PictureTel Corp, Danvers, Massachusetts has made a series of videoconferencing announcements, including enhancements to the Concorde 4500 system, a new entry-level Venue Model 30, remote system administration software and enhancements to its Montage conferencing servers. New features in the Concorde 4500 system include LimeLight, which is a dynamic speaker-locating technology designed to position and zoom the camera to focus on the person speaking. Also included are new power features such as additional multipoint capabilities and an improved user interface. The price of the 4500 and 4000ZX is also being cut by 10%. A new Venue Model 30 has also been introduced as an entry-level version, costing from $14,500. It includes H.320 support, w ith G711/722/728 and PT 724 full duplex audio, with a PowerCam 30 camera and a System Mic 200 tabletop microphone, plus ISDN Basic Rate Interface and QuickPad remote control. PictureTel Remote is a new Windows-based software tool designed to work across the company’s product range. It enables service providers to remotely administer, reconfigure, view or edit a group videoconferencing system configuration. It consists of PictureTel Detector, which performs hardware diagnostics, and PictureTel Scout, which provides the graphical user interface. Pricing and availablity have not yet been finalized. Finally, the company has enhanced its Montage multipoint conferencing servers with the addition of an option for Continuous Presence, which enables multipoint conference participants to see up to four other sites simultaneously on a single screen. Other improvements include higher port counts at high data rates, an audio-only conferencing module as well as multipoint far-end camera control.
