Nefsis Delivers HD Videoconferencing to the Desktop

If you're looking for a cloud-based provider of telepresence-style desktop videoconferencing -- i.e. something that provides very high quality -- add Nefsis to the list of possibles.

Nefsis has been around since 1998 as a purveyor of multipoint conferencing products and services, but like most conferencing companies, has migrated steadily from premise- to cloud-based products and services. Its latest cloud offering, Nefsis Professional, includes multipoint HD videoconferencing, coupled with either VoIP or (for an extra fee) PSTN-based audio conferencing, and web conferencing (whiteboarding and screen, application, slideshow and file sharing.) It's all controlled from one slick interface.

Nefsis is a little coy about pricing, saying only that the service is "competitive with" Web conferencing services and "far less expensive than traditional boardroom video conferencing equipment."

"Tell anybody who's interested to give us a call," says Nefsis vice president of marketing Tom Toperczer. Well, okay.

We recently tested Nefsis Professional, with mixed results. (You can sign up here for a free 14-day trial and try it for yourself.)

In an initial briefing with Toperczer from Nefsis's headquarters in San Diego, on which we used a Nefsis PSTN audio conference bridge, call quality was generally excellent. Video looked razor sharp when set to "high quality" - quality can be adjusted on the fly in the interface. It's doubtful it was ever truly HD quality, though. The resolution might have been 720p, but the frame rate was certainly less than 30 (or 24) frames per second (fps).

It was still as good as any desktop video we've seen, and significantly better than Skype, with which we're most familiar. And the Nefsis conference managed to maintain video quality even when Toperczer added several co-workers as silent participants in video only.

Results were not so impressive when we hosted our own conferences using Nefsis Professional, however.