[SINGAPORE] - PacPhone, the Windows Video Collaborator, again stuns the world by delivering High-Definition (HD) and standards-based 8 way video conferencing from the PC or the Wi-Fi laptop for free. "This is a first! free HD video conferencing from the PC." laughs founder and developer Simon Horne. "Look, we have to get serious about delivering low cost, high quality, go anywhere interoperable video conferencing. With PacPhone and the open source VoIP Server GnuGK (also available from the PacPhone website) you can do just that! Others talk about doing 640x480 using the latest HD webcams from manufactures like Logitech while PacPhone can handle 960x720 (HD) with the same equipment". Asked about bandwidth, "Certainly bandwidth is of concern when doing HD video conferencing however increasingly today people talk about bandwidth in megabytes and in the future I see it being gigabytes, so going forward it is going to be less of an issue. The important thing is that if you have the bandwidth you should be able to enjoy the benefits that comes with it".

"We've added an 8 way video conference unit too", Simon smiles. "Yeap another first. For too long people have been paying too much for the privilege of multipoint conferencing and here we are giving it away for free". When pressed for why, "the technology has for too long been locked away due to cost. For instance some schools can't afford this type of stuff. You can't believe the incredible joy multipoint conferencing can bring to children to be able to see and interact with other children from around the world, it really is magical, it needs to be cheap and accessible for even the most poorest school districts, It certainly helps enrich children lives and makes the world a much smaller place".

Asked about Wi-Fi support. Simon comments "We've tweaked the packet priorities to ensure optimum performance on Wireless LANs. Look you have to be able to video conference from anywhere these days and tying a person to a fix wired PC is a thing of the past. The market demands the ability to video conference from anywhere and with the changes we've made you can do just that".

Going on to explain the advanced NAT Traversal support of PacPhone, Simon explains "we've added H.460.18/19 NAT Traversal support too for inter-working with equipment from Tandberg or Polycom and also to compliment the exist GnuGk NAT Support. The real exciting stuff for the future is P2Pnat (point to point with NAT)". Invented and pioneered in PacPhone and now making its way towards International standardization, P2Pnat takes the next step beyond just simply traversing media across the local NAT (H.460.18/19) but looks intelligently at how to get media to stream directly between parties even if they are both behind NAT. "look the landscape is changing, no more of this peer to peer stuff, with HD video and the increased bandwidth, proxying media through some 3rd party just isn't going to cut it. We need to have the media stream directly...it's all about point to point, point to point from here on". Asked about similar efforts of other standards boards Simon smirks "you mean the stuff they have been working on now for 5 years, made 19 revisions and the document is almost 120 pages long? The stuff that is as complicated as heck and a call can still fail due to NAT? I think they need to have a hard look at their approach, simple NAT packet probing is cumbersome and prone to establishment delays or even failure, they really need to adopt a more reliable, intelligent network centric approach of NAT testing, reporting and formulation used with P2Pnat".

Where do you go from here? "Yeah there is a lot we can still do with PacPhone, we are already developing a global scalable presence system (with GnuGk) and we have the technology to do application sharing and file transfer so I can best sum it up by saying, watch this space".

About PacPhone
PacPhone is a simple windows system tray application that allows secure one to one or multipoint HD Video conferencing. With QoS, standards-based and pioneering next generation NAT Traversal technology, PacPhone can be used from anywhere there is an internet connection without the need for special equipment or configuration, all with the comfort of knowing that the call is protected by per-call keying AES256 encryption. Being H.323 standards based, PacPhone can be used to interoperate with a wide variety of equipment from a diverse range of vendors making it an indispensable free tool for doing video collaboration.

For more information visit PacPhone and simply try PacPhone for free.