I've noticed that two Polycom Group series devices that have the Lync Interop licence installed provide good quality (1080p) video calls when making a point to point lync call but if the same two devices connect by joining a Lync conference, by joining via a calendar appointment for example, the resolution drops to 640x368

I documented my findings in a quick blog

http://1plex.co.uk/polycom-group-series-testing-lync-2013/

anyone been successful getting the devices to connect at a better resolution?

Hi,

Base on my knowledge, it can be caused by the limitation of the network bandwidth. Please double check if it provides the enough bandwidth for Lync meeting.

Best Regards,
Eason Huang

Check the conferencing policy for MaxVideoConferenceResolution value. This one is default set as "VGA. If it is set to VGA, then you would get the VGA resolution even though the Polycom can support HD.

Thanks Thamara, thats a great shout, I did look at this but didn't think it was relevant as I found this definition of the parameter below - maybe the issue is that the Group Series don't get classified as 'Lync Server 2013 clients' and it treats them as legacy clients. I'll look into it a bit further - thanks again

MaxVideoConferencingResolution   This parameter is no longer used for Lync Server 2013 clients in Lync Server 2013 conferences. Lync Server 2013 conferences use the bit rate controls described earlier in this section. This setting is still used for legacy clients joining a Lync Server 2013 conference. This parameter determines the maximum resolution allowed for legacy clients in conferences organized by users who are homed on Lync Server 2013. That is, legacy clients are treated the same as they were in previous versions of Lync Server or Office Communications Server

Thanks Eason, bandwidth is fine in this case, all clients are connected to a gig switch with nothing else on the network - I've setup a dedicated lab to test this. Also, the devices connect happily at 1080p as long as they're not connecting to the Lync MCU in a conference call

MaxVideoConferencingResolution only has two settings, CIF and VGA. If Lync see's the Group Series as Legacy clients there may be nothing I can do to improve this. I ran set-csmediaConfiguration -maxvideorateallowed HD720P as the default was VGA600K but that hasn't made any difference either. Again this setting only appears to apply to legacy clients.

I have a call logged with Polycom so will update if I find a resolution.

Jeff Shertz would be the ideal person to shed some light in to this. Given that you have already created a support case, Let us know the outcome of it. 

Just tried the recently released 4.3.0 update for the Polycom Group Series on the suggestion of Polycom support but still the same 416 x 240 resolution in Lync AVMCU hosted calls.

Anyone else have experience of these devices supporting the higher resolutions in Lync conference calls? I'm yet to establish if this is a problem in the Lync environment or simply a limitation of the Group series.

So this problem continues to roll on. Latest update received from Polycom in response to my support call is that they have reproduced the problem in their lab and will update when further information is available.

We are experiencing the same issue with our Polycom HDX 8000 unit. Peer-to-peer quality is excellent, but as soon as a multi-party conference is initiated, the quality drops to below VGA (usually CIF). I don't believe there are any bandwidth issues and the conference policies on the Lync server have been configured for VGA/HD720P.

We are experiencing the same issue with our Polycom HDX 8000 unit. Peer-to-peer quality is excellent, but as soon as a multi-party conference is initiated, the quality drops to below VGA (usually CIF). I don't believe there are any bandwidth issues and the conference policies on the Lync server have been configured for VGA/HD720P.

• Proposed as answer by Y0UNGJEDI Tuesday, June 30, 2015 1:16 AM
• Unproposed as answer by Y0UNGJEDI Tuesday, June 30, 2015 1:16 AM

We are experiencing the same issue with our Polycom HDX 8000 unit. Peer-to-peer quality is excellent, but as soon as a multi-party conference is initiated, the quality drops to below VGA (usually CIF). I don't believe there are any bandwidth issues and the conference policies on the Lync server have been configured for VGA/HD720P.

• Proposed as answer by Y0UNGJEDI Tuesday, June 30, 2015 1:16 AM
• Unproposed as answer by Y0UNGJEDI Tuesday, June 30, 2015 1:16 AM

Polycom did confirm this was a problem on the Group Series and I have also run into the issue on the HDX so believe its also a problem there.

Last week I was given access to a hotfix for the Group Series which is supposed to resolve the problem. I've run some quick tests and can now receive 720P video from the group series but only PC Lync clients receive this higher resolution. For two Group Series joined to a conference call both devices still send and receive 416x240.

The update I received stated this issue will be fixed in the next major release due in September, lets hope it is more successful than the interim hotfix for v4.3.1 which I tested last week. That said I only fed back to Polycom support my findings last week so its possible there may be a configuration setting associated with this update that I'm missing.

I have a similar problem with 3 Polycom Group Series 500. Problem has also been reported to Polycom, this is their response:

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Firstly, sorry for the miscommunication on my part about this issue.

This is by design and expected behavior.

Here is the message we see from AVMCU in latest logs from both endpoints.

From 192_168_20_20.log: in VSR (Video Stream Request) from AVMCU it asked from the GS 640x640
Jul 03 11:01:56 192.168.20.20 1 2015-07-03T11:01:54.905000+02:00 RealPresence-Stockholm GroupSeries - - [NXLOG@14506 EventReceivedTime="2015-07-03 11:01:56" SourceModuleName="plcmlog" SourceModuleType="im_file"] CEng: hd[0]: RTCPMsftVsrRecv: Received VSR: {(MsftVSRParamT 0x10fd0c0) ReqMSI:2016640 RequestId:8 Version:0 keyFrame:true numEntries:2 entry:{ 0:
{(MsftVSREntryT) payloadType:122(SVC) ucConfigMode:1 flags:0 aspectRatioBitMask:0x2 maxWidth:640 maxHeight:640 minBitRate:800000 frameRate:0x10 numMustInstances:0 numMayInstances:1 qualityReport:0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1 maxNumPixels:307200}
So the AVMCU is asking for this lower resolution.

Again, apologies for the confusion on this case, but this scenario for our customer is not an issue for the GS product. We are working by design and matching what the AMVCU is expecting from us which is TX best resolution of 640x368.

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I can see the SDP from the AVMCU does indeed only request max size of 640x640. I have forwarded the problem to Premier Support.