Any News on a New Polycom / Accord Bridge?

[TelehealthMan]

Anybody heard if Polycom is going to release a new Bridge in the near future? Like in 2005?

Telehealth Man

[JerseyGator]

The MGC was first installed at a customer site in June of 1997. The platform is now almost 8 years old. The architecture has many limitations in today's IP world not least of which is the TDM backplane that has a capacity of 256 Mbps. They have been working on developing a new platform with an IP backplane for over 9 months now but it is likely still 12 - 18 months away from first customer shipment. Their plan is also to move to a Media Server platform that allows for a single voice/video architecture. Anyone purchasing an MGC platform today would be better off buying a competitor's platform that is IP based.

[TelehealthMan]

I believe i heard "reading between the lines" of what a POLYCOM guy said, that they will be announcing something MCU related in about a Month. It will be interesting to see what the new MCU architecture will look like.
One needs to remember that polycom bought Accord (the company) and they made very very good MCUs. They may just come out with something very new and interesting. Does anyone know if lots of the Accord engineers stayed after the Polycom takeover or if most of them left?
I agree the MGC is getting quite long in the tooth.
Telehealthman

[Slimey]

yes a lot of the accord eng. are still around at polycom

a new bridge is not forseeable any time in the near future

[TelehealthMan]

Well TANDBERG Came out with a new MCU, CODAIN has a new MCU. What is Polycom going to do in response to those moves by its major competitors?
Like JersyGator pointed out, the MGC platform will be 8 years old this June.
I think they have to do something soon.

[Skylark]

I think calling the Accord an 8 years old platform with out going any further is a bit unfair, it may have tha same body structure as it had 8 years ago and "management hardware" (not sure about that) but the conference part takes part in the blades that you put in to the MCU not the box it self.

So I would look at it as a benifit for the buyer because if he bought an accord 8 years ago he could still keep it up to date but with every other MCU product I know you would have to throw away the old one and start all over again.

With accord it may be an old box but its definitly a new technology.

[Sean Lessman]

I think calling the Accord an 8 years old platform with out going any further is a bit unfair, it may have tha same body structure as it had 8 years ago and "management hardware" (not sure about that) but the conference part takes part in the blades that you put in to the MCU not the box it self.

So I would look at it as a benifit for the buyer because if he bought an accord 8 years ago he could still keep it up to date but with every other MCU product I know you would have to throw away the old one and start all over again.

With accord it may be an old box but its definitly a new technology.
Buying all new boards over the last 2 years isnt 'throwing away the old one and starting all over again'?

I do find it interesting that they would like to have the 'cake and eat it too'. Either it is a well established (old) 'proven' technology or its brand new, based upon previous technology like the other products on the market. Which is it?

Sean

[jland]

I equate this to replacing a whole automobile (chassis) just to get a radio that has a CD player (new technology). Why not just upgrade the component that needs to be upgraded? (card)

Polycom is giving their users the option of upgrading their technology on the customer's timeline. What Polycom customer has been forced to buy all new boards for their MCU over the last 2 years?

Who is to say that you can't have "brand new" components based, largely, on "proven" technology with additional bells and whistles added to the mix?

I'm genuinely curious, are there any established faults seen amongst the VTCTalk community members that would necessitate Polycom changing their existing architecture and starting over from scratch?

[cribbinsb]

The MGC's 256Mbit backplane already mentioned in this thread is an example of a serious limitation that can't be corrected with just additional cards.

By comparison Codian MCU has more than an order of magnitude more internal bandwidth. This sounds like overkill but when fully loaded the Codian supports 40 participants each connected at 4Mbps full duplex (320Mbps total) and a further 200 people watching conferences using unicast streaming at 1.5Mbps (a further 300Mbps total).

This is just considering some of the data that needs to be moved into and out of the box - the internal bandwidth required is much higher.

[Skylark]

Buying all new boards over the last 2 years isnt 'throwing away the old one and starting all over again'?

