Next Generation High Quality Videoconferencing Service for the LHC

<!--HTML-->In recent times, we have witnessed an explosion of video initiatives in the industry worldwide. Several advancements in video technology are currently improving the way we interact and collaborate. These advancements are forcing tendencies and overall experiences: any device in any network can be used to collaborate, in most cases with an overall high quality. To cope with this technology progresses, CERN IT Department has taken the leading role to establish strategies and directions to improve the user experience in remote dispersed meetings and remote collaboration at large in the worldwide LHC communities. Due to the high rate of dispersion in the LHC user communities, these are critically dependent of videoconferencing technology, with a need of robustness and high quality for the best possible user experience. We will present an analysis of the factors that influenced the technical and strategic choices to improve the reliability, efficiency and overall quality of the LHC remote sessions. In particular, we are going to describe how the new videoconferencing service offered by CERN IT, based on Vidyo technology suits these requirements. During a vidyoconference, Vidyo’s core technology continuously monitors the performance of the underlying network and the capabilities of each endpoint device, in order to adapt video streams in real time and optimize video communication. This results in offering telepresence-quality videoconferencing over the commercial Internet and at the same time, in providing a robust platform to make video communications universally available on any device ranging from traditional videoconferencing room systems, to multiplatform PCs, the latest smartphones and tablets PCs, over any network. The infrastructure deployed to offer this new service, its integration in the specific CERN environment will be presented as well as recent use cases.