Introduction to Videoconferencing:

Videoconferencing is the use of interactive multimedia and live telecommunications

for the purpose of engaging in the exchange of ideas, the delivery of information and
management of organizations.

Videoconferencing combines:

• Video Images (the people participating in the video-meeting)

• High-Quality Audio Communication (voice, sounds, music)
• Scanned Images (charts, graphs, photographs, 3D objects)
• Computer-to-Computer Exchanges (all types of files)
In other words, you can do anything in a videoconference that you could do if you and
the other participants were across the table from each other, instead of on opposite sides
of a city or state or country or the world.

Videoconferencing just like meeting someone in person, but without the extra cost and
inconvenience of travel to/from the meeting.
What is Video Conferencing?
Video conferencing in its most basic form is the transmission of image (video)
and speech (audio) back and forth between two or more physically separate locations.
This is accomplished through the use of cameras (to capture and send video from your
local endpoint), video displays (to display video received from remote endpoints),
microphones (to capture and send audio from your local endpoint), and speakers (to play
audio received from remote endpoints). Although there are many factors that serve to
modify or increase the complexity of this basic definition (several of which are discussed
in this cookbook), it is useful to keep the concept simple in the beginning when deciding
why or how you may be able to use video conferencing for yourself or your organization.

In understanding the role that video conferencing could play, consider two general
situations: a) those where you are already able to communicate with someone who is not
physically nearby, but you wish that communication could be richer, and b) those where
you wish to access or communicate to an area that may or may not be nearby but is
limited by situational or physical restraints. Distance education often comes to mind first
when considering the former situation, but several other existing types of
communications can also be enhanced or extended. These include organizational and
cross-organizational meetings, counseling, foreign language and cultural exchanges, and
telecommuting. Communication is already occurring in each of these applications, but
they could be made more compelling, more effective, or less expensive via video
conferencing. (Imagine a telephone call where you can see the speaker, or a television
through which you can talk.) For the latter situation, the introduction of video
conferencing has enabled communication to restricted areas such as clean rooms, nuclear
facilities, operating rooms, and the space shuttle. It has been used to observe wildlife in
their natural habitat, to establish interactive surveillance and security, and, combined with
micro-instrumentation, to observe inside the human body. This side of video
conferencing may not come to mind as readily as the enhancement of existing
applications but it can be quite powerful. Simply imagine situations where you might like
to be a "fly on the wall", with the ability to interact if desired. To further your
imagination with each of the situations listed above, consider that video conferencing can
be point-to-point (between two endpoints), or multipoint (combining two or more
endpoints into the same "conversation"). When you begin to combine diverse endpoints
into one setting where audio and video from each can be shared in real-time, whole new
levels of interaction are enabled and entirely new communication and ideas can result.

HISTORY:
AT&T first used this method in 1964 and presented in world fair by connecting
by videophone through LAN though it was invented it could not shaped until in 1980’s as
the cost of this is high. The technology that is used prensed was invented by picturetel in
1984-88. It is possible due to new compression technology, new cameras etc. The first
videoconference system invented totally relies on hardware. The cost of hardware
restricted its usage to auditoriums and conference rooms. Later the hardware needed to
run video conferencing on desktops come in to existent in 1994. The difference by
desktop video conferencing & normal video conferencing system is that we can view the
speaker though a window, where as we can view as a big screen in later case in addition
there will be no breaks in picture transmission in normal video conferencing. It anyone
wants a fill flexed videoconference system it may cost upto 5 lakhs where as desktop
units range from 10,000.

Videoconference- Basic Ingredients:

H.323 Video Conference Recipe
(Serves 2 or more)
2 Video conferencing pioneers (choose only hefty ones with plenty of positive attitude
and patience.)
2 Video conferencing terminal end stations (often called clients; can be of same or
different vendors as long as H.323 compliance is verified.)
2 Cameras, microphones, speakers.
2 Workstations, probably of the Windows or Mac variety though a few Unix terminal end
stations can be found in specialty shops.
1 High speed network connection (at least 64-128Kbps.)
2 IP addresses for workstations.
1 Actions, terminal end station software – optional.

