Polycom, Inc. (PLCM), the global leader in open, standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), announced the availability of Polycom RealPresence Group 700, a video collaboration solution ideal for large group meeting areas - such as corporate conference rooms, entertainment production studios and lecture halls - that delivers the highest quality video and content resolution (up to 1080p60), and crystal-clear audio for more productive and lifelike interactions with colleagues, partners and customers.

“Our mission is to make video collaboration an essential and accessible part of how people live and work, whether the solutions are used for internal meetings and training, closing sales deals, engineering projects between geographically dispersed teams, or working with customers,” said A.E. Natarajan, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Engineering, Polycom. “Polycom has re-architected our user interface through input from our customers and developed technologies based on user behaviours to make our solutions intuitive and easy to use. Our RealPresence Group Series systems reflect our intense R&D advancements, along with the delivery of the industry’s highest quality visual collaboration experience.”

Unveiled at Polycom Strategy Day in October, Polycom RealPresence Group 700 is part of the Polycom RealPresence® Group Series, which are available in multiple configurations to meet the needs of any organization. The series also includes the Polycom RealPresence Group 300 that are ideal for smaller environments such as “huddle” rooms and Polycom RealPresence Group 500 that are designed for medium-sized areas such as conference rooms. Polycom RealPresence Group 300 and 500 solutions have been available since November.

Polycom RealPresence Group 700 includes the following features and benefits:

• The Polycom UX, the industry’s best user experience - Polycom UX is designed to drive a superior experience and ease of use for users, while minimizing IT management and support, keeping IT costs down and usage up for better total cost of ownership (TCO). Polycom UX has more than 20 features and innovations, including:

• Simple and intuitive new UI - incorporates a simple, intuitive and elegant user interface that is consistent across Polycom’s next-generation video collaboration solutions. Years of extensive user testing and human factors research have resulted in features like drop-down menus, elegant and intuitive navigation, and a simplified remote control.

• Polycom SmartPairing technology - allows mobile tablets to serve as remote controls for RealPresence Group Series systems. This patent-pending technology, built into Polycom RealPresence Mobile software, wirelessly connects tablets to Group Series and Polycom HDX systems. With Polycom SmartPairing, users can control video meetings with their tablets and transfer a live video call from their tablet to a big screen with the swipe of a finger.

• 1080p60 video and content – boosts image clarity and motion smoothness, enhancing video quality and enabling users to share any type of content, such as detailed full-motion video clips. This allows workers across all industries - from architects looking at CAD drawings to clinicians reviewing medical images to sales and marketing representatives showing multimedia content to clients - to have more productive meetings.

• Polycom’s legendary HD audio technology - includes the new patent-pending Polycom NoiseCancel technology, which heightens collaboration by automatically eliminating unwanted or distracting noises like keyboard typing or paper shuffling; and Polycom ConstantClarity technology, which enables extraordinary audio and video fidelity that allows users to distinguish every syllable of every word they hear in a Polycom video conference, resulting in an amazing video experience even in challenging environments.

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

Support for the open, standards-based H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) technology - Polycom’s open, standards-based SVC, when powered by the Polycom RealPresence Platform, provides up to 3X capacity for HD multipoint video calls for greater scalability, dramatically lower TCO, superior performance, and backwards- and forwards-compatibility to protect customer investments.

SVC support is now available across the entire Polycom RealPresence Group Series through a software update and is already available on Polycom RealPresence Mobile and Polycom RealPresence Desktop solutions. SVC is an extension to H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), an efficient and high-performance standard that is used by most of today’s video conferencing devices. SVC technology enables high-quality video collaboration meetings even if network conditions or client capabilities are limited. 

Integrated multipoint capabilities – A multipoint license for the Polycom RealPresence Group 700 allows users to connect up to eight different parties on a single call without requiring an external bridge.

Usage of HD Video Collaboration Solutions on the Rise, Ideal for All Industries

The availability of the entire line of Polycom RealPresence Group systems gives customers the flexibility to choose video collaboration solutions that work best for a wide variety of work environments and employee business needs, such as healthcare environments that require HD quality video and voice collaboration.

“In the operating theater it’s important to see the work flow of the operating room and also to see medical images, such as a laparascope to view the interior of the abdomen or an arthroscope to view the inside of a joint,” said Dr. Andrew Watson, MD, MLitt, FACS, Medical Director of the Center for Connected Medicine, Executive Director of Telemedicine at UPMC, and a colorectal surgeon. “We need to view these environments and images in high definition, simultaneously, and the Polycom RealPresence Group Series allows us to do this with both people and content, and with multiple camera feeds.”

Availability

Polycom RealPresence Group 700 solutions are available today in select countries worldwide starting at US$16,999; Polycom RealPresence Group 300 and 500 solutions have been available since November; see the related press release. The multipoint license for the Polycom RealPresence Group Series is available today starting at US$3,099. Polycom RealPresence Mobile software with support for Polycom SmartPairing technology is available today as a free download from the Apple AppStore and Google Play. Contact your local Polycom sales representative or channel partner for more information.

You can also visit Polycom's website here.