Customers benefit from expanded HD video portfolio and breakthrough technology for improved video conferencing between home office workers, remote sites, and field applications

Polycom, the world's leading provider of unified collaborative communications solutions, has announced new solutions and technologies to mainstream high definition (HD) video conferencing across organisations and applications, the new Polycom HDX™ 4000 and 8000 series.

Polycom also unveiled HDX Version 2.0 software with new patent-pending Lost Packet Recovery technology that provides breakthrough QoS for IP networks and makes video conferencing more viable for home office workers, remote offices and field applications.

With the new addition of the HDX 8000, the HDX Series has been expanded to include the HDX 4000 integrated desktop system for executives, physicians and small groups; and the recently announced HDX 9000 series for large meeting rooms, classrooms and integrated custom-room environments.

The only executive desktop video conferencing systems, Polycom HDX™ 4000 solutions are elegantly designed to fit on an executive desktop as a personal system, at a small table, or in a small conference room to support up to four people on camera. Users can use the system as their primary PC monitor as it features a floating user interface that allows users to control the video system, either answering or dialing a video call, without disrupting the documents or applications they are working on.

HDX 4000 systems work seamlessly with Polycom conference room and telepresence video systems (and other standards-based, IP video conferencing systems), offering the highest levels of quality and performance in a desktop solution to support any video collaboration application, including those that require the optimal HD video, voice and content clarity for natural communication and collaboration across distances.

All Polycom HDX video conferencing systems are the only endpoints on the market that deliver UltimateHD, which includes HD video, HD voice and simultaneous HD content sharing capabilities. In a just-released review of leading HD video conferencing endpoints by Wainhouse Research, Polycom HDX received top scores over competitive systems.

"In our comparative review of three industry-leading HD video conferencing endpoints, Wainhouse Research named the Polycom HDX platform as our number one choice," said Andrew W. Davis, managing partner, Wainhouse Research. “Our extensive, hands-on competitive analysis shows that the Polycom HDX Series received top scores in 8 out of 10 evaluation categories. 

Besides great video quality, the HDX series provides outstanding, leading-edge audio performance and unparalleled multimedia capabilities.The new HDX 8000 is a significant announcement that will help make HD videoconferencing affordable to everyone," added Davis.

Polycom HDX Version 2.0 software delivers Polycom's patent-pending Lost Packet Recovery technology to all HDX systems, providing an outstanding video conferencing experience on networks with even moderate levels of packet loss.

Lost Packet Recovery can improve the pervasiveness of video conferencing in an organisation by enabling consistent quality for home office workers, field deployments, calls on "dirty networks" subject to frequent packet loss, and even calls over the public internet. HDX Version 2.0 also enables HDX 9002 and 9004 systems with embedded multipoint capability to deliver HD continuous presence multipoint for up to eight sites.

"Polycom customers benefit from the strongest and most highly-integrated portfolio of high definition video conferencing, collaboration and content management solutions in the industry today," said Joe Sigrist, senior vice president and general manager of video solutions at Polycom. "With the addition of the HDX 4000 and HDX 8000 series to the HDX family, Polycom expands the benefits of high definition into classrooms, meeting rooms and beyond.

And with breakthrough advances like our Lost Packet Recovery technology, Polycom simultaneously improves the user’s experience and enables high quality video conferencing to be reliably deployed and used over a broader range of IP network environments," added Sigrist.

Polycom continues to expand its integration efforts with its strategic global partners including Avaya, IBM, Microsoft and Nortel to make HD video collaboration a seamless part of these core unified communications environments. Today, HDX Version 2.0 enables integration with the Avaya Video Telephony Solution and Microsoft LCS 2005, making Polycom video collaboration capabilities instantly accessible within these UC environments.

"Increasingly, video is a critical component of unified communications for companies looking to take customer service and collaboration to the next level," said Mary Dunlop, vice president, Unified Communications Product Management, Avaya.  "For it to be truly effective, it needs to be as simple as a phone call. Avaya does just that, and Polycom strengthens our ability to provide the most complete portfolio of practical, high-quality, reliable video solutions for a broad range of business issues."

The standards-based Polycom HDX line is part of the industry's only integrated and complete HD video collaboration portfolio, including HD video endpoints and systems, telepresence and immersive telepresence solutions, HD conferencing bridges, HD recording, streaming and playback systems (for both video and content), HD video content management, and integrated Polycom HD Voice endpoints.