Video Conferencing Freeware

By in Cloud, Features, Industry, Lifesize, Microsoft, Miscellaneous, People, Products, Skype, Technology, Unified Communications.

“Why should I pay for video conferencing when alternatives like Skype, Hangouts, and FaceTime are free?” It’s a question we at Lifesize get asked a lot, and while there are a lot of compelling reasons to invest in a dedicated video conferencing system, it’s a question we also understand. After all, it’s hard to beat free.

Or is it?

No doubt you’re familiar with the saying “you get what you pay for, ” a saying that is particularly true when it comes to free video/telephone/voice-over-IP services like the Skype, Hangouts, and FaceTime. These applications are great for simple consumer-grade person-to-person communication, but they simply lack the features that make true video conferencing solutions so valuable for business.

Here are just a few of the things you can do with business-grade systems like those offered by Lifesize that you can’t do on freeware:

Conduct a realistic face-to-face meeting: HD video conferencing systems provide high quality video and audio, ensuring a true-to-life experience for users on both ends. Lip movement and speech is perfectly synchronized, and you don’t need to worry about buffering and call-drop issues.

Add up to 25 locations/participants per call: Skype has limited functionality while hosting up to 25 users at once, while Hangouts supports only 10 simultaneous video endpoints; FaceTime is limited to just one-on-one connections. Only business-grade video conferencing can simultaneously support 25 different users, each with true HD video and audio. And with Lifesize’s voice-activated speaking feature, the video automatically zooms in on exactly who is talking.

Connect to remote users quickly and safely: When you conduct meetings over “freemium” web services, there’s no way of knowing who might be listening in. By contrast, Lifesize video conferencing systems come with a full array of firewall and encryption features, ensuring that your meeting is exactly as secure as you expect it to be. Nobody but the people you specifically invite to the meeting will know what’s been said.