[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5SFQUNep6I&w=560&h=349]

If you want to rely on videoconferencing for your business and have Quality of Service, you need to spend a fortune to build an in-room telepresence solution, such as those developed by Polycom. The rest of us who don’t spend that kind of money often opt for Skype -- which is free -- and that’s fantastic. But it’s far from reliable, and you wouldn’t bet your business on it. Is there a happy medium? At Interop 2011 I saw Vidyo, and it may just fit that niche. The Internet-only 720p HD video conferencing solution, which won the Interop award for best collaboration, boasts that it’s 10 percent the cost of their largest competitors. While not full blown telepresence, Vidyo’s quality is rather impressive, as is its integrated iPad application. Vidyo’s solution requires a minimum of 500 to 600 Kbps throughput, but to get the quality you see in the above demo, it requires 1 to 2 Mbps.