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WHAT IS VIDEO CONFERENCING? It's the technological age, there's no doubt about it. You look
around and you see people speaking on cell phones everywhere; people
working on their laptop computers or PDA's; People taking pictures with
their digital cameras, or listening to music on their digital mp3
players. The technology is evolving so quickly that it can barely keep
up with itself. One area in which we are seeing rapid technological
developments as of late is within the video
conferencing industry.
Although the technology that makes video conferencing possible has
been around for a several years now, it is hasn't received too much
attention until recently, now becoming more and more popular every day.
What is video conferencing? Basically, video conferencing can be easily
described as a telephone conversation that allows you to be face-to-face
with one another. This technology will never replace the
person-to-person meeting completely, but it does offer an incredible
tool for better telecommunication & can save companies hundreds of
thousands of dollars in travel costs; and these applications are just
scratching the surface:
What can video conferencing be used for?
- Presentations
- Workers collaborating on a shared project whilst using shared
resources
- Personal Communication between family and friends
- Business Communication between associates
- Education, online schools, online lectures, etc. (Bringing the
classroom home)
So what about this technology? For those who think that
videoconferencing simply consists of two people having a face-to-face
conversation over a telephone, the application goes a lot deeper than
that. The most standard usage for videoconferencing is what is referred
to as "point-to-point" communication. (This is most common for personal
use) Point-to-point communication involves both two-way audio & video,
and represents the scenario mentioned above of two people having a
face-to-face conversation over a telephone. The second general usage is
what is referred to as "one-to-many" videoconferencing, through which
one video feed serves multiple users connected to a main site. (This is
like an online lecture available at many colleges) Basically, the "many"
can only see the "one," whereas the "one" has the ability to see the
"many." The third general usage is what is referred to as "many-to-many"
videoconferencing or a multi-point connection, through which audio and
video are provided between more than two sites. This can thought of as a
large online meeting, in which everyone sees and hears everyone else.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how videoconferencing works,
why make it work for you?
What are some of the benefits associated with video conferencing?
- Less travel. Saving money on your business travel costs
- Increased connection to the outside world
- Quality education spread across the globe
- More efficient, easier collaborative working
- Getting to see who you're talking to
The nature of videoconferencing is that it takes place during real-time.
That is to say that it is happening live, and is therefore requiring an
incredibly large amount of data to be sent/received every second.
Bandwidth (Baud Rate) refers to the amount of data that can be
transmitted across a line every second. The higher the bandwidth, the
more the information that can be transmitted each second, and the better
the feed will be. Because of the extremely high number of bits per
second that are required for a strong video/audio feed, a certain degree
of compression is needed so that your PC can transmit/receive. The level
of compression varies from system to system & generally tends to focus
more on producing a very consistent level of audio than a consistent
level of video.
For the most part, videoconferencing takes place across the Internet,
from PC to PC. This is what is referred to as desktop video
conferencing. There is a wide range of video cameras and corresponding
software that is installed onto your PC containing codecs designed to
compress the transmitted/received signals. The camera itself generally
requires a USB port through which to connect to the PC. Desktop
videoconferencing hardware components
include:
- Video/Web Camera
- Microphone through which to transmit audio
- Speakers/Headphones through which to receive audio
- Network/Ethernet card through which to connect to required high
speed line
- Video board through which to capture the visual feed & convert
to a digital form
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