Waltham, Massachusetts -headquartered Vivo Software Inc has introduced Vivo320, claimed to be the first personal videoconferencing system based on H.320-compliant software technology. Until now, says the company, H.320-based videoconferencing products have used dedicated hardware to perform H.320 compression -decompression, which was too expensive for the mass market. According to the company, Vivo320 can transmit and receive at 112Kbps or 128Kbps. H.261 CIF, Common Intermediate Format images are received at up to 30 frames per second, with H.261 QIF, Quarter Common Intermediate Format images transmitted at up to 15fps. Vivo320 interoperates with any H.320-compliant videoconferencing system, says Vivo, and allows end-users to participate in videoconferences with more than one videoconferencing system via any H.320-compliant Multipoint Conferencing Unit. Vivo also claims that Vivo320’s document sharing capability will interoperate with all major third-party document sharing applications. The first end-user product to feature the Windows-based Vivo320 is the Convenience Kit Vivo320, which requires a 66MHz or higher 80486 personal computer. In addition to the application, this comprises the MovieMan video capture board and VideoMan digital camera and microphone from Logitech Inc, IBM Corp’s WAVERunner Integrated Services Digital Network board, a hand-free speaker, and an earpiece. Initially, Vivo will also bundle DataBeam’s FarSight 2.0 collaboration software. The Convenience Kit Vivo320 costs $2,000 and ship in this quarter.
