Vidyo's Virtualization Makes Cloud Video Conferencing Easier

It's little exaggeration to say that Vidyo was meant for the cloud. The high-profile startup provides video conferencing technology that does away with MCUs, the multipoint control units that combine individual video streams to create multiparty conferences. Instead, Vidyo employs video routing software that runs on standard servers. It's useful for companies that want to video conference but can't afford expensive MCUs. And a recent announcement makes another advantage clear: Vidyo's approach makes it easy to move video conferencing to the cloud.

The announcement involved the introduction of a virtualized version of the technology. This advance makes it a lot easier for providers to offer cloud-based video conferencing. They no longer need to operate MCU hardware in data centers. They can simply run the video routing software on cloud-based servers located anywhere. That is a lot cheaper than MCU-based cloud solutions. It's also more flexible, since it lets them add video conferencing capacity simply by buying more cloud-based server capacity.

Vidyo technology has other advantages as well. In particular, it works well over a wide variety of network conditions. Use of H.264 SVC (scalable video coding) technology lets it maintain high video quality over both landline and mobile links of varying speeds.

It also comes with some limitations, however. The main one is that Vidyo technology only delivers its full benefits with Vidyo endpoints. These may be hardware of various configurations or client software running on PCs. But connecting standard H.323 and SIP endpoints to a Vidyo conferencing setup, which requires a gateway, doesn't provide the same performance as is possible with Vidyo endpoints. That lessens the advantages for providers touting their services' compatibility with wide varieties of endpoints.