HP SkyRoom Brings 21st Century Innovation To VideoConferencing

September 22, 2009 saw the introduction of HP SkyRoom - high definition videoconferencing software that offers affordable, live real time face-to-face meeting with no subscription fees.

The technology was developed in HP Labs, and some elements were used by Nasa's rovers on Mars to transfer high-resolution images back to our planet.

The software is reported to be the only videoconferencing tool that offers real-time communication for up to 4 people on a standard business network. The software is priced at $149.

Until now, videoconferencing has been somewhat limited and expensive, and also limited users in the areas of video sharing, rich media content and design manipulation.

HP SkyRoom will be included on select HP business desktop and mobile workstations, and also on a free trial basis for many HP premium business notebooks and PCs. The software can be used on Dell, Sun or Lenovo PCs that meet the minimum technology requirements.

This technology will have a significant impact on the way companies do business, in that travel costs and even environmental impact will be reduced significantly. 'Finally, video meetings with genuine eye contact and natural human interaction are as easy as starting an instant messaging connection,' said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Workstations, HP. 'It takes business productivity and collaboration to a completely new level when we can connect people around the world in a day via HP SkyRoom and let them get home to family dinner and bedtime stories – without the wear and tear of travel.'

HP SkyRoom enables users to share any kind of application used on their PC or workstation. Some of these include documents, interacive 3-D applications and also office documents. The software is easy to operate, and quick to launch, simply clicking 'contact to connect', which initiates a real-time, live SkyRoom session, and with only one more click, users can instanly share rich media content.

The success of HP SkyRoom lies in three years of design and research to compress image and video algorithms. The software gives remote users a glimpse of the presenter's display, and also of each other. It only updates changes in the screen display, not the entire display, which is then encrypted and compressed before being sent to the other participants. This method reduces limiting factors such as bandwith and network traffic, which in itself allows for faster transfer speed of the data.

Minimum requirements to run HP SkyRoom includes Intel® Core 2™ Duo 2.33-GHz or equivalent processor with 2 GB RAM, as well as a webcam and Microsoft Windows® XP or Vista®. Networking requirements consist of a broadband connection with at least 400kb/second, and needs to run over a corporate VPN to connect to systems outside the local firewall.

HP Z800, Z600, Z400 and xw4600 workstations will feature the software preinstalled at no cost.