Continuing with the lost "San Diego Sessions," from our Telepresence Options interview series, HSL talks with high performance video codec provider HaiVision.  The interview features President Francois Gariepy who discusses the company, the solutions he offers the telepresence industry and what folks in the Pro-AV community are doing with the HaiVision codec platforms.  After a transcript of the interview, HSL provides readers with an update on HaiVision.











Video Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAfPYkseGgc

Howard:  Tell us about HaiVision, I know that you guys are the embedded camera, and codec platform in some of the telepresence solutions that we have seen today. I understand that you can't talk about that. What do folks need to know about the company; what do you guys do, what is your specialty?

Francois:  Well we specialize in high performance codecs. We have a full range of codecs using MPEG 4 ABC H264 technology from the very high end frame and blade architecture that drives some telepresence rooms worldwide, all the way down to a sub 5,000 dollar codec for video distribution, for campus distribution. What really makes us different is our codec provides true high resolution/definition so we don't stretch pixels and do tricks with pixels. We also provide the lowest latency in the market, so we can go as low as 120 millisecond with a high definition codec. We have a full range of Codec that interoperate with each other so you can have telepresence codec and send it down to a low-end decoder that will get you to an ipod or itune play back environment.

Howard:  OK, one of the things I think is interesting about HaiVision is, is that we spend a lot of time focusing on the telepresence applications built by the big main service providers, the Cisco's, HP's, Teliris', and those folks in the world.  Your guys work a lot with the Pro-AV community and a lot with the system integrators that are building one-off telepresence applications. Tell us about what folks are doing with the HaiVision Codec that is out of the norm.

Francois: Telepresence is a much broader meaning then just the boardroom environment that we see at this show. Telepresence for me is anything where interaction, where visual interaction is a key to success. For example, there are a lot of education and medical applications where we are involved.  In these environments the visual is everything because it carries the emotion. It carries the information whether if it is in the operating room or intensive care unit or whether it is a specialized education environment. Interaction and visual quality is a premium to success.  So we have a lot of integrators world wide that specialize in these different kinds of applications.  We have some people who specialize in OR integration some others specialize in other kinds of medical, suite integration, some others are doing like York (Telecom) are doing a lot of education class room, virtual class room, virtual museum kind of environment.  So for us it's all telepresence because it plays on the same strength of the product.

Howard:  Now you guys have a kind of a major announcement coming up. Can you talk about that?

Francois:  Yeah, well we're introducing "True" HD. Right now we have a full suit of codec using SD we do upscale HD to 720P at 1 megabit per second. In two weeks we're introducing True HD at 1080P. So our new codec will have the capability to encode and decode video different kinds of interface at 1080P, 720P and 1080P. The sweet spot will be between 4 and 6 megabits per second, with latency around 120, 130 ms end to end.  

Howard:  Now how does that compare with what Polycom, the Tandberg are doing with their HD products?

Francois:  Well you know I'd rather not compare to other peoples products. We can say that we are doing true frame rate, true 60 frames per second, which really makes a different in the fluidity in the picture. We are also going to go all the way up to 1080P which is the highest resolution standard for delivering picture quality.  So we are doing it in the broadcast quality environment.

Howard:  Fantastic. Did I forget to ask you anything?

Francois:  I think that's pretty much it, the other big announcement probably that you don't know but I can give the scoop here, is we are introducing SIP in our HaiVision 1000 product line. SIP allows us to be able to interoperate with Gateways, whether we're talking about Codian, or RADVISION Gateways. Now our codec will be able to interact with these and then go on to the installed base of video conferencing unit, from Polycom, and Tandberg, and all the other guys. These islands are no longer islands since they'll be able to interact with everything out there, every installed base in video conferencing units.  

Howard:  Fantastic, now final question where can folks get more information?

Francois:  Well our website is the best thing www.haivision.com.  You know Hai, is shark in German.

Howard:  Shark-vision?

Francois:  Yeah, Shark-vision, the irony is, is that sharks are blind.  

Hahahaha...

HaiVision
Update - Since the interview HaiVision has been cooking with
grease... Shortly after the interview in June 2007 the company announced the
HaiVision MAKO-HD which supports 720p at 60 frames per second and 1080i / 1080p
at 30 frames per second with an astonishing 70 millisecond end to end
latency.  In November HaiVision partners demonstrated the MAKO-HD at MEDICA, the
world's premier medical show, connecting operating theaters with low latency and high performance
precision. In January the
company announced that the MAKO-HD, which supports the lowest latency video
encoding available and is a fraction of the cost of competitive products, now
delivers full frame rate H.264 encoded video at 1080i or 720p high definition to
the Amino AmiNET130 IPTV Set-Top Box (STB) platform. According to the
company, in December the MAKO-HD was released into full commercial production
with significant installations within the telepresence, medical, broadcast, and
IPTV markets.