Video conferencing may be commonly used in the business world, as its use is totally immense. However, video conferencing is slowly being applied for personal uses outside commerce. A number of regular people are gradually coming across the immeasurable features of video conferencing.

The technology is not entirely unfamiliar to private individuals since it’s been around for decades now. Take for example the videophone. Two parties are required to configure the same setup as a result; the callers’ faces are displayed on a small screen to which they look at. Another example is the revolutionary webcams, which allowed people to communicate at the convenience of their computers.

Video conferencing has become a very beneficial tool especially for families nowadays. As globalization has opened a lot of doors for all walks of life so as the number of people leaving their families for a jobs somewhere on the other side of the globe. This holds true to the growing number of immigrants to and fro nations. Video conferencing technology serves as a very important tool for communication – live communication with a human touch.

The possibility of families and loved ones from across the globe meeting real-time in the convenience of their own homes and interacting at real-time events is simply magical. This bridges the worldwide gap and brings families and loved ones together. This more than what commonly slow webcam messaging can offer.

Video conferencing also touches on a certain segment of education – that is distance education. Some people may opt to utilize the ability of video conferencing technology as a tool for education. Personal uses extend from the one receiving lessons to the one giving lessons. A willing student may use video conferencing in order to learn from a teacher who’s located on some part of the globe. A teacher also shares knowledge to his or her student through the means of video conferencing technology. This is a good opportunity for the common educator to earn money aside from the regular eight to five teaching job at school.

In today’s technology driven world where electronic gadgets crash and go, the use of video conferencing is a perfect solution for troubleshooting needs. You don’t need to carry your heavy electronic gadgets, and all the wires that come with them, just to get it fix in an electronic shop. You don’t need to drive miles and spend a lot of time in traffic just to get to your technician’s place. All you need is a complete setup of video conferencing equipments in order to communicate with your technician. You can do the troubleshooting and fixing while you and your technician are at your respective homes.

The convenience of video conferencing technology today hasn’t only been exclusive to business use. It has now spread its influence even in the regular activities of private individuals.

Video, What?

Video conferencing technology allows you to utilize the Internet to send or receive audio files and images to any or all of your business associates around the world and vice versa. The quality of the sound and images you send and receive is dependent on the speed of your Internet service provider, so if you don’t want your image frozen in mid-blink with half-closed eyelids, high-speed is the way to go.

Can You Afford It?

Video conferencing equipment is usually set up in conference or board rooms. Video conferencing equipment does not come cheap, however. High-tech video conferencing equipment includes LCD screens and projectors, routers, and speaker phones, and would eat up a hefty chunk of last year’s profits. If your company can afford it, though, then by all means, purchase all the equipment you need. If you’re still cutting corners or just breaking even, however, purchasing video conferencing equipment would not be a good idea.

Make It Public!

Who’s to say you can’t use video conferencing technology? Even if your resources are not as bottomless as your ambitions, you can still use video conferencing technology. How? By utilizing video conferencing public rooms! Video conferencing public rooms are conference rooms with the necessary state-of-the-art video conferencing equipment you need. They may be rented or leased.

The good thing about video conferencing public rooms is that you can use one for a very small fee. This makes it the cost-efficient alternative to having to set up your own video conferencing room. In video conferencing public rooms, you simply inform operators know what you need, how long you need it for, and when you need it. These operators will take care of everything for you, from the conference set-up to equipment maintenance. Undoubtedly, video conferencing public rooms will save your company not just money but also time and manpower.

Going Public

So, now the next concern is finding the best among the multitude of video conferencing public rooms available. One of the more popular video conferencing public rooms is FedEx’s Kinko’s. Kinko’s boasts of 120 locations worldwide and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It provides the latest video conferencing equipment. You even have the option of having your meeting videotaped, so you can review the proceedings at your leisure or monitor which of your executives slept while you talked.

Proximity also offers video conferencing public rooms in 3,500 locations worldwide. They can organize video conferencing involving as few as two to as many as 5,000 participants. All you have to do is show up. You don’t need to worry about a thing.

Video conferencing public rooms are sprouting like mushrooms everywhere, from shopping malls to hotels and even subway stations. Pluck the right mushroom and you’ll be guaranteed seamless and convenient video conferencing no matter where in the world you might be.

Author: Nahshon Marini
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Video conferencing started with the invention of television, which was nothing but a one way communication channel. This technology transmitted video and sound signals to a wide audience but was just a one way communication channel. Video conferencing was the technique of transmitting as well as receiving video and audio signals between a group of people. Each individual in a video conferencing was able to interact with the other members of the conferencing through the hardware which consisted of the above mentioned video, audio and transmitting and receiving equipment. In the beginning of the 1960 there was just closed circuit video conferencing. This soon advanced to wireless communication between people on a video conferencing. The low definition video conferencing reproduction was soon to be replaced by high definition video conferencing technology in the nineties.

