Polycoms $599 ViaVideo appliance is an excellent option for sites that can afford peer-to-peer desktop videoconferencing. This USB device provides video, voice and data communications between desktop PCs over LANs or WANs. It taps the G.723.1 compression standard to provide video messaging and application sharing in Windows 2000 over NetMeeting software.
The ViaVideos video quality is tops in its class, with resolution of up to 288 lines/352 pixels per line at a 384K-bps maximum data transfer rate and 30 frames per second. The ViaVideo supports the major videoconferencing standards and sent clear voice and video with little latency during my calls. The ViaVideo interface is easy to use and includes a pop-up address book and PIP, or picture-in-picture, capabilities.
ViaVideo 2.2 software can be installed on Windows 2000, Windows 98, NT and ME. Support for Windows XP will be available in Version 3.0.
More information is on the air at www.polycom.com/products/viavideo.html.
