Topic Last Modified: 2012-10-02

Lync 2013 adds new video features to support 1920 x 1080 full high definition (HD) video and Gallery View video. Measurements based on customer data show that the typical video bandwidth increased only slightly compared to Lync 2010, but the maximum video stream bandwidth has increased due to full HD support (for details, see the "Media Traffic Network Usage" section in Network bandwidth requirements for media traffic). Therefore, administrators may want to restrict video bandwidth for certain users (such as users in a branch office that has less network capacity) and help to ensure the best possible video quality for other users (such as executives).

The following table provides a list of recommended settings for configuring video for different network capacities. These settings will restrict some user scenarios from sending and receiving higher resolution videos (see rightmost column). The minimum setting will result in Gallery Video being unavailable, due to the low maximum receive network bandwidth.

Recommended Video Settings

- AllowMultiView EnableMultiViewJoin VideoBitRateKB TotalReceiveVideoBitRateKB Expected video resolution for good quality video

Best

True

True

8000

8000

Peer-to-peer: Up to 1920 x 1080 video resolution

Gallery View: Up to two 1920 x 1080 videos or multiple smaller resolution videos

Good

True

True

2500

2500

Peer-to-peer: Up to 1280 x 720 video resolution

Gallery View: Up to five 640 x 360 resolution videos

Medium

True

True

1000

1000

Peer-to-peer: Up to 960 x 540 video resolution

Gallery View: Up to five 424 x 240 resolution videos

Minimum

True

False

350

350

Peer-to-peer: Up to 424 x 240 video resolution

Gallery View: Unavailable

You can use the information in the preceding table to deploy the new HD video and Gallery View video conferencing features for some users in your organization, while allowing different video resolutions for others.

In the following example, the administrator rolls out the new video features with the highest video quality available only to executives. For employees in a remote branch office that has low network capacity, only the minimum setting from the preceding table is deployed. For all other employees, the "Good" setting from the preceding table is deployed.

To roll out the new features to the executives, the administrator creates a conferencing policy named ExecutiveVideo. This conferencing policy has the following settings:

For employees in the branch office, the administrator creates a conferencing policy named BranchOfficeVideo. This conferencing policy has the following settings:

For all other employees, the administrator creates a conferencing policy named StandardVideo. This conferencing policy has the following settings:

The administrator assigns conferencing policy to users as follows:

These conferencing policy assignments result in the following user experience: