Columnist David Pogue in a New York Time article reviewing Skype 4.0 starts with the AT&T video phone demonstrated at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and user experience from then. Not a lot of calls due to technical and psychological issues. He talks about why Skype has been so widely accepted (did he remind us it was “free”?) and why Skype has been a survivor when up against iChat, MSN Messenger, SightSpeed and others.

He goes on to mention several issues that have inhibited video calling in the past but then says:

The video quality still varies when you use Skype. Fast Internet connections and fast computers still work better than slow ones. But if you do have a good setup — wow. With certain Logitech or Philips webcam models, Skype 4.0 can deliver a picture that’s as big and sharp and smooth as a TV picture (30 frames a second, 640 by 480 pixels), with almost no delay.

In my test calls to friends in California, New York and Virginia, we were amazed at what a difference it makes when the delay goes away. (Maybe, for its next trick, Skype can lend its technology to the world’s cellphone carriers.)

He then went on to make calls using iChat, ooVoo and SightSpeed: “None of them matched Skype’s immediacy or video and audio quality.” He discusses Skype’s new level of audio quality (with the SILK codec) and reduced network bandwidth speed requirement. He mentions some features that he would still like to see and mentions what differentiates services such as SightSpeed. His closing comment places Skype video calling into a historical perspective:

….. Will we one day adjust to the idea of being on camera every time someone calls?

Nah.

In the end, video chatting isn’t a replacement for phone calls, but a supplement to them, a perfect way to check out someone’s new place, check in with distant family and friends or show off a new talent (or baby). They saw the possibilities back in 1964 — they just didn’t realize that we wouldn’t always want to use them.

Go read David’s post (free registration may be required); it’s an excellent yet objective review of the personal video calling space from the end user perspective. I guess David doesn’t watch Oprah; she seems to be using Skype High Quality Video almost daily according to reports from my wife.

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According to Tech Crunch and GigaOm posts late last night Logitech is about to spend $30 million to acquire SightSpeed, the video messaging and video conferencing service that recently was selected ot provide the infrastructure for Dell’s Video Chat. Congratulations to Peter Csathy and his team.

Seems like the video calling and video conferencing market is about to heat up. There will be another post later this morning involving an announcement that can bring video conferencing to a much broader user audience than Skype’s (though it’s not exactly insignificant) and SightSpeed’s.

Questions that arise from this acquisition:

• How is Logitech able to continue to partner with services such as Skype when they are now entering the desktop video services market? Logitech’s co-operation was vital to Skype’s ability to provide High Quality Video.
• Or is it a produce marketing acquisition? Is Logitech acquiring SightSpeed simply to have additional collateral software to provide with their webcam offerings? Will we start to see Logitech’s Carl-Zeiss optics in embedded webcams on Dell PC’s?

The economy may be in recession; it’s driving less travel and more audio and video conferencing. They’re seeing a rise in customers and use of audio conferencing at both HiDef Conferencing and Calliflower. It will be an interesting winter for expanding user experiences involving desktop video.

Tags: Logitech, SightSpeed, Skype, Peter Csathy, Tech Crunc, GigaOm, HiDef Conferencing, Calliflower

Since 1996 I have been involved in buying Dell laptops and desktop PC’s, not only for my own use but also helping friends and non-profits acquire PC’s for their personal and business needs. A constant throughout most of that period was that each of these PC’s came with a digital media offering called Musicmatch. Not only an audio player, Musicmatch’s client could also “rip” CD’s and assist in managing your media library. In fact, I even bought a couple of upgrades to their premium service over the years. MusicMatch, Inc. was led by current SightSpeed CEO Peter Csathy. From his SightSpeed bio:

Csathy previously served as president and COO of Musicmatch, Inc., where he was responsible for driving the company’s distribution and content strategies, managing strategic partnerships, and overseeing the company’s business development, sales, legal and finance activities. Yahoo! acquired Musicmatch in 2004.

Aside from selling Musicmatch into what has become the Yahoo black hole of services at an opportune time when Apple’s iPod and iTunes offerings were resetting the business model for music acquisition and playing, Peter developed a network of contacts, business relationship experience and trust at Dell such that coming back to Dell for a SightSpeed partnership with Dell Video Chat was probably “a natural” on both Dell’s and SightSpeed’s part. Getting technology to market is not simply about the technology; it’s about developing trusted business partnerships and executing across the network. Terms and Conditions of this new agreement probably reflect on their previous business experience as much as on the boiler plate lawyers wanted to include. CxO’s are hired not only for their management experience but also for the network of contacts they can bring to the table.

While Phil makes some excellent points about why SightSpeed was able to complete a deal with Dell, I think the overriding factor in SightSpeed’s new Dell partnership is more a result of previous network contacts accompanied by business relationship experience in building a service as opposed to Skype simply “losing” a deal. The challenge for SightSpeed is now to build additional partnerships with other vendors and social networking offerings beyond these legacy relationships. The good news for end users is that there are two different conversation infrastructure offerings out there that can only build consumer awareness of what can be done to bring new real time conversation user experiences when incorporated into consumer businesses with extensive user bases.