TECHNOLOGY:
Video conferencing is a facility to common by the people or more through
telephone, ISDN and network medium. Videoconference cuts the various costs like
travelling charges, boarding & lodging time. Suppose if we want to meet a person in
Mumbai for your business transaction it incurs a lot of risk & costs. Through
videoconference you can have a direct interactive with the person and can demonstrate
your product you can wish to your relative personally. The advantage of video
conferencing facilitated to send pictures and sound from one place to another sitting right
on you’re home.

There are four methods in video conferencing

1. One-to-one video conferencing
2. One-to-group video conferencing.
3. Group-to-group video conferencing.
4. Multi-point video conferencing

1.One-to-one video conferencing

In point-to-point conferencing communication is set up between two people
 In each of the cases above, the quality of the audio and video are critical to the
success of the remote participation. Both will effect whether or not the remote
participant(s) feel like they are truly part of a meeting (not just an observer) and also
whether or not they are treated as part of the meeting by other participants.
In the specific case of a multi-point meeting, where more than one location is
participating remotely, additional factors affect the success of the remote participation.
These include the view participants have of each other, how participants hear each other,
and how participants determine who is leading the meeting
What participants see may be:
• Voice Activated - where the incoming video from the current speaker's location is
displayed to all other sites and the incoming display changes in conjunction with
speaker control.
• Continuous Presence (sometimes called "Hollywood Squares") - where each
location can see all other locations, or a subset of all locations (as many as can
usably be viewed on one screen if only one screen is available), at all times.
What participants hear may be:
• Half duplex audio (sometimes likened to "walkie-talkies") - where participants
can only hear one speaker at a time (audio from the dominant speaker's site
supresses audio from all others) and must indicate somehow when speaker control
has been passed.
• Full duplex audio - where audio is "natural" in the sense that everyone can hear
everyone else at all times.
How meeting control is achieved may be:
• No Control: where full-duplex audio is continuously available and the lead
speaker is determined by general consensus of those present, just as in a
physically proximate meeting. (The view of participant sites would still be either
continuous presence or voice-activated).
• Chair Control: where a feature is included in the video conferencing technology
(either at the video endpoints or at the MCU) to pass chair control via some
designated mechanism ("electronic hand raising") or "token"; the site possessing
the token is seen and heard by others until the token is passed.
• Lecture-Style: a variation on Chair Control where one site is designated as the
lead site and can enable/disable Chair Control access by other sites as well as
enable/disable other sites from being heard, or being viewed.

As with any new technology, successful integration of video conferencing into

existing activities requires attention to the needs of end users involved. The determination
of what is acceptable and useful must also be based on the reaction of the end users. In
the case of simple point-to-point meetings, there is not much new learning required for
participants to successfully interact with each other as long as the video and audio quality
do not interfere. Care should be taken to ensure that participants feel they can see and
hear each other clearly.

Typical rules of thumb include:

• Microphones should be of sufficient quality to pick up the speaker's voice

naturally and without excessive background noise.
• Microphones and speakers should be positioned so that they do not cause
feedback and interference with each other.
• Camera quality should be good enough to capture an acceptable image (test with
users at the remote site to see how you are coming through) and cameras should
ideally be auto focusing and should auto-adjust for lighting conditions.
• Speaker volume and camera position should be user-adjustable, or have proven
acceptable auto-adjusting ability (or ability for the user to override).
• Incoming video display(s) should be positioned as naturally and comfortably as
possible for inclusion in the meeting and encouraging eye contact.
• Any conference controls that do not duplicate natural conditions (i.e., voice
activation in multi-point conferences) will need to be introduced to users ahead of
time and users may need time to practice.

Any attention paid to the total "look and feel" of the meeting scenario prior to the
conferencing helps to ensure that the technology will enhance rather than detract from the
success of the meeting.

