Vidyo Inc. has announced the availability of the VidyoRoom HD-220, which it said is the first telepresence room system based upon the Intel Core i7 processing platform and available for $6,995. The VidyoRoom HD-220 delivers support for two 1080p video streams at 30 frames per second for dual monitor support, and the patented VidyoRouter software architecture leverages off-the-shelf processing platforms enabling it to advance the price to performance profile of its video conferencing solutions at the same pace as the PC world.

“Vidyo has built its entire product line upon the Intel Architecture processors so they are able to take advantage of our faster, intelligent multi-core technology to deliver outstanding video conferencing performance to their customers,” said Elliot Garbus, vice president, Intel Software and Services Group, and general manager of Intel’s Visual Computing Software Division. “Vidyo demonstrates how building on Intel Architecture processors translates rapidly into improved performance as Intel releases new processors.”

Beyond the rapid time to market and cost advantages of using standard Intel x86 hardware, Vidyo’s software-based approach provides unrivaled investment protection for its customers, the company said. Significant new features, which would require hardware replacement in proprietary DSP-based systems, can be added to Vidyo’s architecture via simple software upgrades. Like the VidyoRoom HD-50 and HD-100, the HD-220 can decode aggregated resolution of 1080p, and to add 1080p encode capability to the VidyoRoom HD-220 requires only a free software upgrade.

“Vidyo is the only company providing a software-based personal telepresence solution that extends from room systems to desktops including laptops, Netbooks, and soon smart phones over standard broadband Internet or 3G or 4G networks, with no proprietary hardware,” said Ofer Shapiro, CEO of Vidyo. “Vidyo’s patented architecture eliminates the multipoint conferencing unit (“MCU”) from the core of the system delivering on the promise of natural face-to-face communications. The HD-220, like our entire product line, delivers personal telepresence consistently over the Internet with less than half the end-to-end latency of MCU-based solutions to maximize real-time collaborative experiences.”