Over at Skype we’re starting to see the evolution of Skype as a true business built on the foundation of Skype’s conversation infrastructure software. It’s not a case of just starting with Josh Silverman’s appointment as CEO but his building an experienced CxO management team that can make the operation run smoothly and avoid fiasco’s such as the loss of “0207″ numbers in London last fall. Expect to see a seasoned CMO, as effectively called for in my Primer series posts last fall, and, with the complex mix of technology now embedded in Skype as its most critical asset, a CTO at some point in the near future. This is not based on any information from within Skype; it’s the natural evolution of a maturing company now being led by a business savvy Stanford MBA CEO and a Harvard MBA COO who has taken on a much wider range of challenges and experiences in his life than your average CxO.

Ironically, as a prior relationship revealed in Howard Wolinsky’s interview with recently appointed Skype COO Scott Durchslag posted yesterday, it will be interesting to see whether Scott’s previous business relationship at Motorola with Ron Garriques — now President of Dell’s Global Consumer Group — will result in any innovative new initiatives between Skype and Dell in the future. More importantly for Skype, however, would be the wireless carrier relationships Scott had to build in helping to make the Motoroal RAZR the success that it was.

It’s the mix of leadership, management experience, marketing programs, business networks and technology assets, combined with passionate employee teams, that will make both Skype and SightSpeed winners in their respective business and market spheres.

Over the past two weeks there have been several announcements and activities related to the personal conversation space:

• Skype announced its Skype 4.0 beta program trialing a “full desktop” interface.
• SightSpeed announced an improved SightSpeed client with many engineering improvements to enhance video and audio quality
• SightSpeed for Business announced a 9-party video conferencing capability
• iotum launched its rebranded CalliFlower voice conferencing platform
• Dell announced their new Studio line of prosumer laptops incorporating Dell Video Chat powered by SightSpeed.

And the combination of these announcements, along with my own experience in using these services, hit home once again that it’s all about the user experience. This market needs to remain competitive through innovation but at the same time it’s also measured against performance, process and marketing. Skype and iotum have set some standards to be met, including:

• High Quality Video that has turned my lethargy about video calling into an enthusiastic user whenever feasible. Its 640 x 480 @ 30 frames per second over widely available (cable and DSL) broadband connections, along with top quality webcam optics, sets the standard I am looking for.
• Echo cancellation: while I continue to use a headset for privacy and courtesy reasons, most of my Skype calls are to contacts who are using the basic microphone and speakers provided as the basic configuration of a PC.
• Wideband or HD audio: provides an clarity of sound that constantly amazes. Unfortunately, our legacy phone system makes compromises that we have to live with but when it comes to VoIP-based services I want that HD voice.
• Complementary services: iotum’s interactive participant interface richly enhances the voice conference call experience.
• Upgrades: when I do an upgrade I just want the new version to work. No hangups, no PC freezes. Whereas upgrades could be the cause of much angst ten to fifteen years ago, upgrades offered to the public today – especially if enforced – need to “just work”. And these days I find most offerings meet that standard.
• Auxiliary services such as conversation archiving and file transfer.
• Beta programs are just that: programs to try out new concepts and get user feedback. Pre-Internet I ran software beta programs out of the public eye; today many services and offerings tend to leave their offering in a state of “constant beta” in the public eye such that users don’t realize that beta means provide feedback and check out the various phases as the offering evolves. But please don’t equate beta with the “officially released” product.

And my “like-to-have” list includes:

• Multi-party video conferencing
• Improved conversation management; switch readily between multiple conversations and see a record of all activities with a contact.
• Improved marketing at all the service providers: give us the straight goods, what is the benefit to the user? Forget the technology accomplishments, yes we appreciate – it’s about the user uptake and experience.

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Those folks at Engadget have been reading through the FCC applications again and uncovered an application from Creative Labs for their (forthcoming?) inPerson wireless video conferencing phone. Interesting feature set claimed, including:

• VGA camera (640 x 480)
• 802.11b/g WiFi and Ethernet
• TI DaVinci graphics chip, designed for set-top boxes and handhelds
• 76-degree wide angle lens with “excellent low light performance”
• fully integrated with SightSpeed accounts
• TV out port
• Battery life: 2 hours, increasing to 5 hours using TV out
• no pricing available

Gallery of photos, probably taken from the FCC application. In order to attract an initial customer base, it seems like they’ve also partnered with SightSpeed as the device apparently incorporates SightSpeed support including “automatic SightSpeed account login, speed dials, call history and contact list management”.

From my experience with Skype’s High Quality Video and the subsequent reviews of the Logitech QuickCam 9000 Pro one would have to question if Creative has taken similar steps to Skype’s partnering arrangement with Logitech to allow 30 fps video at 640 x 480 resolution over a 384 kbps upload speed.. I can also see end user network configurations issues to make it a practical consumer device. At the moment SightSpeed requries a 1.5 Mbps upload speed (well beyond standard broadband upload speeds of < 1Mbps). to support 640 x 480 @ 30 fps. Or has Creative licensed webcam technology from Logitech?