I do find it interesting that they would like to have the 'cake and eat it too'. Either it is a well established (old) 'proven' technology or its brand new, based upon previous technology like the other products on the market. Which is it?

Sean


Well haveing the 'cake and eating it too' is exacly what I like so much about the ACCORD.

When a customer update his products he whants the newest hardware and technology with out the hassle of haveing to learn everything all over again. That is you have the same controls (with new features), and the same enviorment for the enduser.

Replaceing a a hardware for upgrade is a lot diffrent than haveing to set up a new network system.

But thats all besides the point I was just tryng to point out how unfair that statement was, it sounded like the Accord MGC was an 8 year old technoloy witch it isn't even if the chassi has remaned the same over the years.

[Sean Lessman]

But thats all besides the point I was just tryng to point out how unfair that statement was, it sounded like the Accord MGC was an 8 year old technoloy witch it isn't even if the chassi has remaned the same over the years.
I agree its an unfair statement however, the 'everyone else has to throw theirs away' is not a fair statement either. There are 2 different approaches, the pizza box and the chassis based system. Pizza boxes live their life and require forklift upgrades, and chassis systems can always have upgrades to new cards. Spin it anyway you want, all new cards with new technology (Equator vs 8x8 as an example) is a new bridge. It requires all new code and all new hardware design.

I think its fair to say that Polycom, RADVision and TANDBERG make both solutions and all have the same opportunity to provide the future proofing through software and hardware upgrades (if necessary) in the future. The object is to maximize the lifetime of the hardware and provide improvements through software. Its unreasonable to think that any product can live forever without a hardware refresh. However, when that refresh happens, it is reasonable to expect the best/latest performance possible. The latest hardware of the Accord can only do 15fps H.264 up to 384kbps in continuous presence and it requires 2 ports of horsepower for every port of AES effectively cutting the port count in half (or doubling the price of the MCU depending on how you look at it). Not what I would expect after a significant investment in a hardware refresh.

As for the question on who has been forced to upgrade to the latest boards, I think a quick browse of the user manual for version 7 will show there are quite a few of the new leading features that require the new boards (H.264, AES, SIP etc). Nobody is forcing you, but your product is essentially hitting a dead end without upgrading -- same as 'throwing out the old one and starting over'.

My point is not to bash the Accord, as you can find challenges with any product on the market (and some FUD developers spend all day every day looking for them), but to use it as an example of how your statement that everyone else has to throw their MCUs out doesnt make sense.

Had to jump off the middle of the road to make the point, hope I didn't offend anyone.

Sean

[Skylark]

Point taken

[MKVAZ]

I do know that Polycom will be integrating separate control cards in 2005 upgrade of the MCU to support better separation of secure/ non Secure information ---- I also would not say that CODIAN is a major competitor at this point. It takes longer than 1 year to do that. Yes the Codian is cheap, But you can't scale it well for your applications like POLYCOM . I also am leary of any Vendor that throughts it;s marketing in with VTEL myself. I remember Ezenia was the latest and greatest... don't hear them now do you ??....
There are only really two major manufacturers to contend with at this point -- Polycom and Tandberg- and as long as both are major contributors to the ITTU then they will forever be competitive, and up on the most desirable product points at about the same time.

[Sean Lessman]

I also would not say that CODIAN is a major competitor at this point. It takes longer than 1 year to do that. Yes the Codian is cheap, But you can't scale it well for your applications like POLYCOM .

I remember Ezenia was the latest and greatest... don't hear them now do you ??....

I would think everyone is a competitor. Polycom is in a vulnerable state as they quietly try to swap out all the boards in their MCU without drawing too much attention. In some cases its cheaper to buy another manufacturer's MCU (Codian, RADVision, TANDBERG) than it is to upgrade. In some cases its cheaper to get a new MCU than pay the support prices on the Accord!

