Codec Support

This form of integration is very basic, and ultimately relies on the fact that both video endpoints support the same video codec. The signaling gateway and Lync Front End pool communicate via SIP to provide the signaling traffic, but the Lync user’s endpoint and the third-party system’s user endpoint must have direct IP connectivity to send the media stream between each other. For many years this kind of integration was limited to H.263 CIF quality video using a 352×288 resolution, which was entirely due to the fact that the third-party endpoints did not support Microsoft’s RTVideo codec at any resolution. Without any RTVideo support, the only available option was to fall back to H.263 CIF.

The fact that the integration is limited to such a low-quality resolution generally limits the use case to desktop video. For traditional video systems placed in conference rooms and connected to a high-definition television, this low-resolution quality looks especially terrible on a large screen.