To go out on a speculative limb, can this portend a future Skype Video phone from, say, Logitech using their Carl Zeiss optics and RightLight^TM2 low light sensing. Recall Skype and Logitech had to work together to adapt the Logitech Carl Zeiss cameras, through both device drivers and adaptation of Skype’s p2p technology, to work at these specifications.

And how many telecom platforms will we have on our desk, in our house or on our belt (mobile devices). The world is a long way from figuring out where and how it wants to wear video. I am slowly adapting just using the High Quality Video for my Skype calls from my PC as a standard component of my conversations.

Tags: Creative, FCC, Engadget, Skype, Logitech, SightSpeed, TI DaVinci, Logitech QuickCam 9000 Pro

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High Quality Video certainly places superior demands on technology resources; in testing yesterday evening with Phone Boy, Dameon Welch, we found superior performance for the user who has those resources.

In previous posts I have talked about doing a setup for High Quality Video and subsequently putting together the requirements, goals and benchmarks for High Quality Video. Working with a 1.6 GHz CoreDuo Laptop, Logitech 9000 webcam with version 11.5 drivers, Skype 3.6 for Windows and a 6Mbps download/800 kbps upload cable Internet connection at my end and a 2.6 GHz Core2Duo Desktop, and even faster Internet connection at Dameon’s end we did test video calls of both Skype’s High Quality Video and SightSpeed 6.0 to determine what constitutes the better user experience. In today’s post I will describe our High Quality Video results; tomorrow I will provide a summary comparison with SightSpeed. along with commentary on some other experiences that helped to define what to expect for High Quality Video.

As a preamble to our results, and building on my recent interview with Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Voice, their High Quality Video is the result of extensive co-operation between Logitech and Skype working together to optimize their codecs and drivers, often at some fairly basic levels to achieve a sustainable high quality video experience. Skype had set initial goals of having a sustainable user experience that could be achieved by a reasonably broad base of Skype users: 640 x 480 @ a sustainable 24-30 fps outcome over an entry level broadband connection (384 kbps). They tested out many webcams on the market to see if there was potential to meet this requirement; nothing worked.

Then Logitech provided a demonstration of a prototype QuickCam Pro 9000 while it was still in development; they had finally found a camera that had the potential to deliver the sustained quality and frame rate in a consistent and reliable way. At that point they launched a co-development effort involving Logitech, On2 and Skype to optimize the codecs along with the capture and rendering software required. They also found it necessary to specifically optimize for real time video conferencing scenarios involving mostly “stationary talking heads” in sustained lighting situations and perhaps people walking into and out of a frame as opposed to the requirements for full motion broadcast video such az YouTube movies. This allowed them to cut back significantly on CPU utilization amongst other modifications.

“The result is that we have certainly arrived at a state-of-the-art situation in terms of coding, capture at the sending side and rendering at the other side”, stated Christensen. Amongst other issues Skype and Logitech had to deal with CPU utilization management, low light conditions, image sharpness and intelligent adaptation to varying network conditions (especially at the end points) to deliver a service that could work at a minimum 384 kbps bandwidth. While the released service reduces the wide variability of outcomes seen with other webcam configurations and provides a fairly consistent result, they are still working on issues such as better and more intelligent network utilization but they feel they have the camera, driver and coding issues well under control.

The Complete High Quality Video Experience

Over the past few days I have tried out the High Quality Video with almost all my Skype calls, even if the other party did not have a webcam. While the sending (capture) end of the call requires relatively new hardware (Dual core processor, Logitech webcams with Carl-Zeiss optics) the receiving end can view High Qualty Video even with higher speed single core processors and have an excellent video viewing experience (based on comments of several viewers).

The real challenge was to find a situation where both parties met the requirements for High Quality Video; yesterday evening “Phone Bay” Dameon Welch (who normally uses a Mac) had finally put together a Windows configuration, using one of the Logitech Carl-Zeiss cameras where we could truly test bi-directional video calling over reliable network conditions. (In another post I’ll talk about how testing for High Quality Video is resulting in the exposure of underperforming DSL services.)

Display Options with High Quality Video

Launching a call: once connected the receiving party sees the window on the left in the active call tab of the Skype client; after about 30 seconds High Quality Video has been established. The promotional bar at the tope goes away after a minute or so. The white logo in the upper left appears when the frame rate exceeds 24 fps; why this particular number is a question we have put Skype. Using the “technical call info” we found that, while occasionally the frame rate would drop to, say, 12 – 15 fps, the picture quality did not deteriorate noticeably. Certainly a crisp, sharp picture, moving the head or hand across the viewing range would not result in “shadowing” or other artifacts, even below 24 fps. The “camera” icon on the left in the bottom frame allows you to capture the picture; in the resulting captured image window two mouse clicks trigger a “file transfer” of the captured image back to the other party while the image is also stored in your “My Skype Pictures” folder.