Technological advancements in the 1980s made digital telephony transmission possible. These brought technologies such as ISDN that assured a basic minimum bit rate of 128 kilo bytes per second available over a leased line. This technology assured a fair quality of audio as well as video signals to be transmitted over a vast area. The history of video conferencing had begun with the early experiments of NASA trying to simultaneously communicate with all its base stations and its astronauts in space. This video conferencing enabled scientists to communicate and instruct the astronauts with the experiments underway. It was the contribution of companies such as AT&T Picture Tel and the like that has made video conferencing what it is today. From the early history of video conferencing the technology has come a long way. Video conferencing equipment expanded through out the 90s and evolved into the internet video conferencing we have today. In fact, video conferencing cannot be possible in most parts of the world with out the Internet as this is the main tool of communications in vogue today.

VOIP is the main technology that has advanced the communications techniques all over the world and contributed to the history of video conferencing. Today video conferencing is available to the general public at very reasonable costs and ease. Internet Protocol, popularly known as IP, made video conferencing available to the world through the Internet in the mid 1990s. This enabled more efficient video compression possible leading to better transmission of video signals. Desktop video conferencing came into existence setting another milestone in the history of video conferencing.

Author: Shakir A.
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Distance learning has been greatly increasing in popularity over the course of the last several years, and as distance learning technologies become more accessible and less expensive it doesnt look like this trend will be stopping soon. By utilizing modern audio and video conferencing technology combined with web conferencing software, you can greatly increase the effectiveness of distance learning for both the teachers who provide the content and the students who wish to learn it. To help you determine whether audio and video conferencing and web technology can help you to improve your distance learning programs, please consider the following information.

Audio Conferencing

The use of audio conferencing in distance learning can be of great benefit to both teachers and students, since it allows them to interact with one another in ways that standard correspondence and e-mail communication cannot match. By using an audio bridge to allow real-time communication with a number of students at one or more distant locations, an educator can converse directly with students so as to answer any questions that they might have while allowing their comments and other input to drive the class discussion in new and interesting directions. Audio conferencing also allows an advanced distance learning setup to be established with relatively low cost and little technical maintenance. The main drawback to audio conferencing is the fact that there is no visual component to the lessons that are being taught; this is where video conferencing comes into play.

Video Conferencing

In a manner that is very similar to audio conferencing, video conferencing can allow distance educators to interact directly with students in real time. As the name suggests, the main difference between the forms is that video conferencing adds one or more cameras into the mix so that students will be able to see as well as hear the teacher or other speaker as well as any materials that they may present. A video conferencing setup may work in one of two ways there may be a video camera setup which captures the video and audio of the teacher or speaker and an audio setup which captures the responses of the students (meaning that there is one-way video and two-way audio), or there may be video setups on both ends of the conference connection to capture both video and audio (which allows for real time two-way video communication.) The video which is captured and transmitted (be it one-way video or two-way) is displayed on a television or other monitor at the other end of the connection; audio may also be routed into speakers within the monitor, external speakers, or a separate audio conferencing setup.

Internet Conferencing Solutions

Another alternative for distance learning which is growing in popularity combines both audio and video conferencing with the ease and convenience of internet communication. A number of software companies market internet conferencing software which allows users to not only interact directly with those on the other end of the connection, but additional software components may be integrated and used as well. This can be useful for distance learning educators by allowing them to post questions, quizzes, images, or a variety of other components which the students may then interact with and answer. Internet conferencing may feature either one- or two-way video, and utilizes two-way audio to allow teachers and students to converse as needed during lessons. In many cases software features may be customized to only allow certain users to receive specific content as well, so that sessions with multiple student locations may each have content specific to them as a supplement to the material being discussed by the instructor or other speakers.

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PC video conferencing software was Lunched a few years ago and is better known as P2P video-conferencing technology that integrates text chat, screen and document sharing and full session recording while remaining extremely easy and simple to use even for the people who are first timers to PC video conferencing. This Windows based software can be adapted to other operating systems such as Linux and Macs. Though PC video conferencing software is developed for few large and very prestigious corporations it is available for the large consumer market as well.

It is falsely believed by the man in the street that if PC video conferencing software doesn’t strike home fast and get a footing in the domestic market or gets new some funding from the government you won’t be able to buy PC video conferencing software for your own private use. But here is where they are all wrong. PC video conferencing software is available free for download on many sites on the Internet. PC video conferencing software is becoming so common that even the students in school are using it every day from out of cyber cafs and even their own personal PCs at home.

PC video conferencing software is a browser-based video conferencing application that requires a simple installation via an Internet Explorer active-X plug-in or a FireFox extension. If you don’t have the PC video conferencing software installed on your PC you can do so by going to the more popular sites such as Yahoo and Google or Skype and download their free versions of the PC video conferencing software. The downloading and installation is fully automated and you just have to sit back and watch the computer do its work. Once you have installed the software and are connected to the Internet you can take part in any PC video conferencing program on the Internet, of course you have to have access to the conference with a username or password.

Once launched the PC video conferencing software is very compact and simple to use. The few and simple controls PC video conferencing requires you to know are all easily accessible from the screen of the video window and they allow the user to freeze the video, mute the microphone or to access a simple menu containing access to the other key features of PC video conferencing.

