The race between Tandberg and Polycom, the top two videoconferencing equipment providers, continues to heat up with both companies launching product-line enhancements that could result in higher quality audio and video and tighter integration with existing conference room audiovisual equipment.

Both companies - Polycom this week with its VSX 7.0 software release and Tandberg last week with its new MXP-branded endpoints - are enhancing their core lines of videoconferencing units with features such as stereo sound; Session Initiation Protocol support, which lets endpoints talk to many SIP VoIP-enabled phones and devices; and support for the H.239 protocol, which standardizes the way video and presentations are delivered in a video call. Tandberg also is shipping a $9,500 gatekeeper that authenticates users and regulates video traffic on a network.

Polycom added stereo to its proprietary Siren14 audio technology, while Tandberg is implementing the new MPEG AAC-LD (low-delay) standard to provide left and right channels of sound. Polycom derives its stereo from two microphone inputs. Tandberg provides stereo only for multimedia content from CDs and DVDs played in a conference, but offers 20-kHz sound compared with 14-kHz from Polycom. Both companies offer speaker packages to take advantage of the increased sound capabilities.

Stereo might not seem important, but it can help when there's more than one person in an on-screen room. "In a situation where you don't have audio-locate [voice tracking], it gives you an audio clue as to who is talking," says Dave Horn, conferencing service manager for Entergy, an energy firm in New Orleans that is testing one of the new Polycom units.

Polycom's VSX 7.0 software includes the ability to do live and on-demand Web streaming of video calls in QuickTime format, the ability to see four participants on screen at one time, SNMP support for remote management, and integration with Cisco Call Manager 4.0 ECS. This will let a user of a Cisco IP phone transfer calls to a video Polycom video endpoint. The 7.0 software upgrade is free for any current VSX owner.

Polycom also is introducing new video endpoints, including two new set-top units in the VSX 7000 line (starting at about $6,000) and three new rack-mounted systems in the VSX 8000 series (starting at about $13,000) that are designed for larger conference rooms. Polycom has added integration between some of the higher-end units and its VTX 1000 audio conference phone that lets the phone's speakers and microphones be the audio arm of the video call. Users also can dial video calls from the phone's keypad.