High Quality Video with Call Management Options

Above is a “Video in Window” image (reduced from 640 x 480 to accommodate the width available in this post). While not having the logo due to insufficient frame rate (~ 15 – 20 fps) it represents the quality of video image we saw. Most importantly we did not see any “shadowing” if he moved his head or put up his hand and raised his five fingers. On the other hand this image is an example of the “intelligent adaptation” inherent to the Skype software at work, where Skype will adjust to both CPU utilization and changing network conditions (jitter, return time, etc.) such as to maintain a high quality picture even when not working above 24 fps.

CPU utilization management is one feature of the new Skype video where the software is monitoring CPU usage such that Skype video does not consume all the CPU resources. In one situation where I found the video “capped” at sending 15 fps, simply turning off my SlingPlayer (which itself was using about 2.5 Mbps of bandwidth via an internal LAN connection to my SlingBox) allowed the frame rate to increase above 24 fps to invoke the High Quality Video logo on a sustainable basis.

Full screen video at 1650 x 1080 gave again a good picture, maybe with a bit of pixelation in going from 640 x 480. In the SightSpeed comparison tomorrow I will comment on the “intense” room light above Dameon’s head and how the Skype video adjusts for the saturation such an intense light can create.

Checking out the "close-up" focus with a High Quality Video webcam

Finally an image that demonstrates some of the optics of the camera: close-up of a Pokemon card showing both how the auto-focus feature adjusts and the quality obtained even when an object is only 4 to 6 inches from the camera. And in my image at the lower left I had reduced the room lighting to one 50-watt recessed “under-the-shelf” lamp above my work surface, yet Dameon was able to distinguish the stripes on my shirt. This is the Logitech “Right Light” sensing in operation where it can pick up images in very low lighting situations. (And the High Quality Video logo during this conversation had held at this point for over 15 minutes.)

Clearly Dameon and I agreed that Skype’s High Quality Video is a winner and provides, in hardware and software configurations meeting all the requirements, an excellent user video experience. The issues here include:

• Skype’s High Quality Video, as a free service, represents one more threat to the personal communications segment of business video conferencing, even at the enterprise level. Business model disruption at work again.
• Having enough Skype users using the Logitech webcam to take advantage of the Carl-Zeiss optics and driver optimization. Dual core processor PC’s have now been on the market for eighteen months and become the entry level standard; the new Logitech Carl-Zeiss optics cameras are priced at the same level as their previous generation webcams.
• Ensuring a good quality Internet connection at least meeting the minimum 384 kbps speed but, in subtle ways, High Quality Video works better (for instance ramps up to the desired frame rate faster) on higher speed connections.

Dameon’s post; (Link to come when available)

Tom Keating and Rich Tehrani have done some testing as well:

As always, Skype has over-delivered on their free offering, providing superior functionality at the bargain basement price of zero dollars. Obviously you will need a new video camera and possibly a new pc to take advantage of the highest quality Skype video yet but these seem like small sacrifices to make when you consider you will not have to pay a recurring service fee to videoconference at far superior resolution.

This new product is certainly a win for the world’s most popular IP communications software company and moreover for users of the popular software/service.

Tomorrow: the SightSpeed comparison, working with Macs, other experiences and a summary.

Tags: Skype, High Quality Video, Logitech, Skype 3.6, Dameon Welch, Phone Boy, Jonathan Christensen, QuickCam Pro 9000, On2 Technologies, Carl-Zeiss optics

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Lots of confusion out there: High Quality Video, HD Video, HD Voice, High Definition Audio? What do these terms mean? And what does High Quality Video mean when it comes to Skype Video calling? “Well, my configuration should work”, comes from both other vendors and some end users. Did a bit of research to try to find a baseline against which all these claims could be measured.

HD Video generally refers to video with a minimum 1280 x 720 resolution (720p). Common to all High ?? Video descriptions is the transmission of video at 25 – 30 frames per second (fps). “HD VoIP” was the subject of an excellent session at Fall VON and generally refers to audio transmission of voice covering at least 8kHz audio — primary range of the human ear (sometimes called wide band audio); Intel appears to have taken over the term High Definition Audio to describe some of their audio-related technology.

The aim of this post is to provide some background that allow us to move forward in testing High Quality Video. Without a standard to be achieved we are seeing lots of claims about various webcams and the ability to transmit video. In this post I will set some basic benchmarks to help identify High Quality Video when it happens. In future posts I will cover some of my experiences attempting to have Skype-based conversations using High Quality Video.

My first question to Jonathan Christensen, Skype’s GM for Audio and Voice, was “What defines High Quality Video?” Summing up his response it’s the sustained transmission of 640 x 480 (VGA) video resolution at 24 – 30 fps over a minimum 384 kbps connection. And the key word here is “sustained” as in “carrying on a reasonable length conversation” user experience. Previously one could get burst of VGA quality but sustaining it was not practical due to non-optimization of all the technology pieces that need to come together.

