You might think Highfive is all about the visual experience, given that it provides a cloud-based video solution. But, as evidenced in a technology partnership with Dolby Laboratories announced yesterday, it's about the audio, too.
Audio quality is a perennial pain point across the spectrum of conferencing and collaboration products, Highfive CEO Shan Sinha told me in a briefing on the news. "We know that one of the biggest determinants of a positive user experience is audio."
By partnering with Dolby, a proven leader in audio technology, Highfive is looking to do away with flakey audio on its video calls. The integration of Dolby Voice into the Highfive cloud-based video solution is intended to improve audio quality on all calls by eliminating background noise and solving the crosstalk problem via a technique called stereo spatial voice separation. As Dolby describes, "spatial voice-separation functionality lets you hear each person's voice from a distinct virtual location. You'll understand and keep track of who's speaking and maintain a better conversational flow. "
To boost audio quality within meeting and conference rooms, Highfive now also offers a solution that combines its in-room camera system with a Dolby Voice-powered tabletop conference phone, as shown below. This premium audio device comes with positional sound technology meant to give remote video participants the sense that they are in the same room.
At Mimeo, an online managed distributor and printer that uses Highfive video "wall to wall," the difference in audio quality with Dolby Voice-enhanced video calls has been "like night and day," said Shawn Winters, the company's IT director, during an Interop panel discussion, "The Unsexy Secrets That Transform Enterprise Collaboration," that took place yesterday. "It has really improved quality in problematic conference rooms."
To be sure, audio technology like this has existed for quite some time, Sinha noted during that same panel discussion. However, he said, "it required complex configurations that have been expensive and cost prohibitive to deploy broadly outside unique environments." With the Highfive-Dolby partnership, that is no longer the case, he added.
While improving the audio quality of its cloud-based video solution, Highfive continues to push on its affordability messaging, as well.
Back in December 2015, Highfive eliminated per-user fees while offering an unlimited number of minutes and meetings (see related post Highfive Ditches Per-User Pricing for Cloud Video). Under that pricing and packaging model, companies buy a camera ($1,199) for each conference room they want to set up and sign up for either a Basic ($849 annually) or Premium ($1,199 annually) service plan.
With the addition the premium Dolby Voice-enhanced in-room solution, Highfive has changed up its pricing and packaging model once again. It has eliminated the $1,199 it had charged for a camera, and now has three price points:
In general, Sinha said, the choice of package will come down to room size and level of audio performance needed.
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