Hitachi Communication Technologies, a company developing, designing and manufacturing a wide range of information and communication systems-related products, has signed an agreement with personal telepresence innovator, Vidyo, which will allow the company to integrate Vidyo (News - Alert) (News - Alert) products and technology with their own high quality and affordable personal telepresence offering, Hitachi (News - Alert) Com.

Thanks to this strategic deal, Hitachi (News - Alert) Com will be able to use VidyoTechnology to provide multi-point, HD quality video conferencing to room systems and desktops over converged IP networks.

Hackensack, New Jersey-based Vidyo is one of the newest companies that have entered the growing video conferencing market. Enabling seamless integration of room and desktop video conferencing across general-purpose IP networks, Vidyo is the first company to provide SVC-enabled solutions for the enterprise market.

According to Yoshihiko Miyano, president and CEO of Hitachi Communication Technologies, "Hitachi Com has developed the products, powered by Vidyo’s visual technology, that enable us to offer an integrated visual communication and IP telephony solution."

"We are committed to delivering high quality video communication solutions for enterprise markets, and with Vidyo’s technology, we have built a video conferencing solution that is better than any MCU-based product, immediately giving us a leading position in this competitive market," added Miyano.

Viydo’s new video conferencing infrastructure architecture eliminates the need for a transcoding MCU. This will help Hitachi Com remove significant latency and improve the overall video conferencing experience for users.

With a VidyoRouter, Hitachi Com will also improve error resiliency and enable HD desktop video conferencing over converged IP networks such as the Internet. Thanks to this technology, there is no need for expensive ISDN or MPLS networks.

"Hitachi Com’s choice of our technology continues the trend among leading unified communications vendors," stated Ofer Shapiro, CEO of Vidyo. "We are honored and excited that Hitachi Com is leveraging our products in its video conferencing business, demonstrating continued worldwide support of our video conferencing architecture based on the H.264/SVC standard."

The new H.264/SVC protocol is a video compression standard that helps split a video stream into multiple resolutions, quality levels and bit rates. With this capability and Vidyo’s intellectual property, VidyoTechnology is able to provide unprecedented error resiliency while eliminating the MCU. In addition, the VidyoRouter is the first video multipoint solution that can deliver rate matching and continuous presence capabilities without an additional video encode and decode.

This unique capability allows for less than half of the end-to-end latency of MCU-based solutions. The VidyoRouter can support multiple resolutions and frame rates for every endpoint.

VidyoTechnology provides end-to-end HD personal telepresence. Vidyo is the first company to offer OEMs the ability to license H.264/SVC-based technology for use in building their future products.

Before this, unified communications companies wanting to provide video over converged IP networks did not have the right technology to deliver high quality video conferencing over non-QOS IP networks. VidyoTechnology, the first commercial video conferencing implementation based on H.264/SVC, significantly changes this situation and offers equipment vendors and solution providers the ability to integrate better point-to-point and multipoint video communication capabilities into their broader-based offerings.

The video conferencing market is one industry that keeps expanding, as new technology is introduced and advancements in communications are revealed. According to Wainhouse Research, the video conferencing market is currently worth $1 billion, and that is before desktop video systems are added.

After Vidyo showcased its technology in January, the company has been busy staying ahead of the competition, while signing resellers and video conferencing service providers in Europe. In the U.S., Vidyo is gaining attention from financial firms, consulting companies, government agencies, and universities.

Vidyo enables people to communicate effectively by using HD quality video from wherever they happen to be. VidyoConferencing is easy and affordable to use by anyone whenever they want, and deploys over any IP network. Leveraging Vidyo’s unique intellectual property built upon the new H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) standard, Vidyo offers the industry’s best resilience and lowest latency video conferencing over converged IP networks. Vidyo’s technology for OEMs and end-to-end product solutions for organizations are able to support point-to-point and multi-point connections that include a variety of different platforms ranging from Mac and Windows desktops to dedicated room solutions.

Tokyo, Japan-based Hitachi Communication Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, and develops, designs and manufactures a wide range of information and communication systems-related products.