Skype initially considered a higher resolution involving the 1280 x 720 “true HD” Video spec but soon saw that as unrealistic within today’s network conditions and video technology limitations. According to Jonathan, his Skype Audio/Video engineering team did a significant amount of research looking at factors such as webcam technology, codecs, webcam drivers, end user configurations, network conditions (including user end point configurations), image sharpness, CPU utilization, and surrounding light sensitivity in coming up with a video calling product specification. And they had to settle on the type of video content that would be most commonly used: “talking heads” in a home or office desktop environment. (No Discovery Channel panoramic scenery video or high speed action sports such as hockey or football here.)

Basic requirements: many have heard about the Sender (Capture) requirements:

• Intel Dual Core (or CoreDuo) processor
• Logitech QuickCams with Carl-Zeiss optics (9000 Pro, Pro for Notebooks)
• QuickCam software drivers version 11.5
• Skype 3.6
• Internet Connection: (an industry standard minimum requirement for video transmission)

At the Recipient (Rendering) end these requirements are relaxed to:

• Fast processor (but not necessarily Dual Core)
• Skype 3.6
• Internet Connection: minimum 384 kbps upload and download speed

So how do you identify High Quality Video is being captured and transmitted by the sender and received. and rendered by the recipient? Simply put, Skype injects a logo into both the active call window’s video indicator and the recipient’s video picture, whether within the active call tab, a 640 x 480 Window or full screen. This logo only appears in situations where either the Sender is sending 640 x 480 @ 24-30 fps (above) or the recipient is receiving 640 x 480 @ 24-30 fps (left). Drop below 24 fps and the logo goes away; come back above an it appears. To add to the confusion, the Sender can be sending High Quality Video, yet the recipient does not necessarily see the logo unless certain conditions are met.

A few other notes:

• In my testing I have come across a couple of situations where High Quality Video was being identifiably received under the “Recipient” conditions (for instance an Inspiron 6000 with a single 1.6 GHZ Pentium M processor, shown above, and Phil’s 64-bit AMD processor PC, both of which had Skype 3.6 installed).
• Note that the Recipient can launch not only a Chat session from the video within the Active Call window but can also “capture” the picture as a still photo (camera icon).
• If a recipient is using an earlier version of Skype (3.5 or earlier), they may be seeing High Quality Video but there is no indication via the logo. The only way to check is via “displaying the technical call info”¹.
• It can take about 45 to 120 seconds for a High Quality Video connection to be established.. Using Skype’s “technical call info” feature¹, you can actually observe the Send fps rate ramp up; High Quality Video identification only occurs above 24 fps (and a 640 x 480 frame size). So there is obviously some initial handshaking/negotiation activity generated on launching a video call.
• It is worthwhile checking your own Internet connection speed and connection conditions^2. I have found using the Visual Ware VoIP Quality and Speed Test provides a relatively good measure (requires Java on your PC). However, other measures may be required on other continents as distance from the measuring server can play a role in the resulting tests. My cable connection appears to be running between 6 and 6.5 Mbps for download and consistently around 800 kbps for upload. QoS is usually above 90% with low jitter (<10 ms) — more than sufficient for High Quality Video requirements.
• The best SightSpeed can support for “Send” under my network conditions is 320 x 240 @ 30 fps; if my upload speed could be raised to 1.5 Mbps, it could then support 640 x 480 at this frame rate.

But the real challenge is the overall end user configuration including network conditions. And this is where Skype still needs to some testing and more experience to achieve a consistent and sustainable³ High Quality Video user experience. I have attempted Skype High Quality Video calls in several situations with significantly inconsistent results and continue to expand on that experience base.

A second question: In launching High Quality Video as a marketing tool “why did Skype let the situation get out of their control in terms of setting user expectations?” (Note: broken link to original post; no other reference) Can’t hit the target when there is no stated target to aim for. It’s insufficient to state what the requirements are; independently measurable benchmarks are also required:

• Resolution: 640 x 480 (VGA)
• Transmission rate: 24 -30 fps
• Time of call: 30 minutes meeting these requirements
• Time to reach transmission rate at stated resolution: < 2 minutes

And how does it deal with other considerations?

• Low light environment
• CPU utilization management
• “Intelligently” adaptation to network traffic conditions

Both subjects of upcoming posts.

¹ Tools | Options | Advanced | Connection –> “Display technical call info ….”; then run your cursor over the active call window to bring up the technical info for your call.
² In one instance the other party found his speed to be about 400 kbps download; he thought he had subscribed for a 3 Mbps service 3 years ago so checked with his service provider who confirmed he was only getting a 500 kbps service. At this point he is seeking compensation from his service provider!
³ Sustainable means to have a 30 minute or longer video call while maintaining the High Quality Video status as indicated by the presence of the logo at both ends.

A major trend in the late 1990′s was the emergence of enterprise grade Customer Relationship Management offerings that not only required IT support but also significant investments in server hardware and business process engineering. However, 1999 saw the launch of a different scenario for CRM, namely a hosted service, Salesforce.com, where even the smallest business could sign up and pay under $100 per user per month with no capital investment required. Today over 35,500 companies have implemented this hosted solution and Salesforce.com is regarded as the pioneer of the “No Software” movement. One could also point out they were the pioneer in the “No Hardware” movement.

