General DataComm Industries Inc has released its APEX-MMS Multimedia Multipoint Server to enable people using different compression techniques to communicate with each other. Priced at around $200,000, it is designed for high-end audio, video and data intensive applications such as video conferencing, telemedicine and distance education. It has what the Middlebury, Connecticut-based company calls ‘anyband’ communications options for multipoint applications. In other words, it is an anyband multipoint control unit that can support multiple video and audio standards at different bit rates and quality of service within the same session. Multimedia services require distributed multipoint capabilities, but wide area networks are designed for point-to-point or connectivity only, said Peter Hauser, vice- president of GDC for Europe. GDC has delivered a distributed multipoint network solution which combines different compression standards in a single session. At the moment users can use APEX- MMS to interconnect the narrowband H.320 compression standard and JPEG, with support for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 due by the year end. In addition, support for the ITU T.120 data conferencing standards enables users to use third party software products on their personal computers or workstations to create, edit and exchange documents while on a video conference. APEX-MMS is scalable, and capable of combining video, audio and data streams from two to 32 distinct sources, for up to 16 simultaneous user sessions. The product comes with software tools for scheduling and managing each session, and videoconferencing functions such as call scheduling. A set of application programming interfaces for tailoring applications is also included. It is backwards compatible with existing videoconferencing equipment, and includes support for existing videoconferencing standards.