Interesting you brought up Ezenia as they essentially owned the market and lost it for 2 reasons (in my opinion): massive hardware upgrades required for year2000 compliance and version 5/6 software features (sound familiar?) and essentially telling the market that ISDN was dead and they would no longer manufacturer ISDN products (Series 2000). This left the market open for Accord to gobble up as fast as they could.

Videoserver gave up the market, they didnt lose it. But of course thats just my opinion.

Sean

[Gary Miyakawa]

Boy, the EZEN stock sure has been good to me... in at .09 ... out at $2.10 ....

:p-

[trapehzoid]

The MGC's 256Mbit backplane already mentioned in this thread is an example of a serious limitation that can't be corrected with just additional cards.

By comparison Codian MCU has more than an order of magnitude more internal bandwidth. This sounds like overkill but when fully loaded the Codian supports 40 participants each connected at 4Mbps full duplex (320Mbps total) and a further 200 people watching conferences using unicast streaming at 1.5Mbps (a further 300Mbps total).

This is just considering some of the data that needs to be moved into and out of the box - the internal bandwidth required is much higher.

I don't know how any of this has anything to do with internal bandwidth of the box. Only thing would be if the network interfaces were off the system bus instead of closer to the media.

Supporting lots of sites of the same thing isn't a big deal.. all you need to do is handle signalling.. all the grunt work is the same if you have 1 viewer or 1000. Only thing is pushing the bits out the NIC.. put that NIC near the memory (rather then across a system wide bus) and you can go ape.

Personally I'd like to do more then CIF resolution.. and doing so in the codian knocks it way down. I do like the conference intro stuff for the codian, but bread and butter it doesn't do it for me.

[MKVAZ]

I would think everyone is a competitor. Polycom is in a vulnerable state as they quietly try to swap out all the boards in their MCU without drawing too much attention. In some cases its cheaper to buy another manufacturer's MCU (Codian, RADVision, TANDBERG) than it is to upgrade. In some cases its cheaper to get a new MCU than pay the support prices on the Accord!

Interesting you brought up Ezenia as they essentially owned the market and lost it for 2 reasons (in my opinion): massive hardware upgrades required for year2000 compliance and version 5/6 software features (sound familiar?) and essentially telling the market that ISDN was dead and they would no longer manufacturer ISDN products (Series 2000). This left the market open for Accord to gobble up as fast as they could.

Videoserver gave up the market, they didnt lose it. But of course thats just my opinion.

Sean

Yes those are very familiar issues with the Ezenia, especially the 3000 IP and gateways. One of their major problems was they did not do G.728 which is an essential especially in managed services ,or for older equipment. Actually Video Server became Exenia, and for a long time, they also made the boards for the PTEL's, Yes they were bulky and upgrades were a bear.

[TelehealthMan]

Personally I'd like to do more then CIF resolution.. and doing so in the codian knocks it way down. I do like the conference intro stuff for the codian, but bread and butter it doesn't do it for me.

What happens to the CODIAN if you use 4CIF? Does it take up more than one port for that?
Have you DEMOed a CODAIN? If so, I would be interested in your findings. I hope to demo one in the next 6 months or so.
TelehealthMan

[Kevin]

What happens to the CODIAN if you use 4CIF? Does it take up more than one port for that?
Have you DEMOed a CODAIN? If so, I would be interested in your findings. I hope to demo one in the next 6 months or so.
TelehealthMan

Hi TelehealthMan,

With the Codian MCU there is no loss of port count whatever you do. In brief:

1. The MCU does Continuous presence by default - all features and codecs discussed are done with continuous presence - with no loss of port count.

2. The MCU never losses ports count not matter what you do. So a 40 port MCU always does 40 ports - even at 4Mbits XGA resolution with continuous presence.

3. The MCU will do resolutions up to XGA - with continuous presence layouts.

4. By default there is transcoding and rate matching on EVERY port. So you can have any mix of bitrate and resolution and codec within the same conference - with no loss of port count or funtionality. All users will see the best possible video for them.

5. Due to point 4 - the product is very easy to use as users do not need to worry about what codec, bitrate or resolution they join a conference at. Making multipoint calls is now as easy as making point to point calls.

