Hilton In 2nd Video Launch

<H1> Hilton In 2nd Video Launch</H1><H3> TeleSuites' project actual-size images Of Smaller Groups</H3>By Lauren Bielski

<B>A</B>iming for starters at stealing a piece of the meetings traffic on the New York-Washington air shuttle route, Hilton Hotels Corp. this month unveiled a teleconferencing system that projects life-sized images of conference participants.

The first "virtual conferencing telesuites" became operational on June 5 at two Hilton properties: the Waldorf Astoria in New York and the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C. Hilton said it intends to roll out the system in at least three additional properties-Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago-by the end of 1996, depending on the success of the first two hotels. Hilton's two properties were the system's first commercial installation in the hospitality market.

The system, which can seat up to four participants per table and can house up to 10 in a room, is the result of a two-year development effort by technology developers TelePort, IBM, Compression Labs and NEC, which produces the system's monitors and screen converters and provides technology support.

To target larger groups in "peer conferencing situations," Hilton earlier this year rolled out a videoconferencing network at hotels in eight U.S. cities which uses PictureTel rollabout systems in a separate program that will exclusively target the business market (<I>Meetings Today,</I> Feb. 26). The new suite system uses a different architecture and a rear projector screen, and is designed for more intimate gatherings. Those seated at the table will appear 100 percent to scale.

Each telesuite features a 92-inch screen, a table and four chairs. It projects at a resolution of 353,000 pixels, and transmits at 45 megabits per second, using about 5 percent of the bandwidth involved in typical broadcast environments.

"We feel really good about offering equipment that is on the leading edge of technology," said Robert Dirks, senior vice president of marketing for Hilton Hotels. "This time, we have expert technology partners to guide us."

The hotel company, which has experimented with dedicated videoconferencing systems since the early 1980s, is this time betting that the superior conferencing experience coupled with affordable rates and ease of use will attract significant interest. Rather than view videoconferencing as a threat that takes guests out of sleeping rooms, Hilton's management thinks of it as yet another service that can attract a different segment of business-including hard-to-place day meetings that require no sleeping rooms.

Using Teleport's patent-pending video mirror concept, the suite is designed to eliminate the awkwardness typically caused by use of screens with smaller dimensions. Billed as a productivity enhancer, particularly for brief meetings where no overnight stay is required, the system is limited to communication with other suites of its type and will require, at least initially, that participants be based in New York and Washington.

Dirks explained that analysis of the volume of air-shuttle traffic between New York and Washington was significant enough for Hilton to take notice and run with the concept of installing a fully dedicated conferencing system. Hilton will charge from $69 to $199 for a 50-minute session, with food and beverage available at an additional charge.

Although Hilton is marketing the system to conference users, executives said they expect its biggest use to be linking family and friends in the leisure market.

David Allen, chairman of Englewood, Ohio-based Teleport Corp., said that despite slight denigrations in picture quality and the sense that participants who sit on the far edges of the table don't appear to be looking directly into the room of the remote location, the digital image quality and real-time transmission represent a significant improvement over desktop and rollabout conferencing systems currently in use. Allen said the system would be particularly beneficial as an alternative to face-to-face meetings for co-workers who are already familiar with one another. And, at about $125,000 for a single system, they aren't significantly more expensive than rollabout models, which cost about $120,000 for the required four units.

The telesuite system uses two cameras to capture up to four seated participants on each side of the table. Those who stand behind the table also can be seen, but not as clearly. In each direction, visual data is sent on half of a T-1 data line via IBM's Global Network for real-time and simultaneous audio and video transmission. The digital image streams are decompressed and projected onto the screen, giving the impression of depth of perception and face-to-face contact.

A Teleport spokesperson said that the suite's "codec"-the device that prepares the visual data for transmission-can work to .261 standards, allowing interface with other systems like a PictureTel, but that picture quality suffers as a result.