Today we are seeing the emergence of several “No Hardware” hosted services including:

• OnState ACD: removing the need for Call Center PBX’s
• Convenos Meeting Center: a virtual boardroom for ongoing enterprise team building
• OnSIP hosted PBX: providing a hosted full service PBX for turning any SIP-based connection into an extension.

Of course common to all these platforms is that the users can also be geographically disbursed worldwide, contributing to the “Green” movement by reducing the need for business travel. And common to all these is that they bring what were previously perceived as large enterprise solutions to the small to medium business market space with a sub-$100 per user monthly subscription cost.

Lost in the buzz of Fall VON two weeks ago was the recent launch of another “No Hardware” service, SightSpeed Business, providing a range of video-based services for the small to medium enterprise. What previously required minimum six figure investments has been replaced by a service that costs under $20 per month per seat with no capital investment beyond user PC’s.

SightSpeed has always had a reputation for high quality video services including video calling, (up to four party) video conferencing and video messaging (or video mail). Building on SightSpeed’s informal adoption by over 30,000 small businesses, Sight Speed Business consolidates its video services for small business by introducing:

• An Administration console for central management of users, including internal directory services as well as coordination of purchasing SightSpeed
• Multi-user licensing
• Full video session recording
• In-call file sharing

The key new software piece here is the Administration Console providing the a business of any size a tool to easily and readily take control of how it deploys, manages and purchases SightSpeed’s video services. All the features of the previously available SightSpeed 6.0, including its Windows/Mac cross platform capability, are included.

Essentials:

• Operating System: Windows 2000/XP/Vista; Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher
• Video Services: Video Calling (one-to-one), Video Conferencing (up to four participants), Video Messaging (create a video and email it)
• Voice Services: Unlimited (VoIP-based) PC-to-PC calling; Outbound calling to PSTN; Inbound calling via 800 number or local phone number.
• Other features include: In-call file sharing, session recording, unlimited text messaging
• Packages:
  • Single seat: $19.95 per month; $189.95 per year; 5-, 10- and 50-User Packs
  • Free 30 day trial
  • Includes 500 minutes of Outbound U.S. or Canada calling

SightSpeed has developed a customer base associated with their video messaging strengths. Having found a market niche in the SMB space, SightSpeed Business opens up new video communications (and productivity) opportunities for this market segment; it provides the tools for easy implementation across the business’s operating space with no capital expenditure. The challenge for small business is to determine where video communications can be incorporated into their ongoing business processes.

With Skype’s expanding video capabilities and the increasing general awareness of video overall as a real time conversations tool, we should be seeing additional interesting video-based services going into 2008.

More information here.

Tags: SightSpeed, SightSpeed Business, video services, video calling, video messaging, video conferencing

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I just reinstalled SightSpeed on my “rebuilt” laptop and am always impressed with the video quality. It is reminiscent of the days about 25 years ago when the first color monitors became available for the mini-computer-based instrumentation I was selling at the time. My budget-limited customers (mostly university based researchers) thought they could get away with budgeting for a black and white monitor until they actually saw the color monitor … it took all of two minutes to change their mind once they realized the features color added. Somehow the additional funds for color magically appeared quite quickly. (I won’t mention the price they paid for simple monitors at that time!) When you see a SightSpeed video its quality just hits you instantly as being the benchmark for video communications. And this week PC Magazine thought so also.

While it is a challenge to market in a space containing the GYMAS-five, Peter Csathy seems to be ringing up the wins by working with partners who can take advantage of SightSpeed’s video messaging functionality. Two of note: a deal with MTV who is using SightSpeed on their Total Request Live offering to bring viewers into the show; SightSpeed is also making its debut in politics as a campaigning tool. Would be interesting to see if my university colleagues Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae start to use SightSpeed in their tight run for the leadership of Canada’s Liberal party this fall where they need to approach 4500 delegates spread across 4,000 miles.

In fairness I need to point out that PC Magazine makes a point of how Skype video is more associated with ad hoc “phone” communications as opposed to SightSpeed’s video messaging approach. Great to have two players in the game where one sets the benchmark for one particular feature that can be leveraged for targeted messaging while the other provides a total real time communications platform.

Other commentary on SightSpeed: Jon Arnold, Ken Camp and check out SightSpeed CEO’s video message on their implementation of peer-to-peer communications.

Turning to another aspect of video, SlingMedia announced a family of three new products this week:

• SlingBox Tuner for those who still receive their TV “over-the-air:
• SlingBox A/V for those with cable/satellite service and PVR’s
• SlingBox Pro for those who want to use HD signals or access multiple devices (say, cable box and DVD player)

A key feature of the new products is the enhanced resolution – from the previous 640×240 to 640×480 for local network connections; it remains at a very acceptable 320x 240 for remote connections. Any hope for Skype integration in the future to add a personal audio channel with the viewer of the “home” TV setup?

