HP SkyRoom Offers High-End Streaming, Collaboration

Years before getting involved in streaming, I worked with a group of consultants in the videoconferencing space, 做系统设计, 集成, 市场分析.

克里斯汀·佩里和安德鲁·戴维斯, 谁现在拥有Wainhouse 研究, introduced me to a company called DataBeam, which was working on a technology for application sharing that could co-exist with audio- and videoconferencing calls. DataBeam was later acquired by Lotus, which called the technology SameTime, and was then itself acquired by IBM.

The technology, which went by the moniker of T.120, was rudimentary, with very limited bandwidth of 16Kpbs, as it had to share bandwidth with an H.323 IP videoconference, which itself was typically about 384Kbps. This limited bandwidth meant Photoshop or other high-performance (and high processing) applications couldn't be easily shared, 但是T.120 caught on as part of NetMeeting for shared whiteboards.

甚至在过去的几年里, as WebEx and other collaboration tools took off in popularity, they were only used for basic content such as PowerPoint or Excel, since full-motion content would need to share bandwidth with a video or audio stream.

在这样的背景下, HP demonstrated a technology called SkyRoom at BMW Designworks several months ago, as part of the launch of its Z Series of multi-core workstations. The technology preview generated interest, since it allowed 3D and high-performance graphical data sharing between workstations, but those of us in attendance were told it might never get beyond the preview stage.

今天, 然而, HP announced availability of the SkyRoom platform, available free of charge on its Z Series Workstations (Z800, Z600, and Z400) and for a nominal fee for current HP or non-HP workstations.

惠普称SkyRoom“价格合理”, high-definition videoconferencing software that offers live, 实时协作.“当与T.120, or even an enhanced WebEx in which multiple participants have control of the workstation to make modifications, SkyRoom真的展示了T.120 and NetMeeting were aiming at all those years ago.

The company claims the in-house solution, HP实验室开发, was used by NASA's Mars rovers to transfer high-resolution images back to Earth. It currently supports up to four simultaneous participants in a multi-point videoconference mode which HP calls "multiway conferencing" for corporate LANs. It is possible to integrate an outside caller in to the SkyRoom call, but only via the corporate virtual private network (VPN).

An interesting feature in SkyRoom is the enablement of full-motion and multiple-display collaboration. Since HP focuses its Z Series Workstations on the high end of the digital media, 金融, 以及天然气/石油勘探市场, SkyRoom also adds the ability to display 2D and 3D graphics, even if a viewer is participating on a system that only has a 2D graphics card.

比如帧间压缩, 例如MPEG-2, which allowed for high compression rates over traditional intra-frame compressions like motion JPEG, SkyRoom also takes advantage of inter-frame compression.

"The HP SkyRoom software on the presenter's system monitors and updates only changes in screen appearance,一份新闻稿称, 而不是整个显示屏. SkyRoom then compresses and encrypts the 信息 before sending it to the participants, 在哪里解密, 解压和更新. 以这种方式, network traffic is greatly reduced, latency and bandwidth requirements are reduced, and the need for dedicated networking hardware is eliminated."

Since the video takes advantage of multithreading and multi-core processors, 最低要求, running on both Windows XP and Vista, 包括英特尔酷睿2T双核2.33-GHz or equivalent processor with 2GB RAM and a webcam.

除了工作站, on which SkyRoom comes free of charge, HP says it will also ship trial versions on its business-grade machines.

"Select premium business PCs and notebooks will include a 90-day trial of HP SkyRoom,一位公司发言人说, "which will be available for purchase thereafter."

We plan to review the SkyRoom capabilities sometime in the near future, once HP ships it on both business and workstation computers.

'HP Has Our Swagger Back,' Declares 惠特曼 at Partner Conference

惠特曼, 惠普新任CEO, 针对Palm WebOS, 创新, 自治, and software/hardware 集成.

2012年2月16日