H.264 Video

The H.264 video codec has been adopted today for everything from video conferencing to Blu-ray. In Lync 2013, Microsoft has introduced H.264 SVC as the default codec for peer-to-peer video calls and conferences. SVC stands for Scalable Video Coding, and this extension to H.264 adds new profiles and scalability capabilities, which provide major advantages for real-time video communications.

The term scalability can be used to describe many audio and video codecs in the industry. However, the scalability that H.264 SVC provides is complimentary to one of the goals of Microsoft Lync: To provide end users with full functionality on any device, and on any network connection. H.264 SVC allows Lync Server to provide a rich conferencing experience to all endpoints by allowing users to view different levels of video quality on demand, and it does not require real-time decoding or encoding of video streams by the Multipoint Control Units (MCU) (in the case of Lync, the A/V Conferencing Server). H.264 SVC leverages the endpoints (PCs, tablets, phones, cameras) to perform the processing of the video streams. This allows Lync 2013 endpoints to dynamically send and receive a video resolution and frame rate that best suits them. As a result, the Lync Server 2013 A/V Conferencing Server is now able to act as a simple video relay mechanism, sending video streams to endpoints that they request on demand, and without requiring an increased processing load. The introduction of this functionality is what has allowed Microsoft to include HD resolutions in video conferences and at the same time to remove the need for a dedicated A/V Conferencing Server role.