If more than two people residing in different places wanted to communicate then
multi-point video conferencing method is used. Generally managers residing in different
countries communicate using a video conferencing using a special equipment know as
MCU (Multi-Point Control Unit). This device needs the appropriate date to appropriate
users. As you know we can attach the video conferencing system to a computer to it
needs a computers, video camera, microphone, modem, communication channel,
software. The main technical issue in video conferencing is bandwidth i.e., the capacity
of a channel to transmit information. In earlier days of video conferencing the biggest
stumbling block has been inadequate bandwidth available on public conferencing
systems. The bandwidth is generally measured in kbps or mbps. Worldwide standards
are set to ensure that systems from different manufactures are interoperable. The CIF
(Common Intermediate format) size supported by majority of video conferencing
applications is 253/288 pixels. This is less than 4 quarter of the screen on 15`` monitor.
At 8 bits/pixel each frame of video will occupy about 8,11,000 bits. If we want some
thing close to TV quality we need to send 25 frames/second. This gives us total of
25*8,11,000 or more than 20 million bits/second.
 Since video conferencing requires two way communications this figure should be
double to 40 mbs. For comparison the fast modem can transmit upto 33.6 Kb over 1,200
times, which is too low even an Ethernet LAN at 10 mbps will found wanting, this figure
illustrate the importance of compression of the information.
Class Rooms
RESOLUTION:
The pictures in video conferencing are available in two resolutions are
1. QCIF (Quarter Common Interface Format)
2. CIF (Common Interface Format)
In QCIF we get a picture in a window with a resolution of 176*144 pixels.
In CIF we get double the resolution in both sides. Hence we can view of picture 4
times bigger than the in QUIF. The quality of videoconference lies on how many
frames that we can send in a second. In general we get 30 frames per second. In
ISDN lines are used to transmit we can send to near to this quality. The quality of
picture depends on bandwidth.

COMMUNICATION CHANNENLS:
When there is a very wide variety of software and hardware is use for
desktop video conferencing system. There are only three widely accepted
methods of connecting desktop to desktop, there are
1. ISDN
2. LAN
3. POTS(Plain Old Telephone Service)

ISDN:
It is a key enabling technology for video conferencing. The ISDN basic rate interface
provides 128kbs data channel, with compression, this is adequate for video conferencing.
Systems running over a single ISDN circuit can provide frame rate of 15 to 30
frames/second depending on the picture size and hardware. The ISDN lines are combined
together with an inverse multiplexer a device that allows video conferencing codes to
threat multiple ISDN lines as one single data channel. Two or three ISDN lines are
enough to provide TV quality. ISDN lines are digital networks specially designed for
high bandwidth. We attain a bandwidth 4 times than ordinary telephone line.

LAN:
Ethernet LAN’s that provide a bandwidth of 10Mbps would seem to provide an
ideal data channel for an office or building video conferencing systems. However the
bursty nature of LAN’s makes the problem more difficult. The bandwidth available to
any particular application cannot be quarantined. On a busy network there is easy to
ensure high priority video and audio data will arrive on time. With ether speed several
video streams are certainly possible, but having hundreds or tens of video streams
occurring simultaneously is not possible for that research and development is carried out
to design and implement a network topology that allows for high speed access to each
disk to device. Despite these difficulties several manufacturers have developed LAN
video conferencing software that provides acceptable results. In some cases they have
done this by using DEDICATED LAN VIDEO MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE. Video
conferencing is also possible through Internet but this suffers from all problems
associated with LANS.
POTS:
POTS are another form of communical channel for connecting desktops for video
conferencing system. The main advantage of POTS is its low cost of the standard analog
phone line. The problem with POTS is its limited bandwidth. The modems with capacity
28.8kbps are fast enough to transmit a small image at around 10 frames/second. If there
were fast modems on the horizon, this model is acceptable beginning. But 33.6kbps
modems recently announced by manufacturers such as US ROBOTICS are coming very
close to theoretical maximum amount of data that can be squeezed in the narrow pipe of
analog telephone line. Any further improvements in POTS will have to come from
enhanced compression algorithms. The latency is defined as the delay between the time
that is received. All networks have some latency. An audio latency of more than 0.02
seconds is notable and make conversation awkward. Higher latencies make conversation
increasingly difficult. This is especially true when of conversation where a log of
interruption take place, such as negations and brain storming secessions.
.

APPLICATIONS:
1.Tele medicine
2.Education.
3.Meetings.
4.Judicial Applications.
5.Telecommuting.

ADVANTAGES:
1. Videoconference allows people in different locations with country or
overseas to meet face to face.
2. Videoconference cuts the various costs like travelling charges, boarding
and lodging and time.

DISADVANTAGES:
1. It is costly

CONCLUSION:
The technology is making the earth as a cyber village. Videoconference makes
people at different countries to communicate. Even though the prices are not at the reach
of use by common man the future is expectable that the telephones are replaced with

videoconference units.