research analyst Andrew Stuart Davis.

Davis believes LifeSize will atomic number 4 only the showtime of many a vendors of way-founded systems to integrate Skype. Davis also thinks Facebook, with a user base of to a higher degree 500 one thousand thousand, could constitute an attractive desegregation target for videoconferencing vendors.

Skype users can join in connected a Recommendation video session from some Skype client, or flush initiate a birdcall, accordant to Mary Miller, conductor of product marketing at LifeSize. With the software program upgrade, Passport users will be capable to log into their own Skype accounts and get access to their Skype buddy lists. They tin can search through with the list and call a buddy with the Passport's remote.

LifeSize has been functioning with Skype for about ii years, since before the acquisition by Logitech, to make this happen, Miller aforesaid. Currently, Skype users can participate in Recommendation videoconferences via voice only not television. Aft the upgrade, they will unruffled be able to join in voice-only mode if they opt.

When a Skype user joins a Passport session via video, the image size will not change, but the resolution will be different from a pure Passport-to-Passport sitting, Henry Miller aforesaid. The effect will vary depending on how the call is set up.

When all participants in a get together are using a Passport system, the video recording commode have a settlement as high equally 720p (1280 past 720 pixels) at 30 frames per second. But if a Recommendation user brings a Skype user into a meeting, the maximum resolution for everyone wish constitute 640 by 480 pixels, Oregon received-definition TV quality, also at 30 frames per second. If information technology is a Skype drug user WHO initiates the session, the top imaginable quality testament be 640 aside 480 pixels at 15 frames per second, Miller same.

The limit comes from incorporating the Skype service, Miller aforementioned. Even if two users both had Passport systems, and they called each else via Skype — an unlikely scenario — the maximal quality would be only 640 by 480, she said.

However, many users will accept this loss of quality in order to bring more participants into a claim, aforesaid Wainhouse's Davis. Consumers already cope with broke movable call superior for convenience, he said.

"What the last few years take shown … is that people want the best quality, only they are very happy to live with less when otherwise things inherit looseness," Davis said.

The software system upgrade will derive with version 4.8 of the Passport software, in stock for downloading free this month, and will come pre-installed in future systems. The Passport weapons platform is configured for small and medium-sized companies. It includes a high-definition camera, a microphone and a codec device, for some $2,500. The Passport is designed for use ideally with an HD expose of 42 inches to 50 inches, which the client supplies.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG Intelligence Service. Follow Stephen on Chitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail speech is stephen_lawson@idg.com