When it comes to real-time Internet communication, quality is always an issue. Internet connections are so inconsistent they can turn talk into gibberish. It takes sophisticated technology to make Internet conversations sound consistently good. The challenges are even greater with Internet video calling. The quality of both images and sound has to be good, and the two must also be in sync. That's why companies that can afford it pay lots of money for custom video equipment connected over private IP links.
Codecs are key to making Internet voice and video work. These pieces of software, embedded in physical phones or Internet calling applications, process the audio and video for delivery over IP connections. Among other things, codecs adjust for different levels of Internet bandwidth between callers, and compensate for delay, inconsistent delivery and loss of packets carrying the voice or video streams.
One of the technical leaders in codecs for IP communication is Global IP Solutions, or GIPS. It provided the voice codec that launched Skype on the road to fame and fortune. Other voice customers include service providers such as AOL, Gizmo5, TalkFree and Yahoo; phone manufacturers Nortel Networks and Samsung; and chip makers Infineon Technologies and Texas Instruments. GIPS also makes video codecs, including ones for mobile applications.
It revealed its latest video success with the announcement that it is providing its codec for Yahoo Messenger's video calling service. The codec, the GIPS VideoEngine, powers the newly released version10 of the Yahoo Messenger client software for Windows. Yahoo Messenger had been using GIPS' voice codec since 2006. The video service competes with a number of other free video calling services, including those of Google Talk, ooVoo, Raketu, Skype, and TokBox.
The more intriguing contest, though, will be the broader competition among codec providers in voice and video alike. That competition heated up in March, when Skype announced it would be giving away a so-called super-wideband codec it had developed. The new codec could deliver an even broader audio band than the wideband codecs used in advanced IP phones, which themselves provided audio quality far superior to that of conventional phones. Skype hoped that manufacturers worldwide would build its new codec into their phones, establishing it as a ubiquitous standard.
Being free would seem to give the Skype codec an advantage, but GIPS is more than holding its own. Either way, it's common for IP phones to have multiple codecs, so in most cases it's not an either/or choice. On the other hand, there is general agreement that supporting fewer codecs works better than having to support more, so eventually there will be some shakeout. GIPS clearly intends to be one of the few remaining.
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