LifeSize Bridge Ushers in Modular Video Conferencing at Highest HD Quality Available
New solution scales intelligently, making Full HD quality accessible for organizations needing multiparty video communications
AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 20, 2010 - Whether new to video conferencing or seeking a more flexible way to deploy it, organizations have a new option in the LifeSize® Bridge™ 2200, announced today by LifeSize, a division of Logitech (Nasdaq: LOGI) (SIX: LOGN). This 16-port product enables organizations to take a building block approach, scaling video conferencing deployments as needed while providing the best high definition (HD) experience available on the market.
Based on a modular Full HD architecture, the approximately $4,000 per port LifeSize Bridge empowers enterprises to purchase the appropriate number of bridges to accommodate their current video conferencing equipment needs and easily add capacity as the demand for HD video conferencing grows. Traditional solutions require IT decision-makers to predict their capacity needs far into the future, a counterintuitive process that can be difficult to defend when resources are limited and may result in unused capacity.
LifeSize Bridge eliminates the need for a large upfront investment, enabling businesses of every size to allocate resources only where needed to reduce the risk associated with guessing future capacity. In addition, the new bridge or multipoint control unit (MCU) allows IT administrators to take advantage of existing network architectures and put the bridge anywhere they have extra capacity, minimizing the need to make large bandwidth or other network infrastructure investments to fit their video conferencing needs.
Specific features of the new LifeSize Bridge include:
A Flexible, Modular System
Whether an organization is managed centrally or decentralized, LifeSize Bridge deploys easily and scales across existing resources, geographies, and standards-based video conferencing offerings. The product supports any codec, speed, resolution, layout or port without losing capacity or HD video quality, making it easy to support multiple conferences. In addition, LifeSize Bridge makes both scheduled and on demand conferencing simple for IT administrators and end users.
Highest HD Quality
Gone are the days of downgrading the quality for everyone on multiparty calls based on the lowest common denominator. LifeSize has developed a new MCU architecture utilizing flat capacity that enables all users to have the same rich HD experience with minimal IT oversight and effort required. The LifeSize Bridge symmetric approach to both 720p60 and 1080p30 receives a high-quality video stream in and transmits the same high-quality resolution without distortion. LifeSize Bridge supports more than 200 resolutions and also features sustained frame rates, a customized screen layout per participant, and up to four Mbps throughput.
Unmatched Price Performance
LifeSize Bridge offers flat capacity pricing for 16 ports regardless of the resolution—720p30, 720p60 or 1080p30. The price per 720p30, 720p60 and 1080p port is the lowest in the market and, at 720p60 and 1080p30 HD quality, the LifeSize Bridge is less than one-third the cost of others in the market. And as the network of users grows, the LifeSize advantage grows with them. For the same money spent on a large, centralized chassis, the LifeSize Bridge can connect up to three times the number of users in full HD, helping them become more productive while saving organizations significant costs in travel budgets, technology investments, and IT and administrative support.
Supporting Quotes
SAS is excited about the potential of LifeSize Bridge to handle multiparty video calling at such high quality,” said Russ Cary, senior IT manager of SAS. “And LifeSize Bridge makes scheduling very easy whether we need to plan video conferences ahead of time or allow our end users to make calls on demand.”
Video conferencing via LifeSize is an important communications medium for Esterline, and the LifeSize Bridge would enable better collaboration with more of our employees across the U.S. and around the world,” said Mitch Irvine, corporate director of IT for Esterline Corp. “The LifeSize Bridge will help us expand our HD video footprint as our organization expands its video outreach.”
More than 70 percent of all videoconferencing infrastructure spending is on bridges, but the innovation in this segment has lagged behind that of other sectors in IT,” said Roopam Jain, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “LifeSize Bridge is a boost to the maturity of this market, making a distributed approach to video networks more practical and achievable for all types of organizations who must do more with less without sacrificing quality.”
“LifeSize Bridge is a significant engineering accomplishment built upon our experience embedding bridges in our endpoint systems, with the aim of helping organizations empower their end users to collaborate freely without compromising the quality of the HD video experience,” said Casey King, chief technology officer of LifeSize. "LifeSize Bridge delivers unmatched quality with groundbreaking price performance for multiparty HD video calling that will scale intelligently within any organization. This product is a game changer.”
About LifeSize Communications
LifeSize Communications is a world leader in high definition video communications and telepresence. Founded by industry veterans in 2003, LifeSize pioneered high definition video communications to make communicating at a distance as natural and effective as being in the same room, for anyone, anywhere. LifeSize became a division of Logitech in December 2009, sharing a vision of everywhere there is voice there should be video.