6. By default there is a seperate layout generated for each user - this means that users can choose one of 42 different continuous presence layouts to view - without affecting anyone else. This also means viewers never have to view themselves (which is important as this can be off putting when in a conference as it shows users the delay of the conference).

Of course the best way to see this is for yourself! So if you would like someone to get in touch to arrange a demo for you please feel free to contact me.

Best Regards
Kevin

[Rick McAllister]

What happens to the CODIAN if you use 4CIF? Does it take up more than one port for that?
Have you DEMOed a CODAIN? If so, I would be interested in your findings. I hope to demo one in the next 6 months or so.
TelehealthMan

I recently tested the Codian MCU. What Kevin stated is true about the MCU. I found that the Codian MCU worked very well as advertised, plus it did many other things that were new. I found its ability to use a dsp per port for all transcoding worked great. I tested it every which way for transcoding (audio algorythims, video algorythms, endpoint bit rates, etc...) and it was able to take each one and transcode them in the same conference. While adding the capability of streaming, it is a great box. I recommend that you test it, and I think you will agree.

[trapehzoid]

codian simply changed the names of things and act like the facts never existed.. even tho they know thats how it was. they simply did away with the 80 port mcu and made it 40 port. and same with 40 to 20.

Wouldn't be a bad thing as long as they simply admitted it. Instead they say everyone is lying.

and yes.. I have demo'd the codian. Like I said, the most intriguing part of it is inclusion of alot of unique features.

[Glen Sykes]

codian simply changed the names of things and act like the facts never existed.. even tho they know thats how it was. they simply did away with the 80 port mcu and made it 40 port. and same with 40 to 20.

Wouldn't be a bad thing as long as they simply admitted it. Instead they say everyone is lying.

and yes.. I have demo'd the codian. Like I said, the most intriguing part of it is inclusion of alot of unique features.


Sorry but that's incorrect. The 20 and 40 port versions were available months before the 60 and 80 port versions, and they have not changed.

The 60 and 80 port versions of the MCU were implementations of the same hardware with some features stripped out to increase port count. Codian have discontinued the high port count versions for reasons only known to them.

Your language is quite disparaging you know.

[cribbinsb]

It is certainly true that the original Codian MCU 42xx software (v1.0) had only limited support for high resolution - each 4CIF participant took 2 ports.

When we released the 1.1 software we removed this restriction and added support for video resolutions up to XGA (still only taking 1 port). The MCU can dynamically choose the best resolution for each participant based on their bandwidth and the CP layout they are using. We also added support for H.264 at up to 2Mbps per port.

With the current 1.2 software we've bumped performance up again. The MCU now supports up to 4Mbps bandwidth on every port, 60 fields/second interlaced video, and there are a lot of other new features.

I think it's normal that when a new hardware platform becomes available it takes a long time for the sofware to get the maximum performance out of it. This is particularly true in our case as we (Codian) started from a clean slate and created all the software stacks ourselves from the ground up.

We're far from done yet. There are a lot of unique features and performance improvements still to come!

[trapehzoid]

The 60 and 80 port versions of the MCU were implementations of the same hardware with some features stripped out to increase port count. Codian have discontinued the high port count versions for reasons only known to them.

Seems quite convient doesn't it? crib also 'skipped' that part of the question didn't he...

[Glen Sykes]

I don't understand what you're getting at?

How is it convenient? Seems to me they had a pretty powerful platform on their hands, realised they could product a high port count version by stripping out some features, and then decided it wasn't such a great idea after all.

I don't think that there's any conspiracy here, I certainly don't think that they would accuse anyone of lying.

[BPVTC]

Anybody heard if Polycom is going to release a new Bridge in the near future? Like in 2005?

Telehealth Man

Yes. Posted on the Polycom website is now released information about the New MCU.

[Slimey]

correct me if im wrong and im sure i am just what truly makes this a new mcu besides a face lift ;)