Since its introduction at the final Fall Comdex in 2003, I have been following the SightSpeed video communications service as it has evolved into one of the more highly respected personal video calling services. Today they are releasing a new version 5.0; last week I spent an hour talking with Peter Csathey, CEO of SightSpeed, about SightSpeed, its direction and their forthcoming new version.

Peter, who has been CEO since last December, has SightSpeed focused on offering “best-in-class” personal video services. These services are envisioned to come in the form of

• Communications: private, secure video and voice calling communications;
• Community/Content with the introduction of a public directory, video blogging and other user generated content and SightSpeedTV
• Commerce: video-enabled e-commerce, video mail marketing; “click-to-call” video sales and support.

Previous versions of SightSpeed, a cross-platform service running on both Macs and Windows PC’s, have included video calling (with up to four in a conference), video mail messaging, video blogging support, chat and, recently, a beta outbound PSTN service. SightSpeed operates using direct (node-free) peer-to-peer connectivity for 1:1 video and audio calls. Multi-party video conferencing with its additional processing demands passes through a server.

SightSpeed 5.0 fleshes out what Peter calls “a complete personal video services suite”, offering several new capabilities;

• New video codec for sharper, crisper video in both 1:1 calls and n:1 (where N<=4) video conferences
• Over 90% dual firewall negotiation (no relays)
• A free PC to PC voice-only calling service (independent from the video service)
• Enhanced Mac support and adoption; their goal is to make the Mac experience be on par with the PC experience.
• Extends video blogging to two minute recording time.
• The outbound PSTN service will come out of beta; they will be adding inbound PSTN calling with DID numbers.
• Usability improvements
• My SightSpeed “click-to-call” buttons launching SightSpeed directly from a website.
• First beta release of SightSpeedTV; allowing viewing of analog TV channels, sourced from a Windows Media PC or TV tuner/video capture card.

One interesting feature of SightSpeed is its ability to adjust to “local user” network conditions. Normally video requires about 384 kbps bandwidth for a clear picture; however, if it determines the local user’s situation has degraded it automatically switches to a protocol that works down to 128 kbps. The picture quality degrades slightly in this situation but a viable video and voice conversation can continue; the user does get notification of the change.

SightSpeedTV in its current state is limited to handling live, analog channels; it includes a simple remote control for stepping up and down channels. It is anticipated that it will support digital TV and PVR devices in future releases associated with the release of Windows Vista.

Our discussion then turned to marketing and building a user base. SightSpeed is relying on viral marketing and market partner agreements to build awareness leading to direct sales. In order to encourage experience with their services, the Basic Plan which includes unlimited two party video and voice calling and unlimited 30 second video mail messages is free.

Winning several awards has facilitated the viral aspect; channel partners include hardware vendors (Creative Labs webcams), software vendors (Sonic Roxio) and cable partners such as Telewest and the U.K.’s Virgin Mobile. And, of course, the viral Mac community makes sure that awareness of SightSpeed is generated amongst Mac owners.

I asked Peter if he had any concern about regulatory issues. SightSpeed is tracking the regulatory environment closely; at the moment they are doing the same as Skype in stating they are “not a telephony replacement service and cannot be used to dial 911 or other emergency phone numbers”.

While Skype has had a lot of “regulatory visibility” since it is primarily a voice communications service, it is interesting to note that, since SightSpeed’s primary focus is on video, their entry into Internet voice calling has gone “below the radar” with respect to regulatory issues. SightSpeed’s use of VoIP-based services as an additional feature for its primary service is an ideal example of voice communication serving as an accessory application to another service and not a “phone system replacement”.

I closed out my interview by asking Peter about future developments for SightSpeed. Beyond the evolution of SightSpeedTV to support PVR’s and digital cable boxes, the most demanded feature is a session recording capability. And some day they hope to offer a SightSpeed client running on mobile devices such as Windows Mobile and Blackberries.

How good is SightSpeed’s video? Here’s a new (somewhat subjective) test for video quality. Yesterday, to check out Mac performance, I had my daughter install SightSpeed on her MacBook Pro (in a remote city); towards the end of our session she asked to see our dog. While positioning the dog so he could be seen by my webcam, the dog saw her on my laptop screen and tore off into the next room (behind the screen) where my wife reported that he was somewhat agitated and looking around the room for several minutes. Best we can figure out is that he was looking for our daughter, having seen her on the screen. (He does generate a lot of noise whenever he sees animals on our regular TV.)

From a more practical viewpoint, the video quality coming from the MacBook again was crisp with well defined images. My other test is to try it out full screen on my 1650 x 1080 screen; again while not quite as crisp it was certainly viewable without any problems.

Since its launch three years ago SightSpeed has set the bar for video-over-the-net performance; until the actual 5.0 release this evening we cannot do a full comparison with Skype’s video on Windows platforms. Being cross-platform, it has attracted a significant base of Mac users; Skype just yesterday released a “preview” (“it’s definitely not at beta stage yet”?) release of Skype for Mac that incorporates video.

