H.264 Compability

[knickull]

Has anyone tested H.264 compability between Tandberg, Polycom and Sony? Tandberg relesaed new software and got closer to standard H.264, but are Sony close? Is DuoVideo, People and content and sony compatible? Does these work on H264 in multipoint conferenses or only in point to point?

[cribbinsb]

I have looked at H.264 compatibility in some detail. Generally speaking compatibility is surprisingly good, all things considered. Sony<->Tandberg has no obvious problems (TB1000, TB6000, Sony PCS1). Tandberg had a couple of bugs but they didn't seem to affect the Sony and they seem to have been fixed in the latest E4 software anyway. It's a bit more complicated for polycom as it seems that each polycom family has a different H.264 implementation. I found no problems between a VSX7000 (once I figured out how to get it to transmit H.264!) and Tandberg or Sony but on the other hand our Polycom FX has some bugs when decoding H.264 from any other endpoint. I have also looked at an IPower, Viavideo 6 beta and two Aethra endpoints. Drop me a PM if there are any particular combinations of endpoints you are interested in and I'll have a look in more detail.

No idea about Duovideo, or about multipoint I'm afraid. You could always use a Codian MCU which has been tested to have interoperable H.264 with all the above endpoints and has automatic transcoding so you can mix and match h.263 and h.264 at any bitrates in the same continuous presence conference (with H.239 support also). No prizes for guessing which company I work for ;)

[Sean Lessman]

Has anyone tested H.264 compability between Tandberg, Polycom and Sony? Tandberg relesaed new software and got closer to standard H.264, but are Sony close? Is DuoVideo, People and content and sony compatible? Does these work on H264 in multipoint conferenses or only in point to point?

This is an incorrect statement. TANDBERG has had H.264 since July of 2003 with the E2 software. Polycom just released software that makes them H.264 compatible instead of H.264* (their proprietary version). Feel free to test my claim using Polycom's latest software and TANDBERG's original E2 software from July 2003.

H.239 is a standard that allows for interoperability. Both Polycom and Sony have some issues to resolve and have been notified. Hopefully in their next versions it will be interoperable.

The TANDBERG MXP line supports H.264 in point to point, internal multisite and with H.239 and Duo Video. Its currently the only product on the market doing this.

Sean