The launch of SightSpeedTV introduces a new element into the place-shifting game. SlingBox uses a dedicated hardware platform that sits between the TV and cable box and/or PVR to bring personalized cable video to the Internet. SightSpeedTV relies on Windows applications to act as the source from a multi-tasking Windows Media Center PC or TV-tuner equipped Windows platform. In its current configuration SlingBox works with digital cable boxes and PVR’s providing access to a wider range of programming (in my case NHL Center Ice and MLB Extra Innings, for instance); also SlingBox allows the remote setting of PVR recording setups. Finally SlingBox provides a full emulation of my specific model of Scientific Atlanta remote control. SightSpeedTV is a “nice-to-have” accessory if you have the appropriate hardware but SightSpeed primarily excels with personal video services and user generated content.

Jeff Pulver refers to 2006 as the Year of Video on the Net; he’s even added a second VON show, Video on the Net, to be held at the same time as the Fall VON show in Boston. Skype and SightSpeed will be two of the major players in the personal video communications services space; we are entering interesting times as we watch the evolution of this space. In the meantime, let the SightSpeed Guy have his say.

Over the past week there were a couple of news items about video communications services:

• Out of Japan, Novac has released a product, Skype TV, that lets you stream your TV across Skype video. More commentary from Gizmodo.
• Last Monday came news about the forthcoming SightSpeedTV, a new feature to be included in SightSpeed’s next release at the end of the month.

But moving beyond the place-shifting domain, last week I had a demonstration of Tele3DWorld from Mellanium, a 3D design and modeling studio. Using 3D texture rendering CAD software with output via a video capture card, they have Skype or SightSpeed recognize it as a webcam for video.

One of the people behind this has already used it on a sales call for the remote dynamic 3D presentation of a new anode metal refining furnace where different types of refractory brick are used within the furnace depending on the high temperature profiles.. Using this tool, Joe was able to walk his customer through the interior of the proposed furnace, zeroing in on critical heat sensitive areas and showing how they have addressed issues related to the different types of brick. In another demonstration, he walked me through a tour of a proposed palliative care unit; a third demonstration is a walk around tour of a WWII Spitfire bomber, initially drawn up in AutoCAD.

In the course of my experience with desktop sharing or web conferencing services, one frustration has been the inability of web conferencing products to do 3D CAD viewing in real time within the desktop sharing tool sets due to the intense real time graphics demands. With video configurations such as demonstrated by Mellanium perhaps we can see this methodology become the standard for this business requirement.

Bottom line: Personal video services, such as Skype’s video and SightSpeed will eventually deliver more than basic video calling. They will require either special hardware (Novac) or TV-tuner-equipped PC’s, such as Windows Media PC’s (Mellanium and SightSpeed) as the video source. Obviously the creative juices are flowing in developing webcam emulations that can flow video through Skype and SightSpeed.

Yesterday I received an email from SightSpeed announcing

On May 24, 2006, SightSpeed will release the next version of our award-winning video calling service. This new release will include significant new beta features, including SightSpeed Phone Out, which you can use to make great quality, low-cost telephone calls from your PC or Mac.

Key Points:

• SightSpeed expands its voice capability from pure ‘VoIP to VoIP” to “VoIP to PSTN” (Phone Out launched yesterday) and “PSTN to VoIP” (PhoneIn to be introduced soon).
• Rates for calls within North America are 2 cents per minute; rates to Europe start at 2 cents per minute but vary by country and modality (land line or mobile)
• Ability to make voice only calls (no video required)
• Improved video via a beta codec
• Enhanced Contact List Display options

I have followed SightSpeed since it was first introduced as a high quality video service at Fall Comdex 2003. From the initial press release:

SightSpeed Web matches the speed of the telephone, delivering audio/visual synchronicity at 30 frames per second through patented, human perception-based technology that is based on more than seven years of research at Cornell University.

SightSpeed has always been recognized for its video quality. It has also always had a VoIP capability for those who had headsets to use it as audio accompaniment to the video. Their “SightSpeed Pro” service offers additional features such as multi-party voice and video conferencing for up to 4 participants. Unfortunately not many of my acquaintances were enamored enough to make it a viable communications service I could routinely use. And I did not find a real need to use their Video Messenger service; but that may just be me.

But SightSpeed also has a Mac version. With this new release SightSpeed has the potential to become the leading service offering combined video and PSTN phone connectivity on MacBooks equipped with the built-in iSight video camera. If this takes off in the Mac community — where there is a strong viral market user base — it would give Skype some significant competition at the video level. Purely a question of “how long can a User wait” before s/he absolutely has to have instant messaging video?

I have done the upgrade; turns out the Phone feature is a Beta version — and it shows. For instance in the country calling rates list one sees “Canada-Alberta” but what about the rest of Canada? When I check out my own (Canadian) phone number it says I am in the USA. Nice to see that Skype recognizes the difference (and puts Canadian flags with Canadian phone numbers). Seems like there are definitely infrastructure issues to smooth out yet.

Will be interesting to see how (or whether) they deal with Skype’s free calling within North America. More to follow as I get more experience with it.