Author: Shakir A.
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In video conferencing, synchronized images and verbal communication are transmitted between two or more locations. Now that we have videoconferencing defined, how does videoconferencing work?

Why Video Conferencing Works For Many

For video conferencing to work, you would need microphones, video cameras, the necessary computer software, hardware and peripherals, along with the transmission lines for sending video conferencing information amongst video conferencing participants.

When holding a video conferencing event, a codec translates the analog information received by the microphones and video cameras into digital information, which is then transmitted to another codec that translates the digital information back to the original sounds and images, which the video conferencing participants can understand.

Video conferencing used to be more expensive than it is today, because T1, ATM and ISDN lines were used for video conferencing, and all of these were very costly. However, the emergence of the Internet has provided a cheaper solution for video conferencing, using web video conferencing. As a result, video conferencing has become more present in small businesses.

The problem with video conferencing is that the conversion of information from analog to digital format can result in the decreased video quality. The compression ratio is the most important factor in video conferencing. The higher the compression ratio, the faster the video conferencing information is transmitted, but the lower the video quality.

Video conferencing can be used for communication among groups of people. Video conferencing is also very useful in education. Video conferencing can make learning more fun, and video conferencing can work for different learning styles. Video conferencing also allows experts from remote places to talk in classes.

Video conferencing is the wave of the future. Make video conferencing work for you, know more about video conferencing, and make a step forward on improving your conferencing services.

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New technology enables meeting participants see and hear each other during the conference, and can concentrate on the images and interaction among the participants. Video conferencing technology typically includes access to a network (ISDN and IP are the most common), conferencing equipment (monitor, camera, microphone and speakers), an audio system, and a codec (an acronym for coder/decoder). Meeting guests are also able to enjoy desktop/file sharing without actually having to upload any files. Conferencing allows two people to communicate at a distance. They may be separated in time or in location, or both. Conferencing is also for emergency hearings, if there is no time to organise a face-to-face hearing.

Distance Education may be defined as a process whereby anyone, in any location, receives instruction from another source, using any medium. Traditional instruction methods were limited to correspondence courses, satellite services, telephone conferences and, in the past few years, e-mail. Distance Learning graduate programs are one popular example, these graduate students are dispersed across the world but require real-time visual and verbal communication from anywhere a high speed Internet connection is available. Polycom’s PVX is different from other web conferencing applications as it is based on standard video conferencing protocols (ITU H.323) and can be combined in conferences with other system based classrooms and conference rooms.

Video conferencing is a powerful tool that enables face-to-face, real-time communications between associates around the world. A business executive in Boston can hold a virtual meeting with his factory managers in China. Video conferencing is an ideal technology to support communication both within and between such networks. The active nature of this visible medium when combined with its ability to link multiple user sites simultaneously is far superior to email or conventional telecommunication methods. Video conferencing is gaining momentum and broadband adoption and advances in technology make it much more attractive than the stamp-sized images, out-of-synch video audio, and poor image quality of first generation video. Business meetings, medical education (for doctors and nurses (or patients) in remote communities), and distributed education departments of colleges/universities are prime candidates for video conferencing.

This communication medium involving a computer, video camera, and network connection (an intranet or the internet for example). It allows a connection combining both voice and picture between two or more people. Video conferencing is also very useful in education. Video conferencing can make learning more fun, and video conferencing can work for different learning styles. Video conferencing is an ideal way to conduct most of these meetings. It is not only cost and time effective (saving as it does on the flight time and money but also the accommodation expenses) but also environmentally effective too. Video conferencing is very different from using the Internet. Using the Internet, we often do not come in direct contact with the people at the other end of the line; we do not see them on the screen in real time (although this is becoming more and more common), and the contact is relatively cheap. Video conferencing is a powerful tool and provides a virtual meeting environment that gives the benefit of real meeting. There are various kinds of conferences held using a video conferencing information system. Video conferencing is difficult to investigate as it does not only add visual contact with the speaker but also the sharing of visual information in the form of overheads, slides, 3-d objects or even microscopic objects. It is still not clear which is more important.

Using Video conferencing is an effective halfway house between phone conversations and face-to-face meetings. A number of management meetings are now held in this way. Video conferencing is used by many businesses usually to save both time and money. One of the great advantages of video conferencing is that two or more parties can have a virtual face to face meeting to conduct business, which is seen as more beneficial than just a conference call. Video conferencing is about feeling everyone’s presence and collaborating in a more realistic way. I don’t think HD video automatically draws everyone who uses video conferencing, or who’s considered it, to all of a sudden feel a good deal more confident. The new technology in the high def video conference systems really allows you to see the other party clearly, smoothly and in real time. One man even said “it allows you to see the other person sweat.”

Video conferencing is becoming important as a learning tool. Interactive video eliminates the physical boundaries of the classroom by connecting an instructor to students located in one or more remote locations. Video conferencing is provided over a robust network of dedicated T1 services across the state. Engineering Services maintains three video conferencing rooms that may be reserved. Video conferencing is providing organizations across the globe with a green solution that reduces the need for corporate travel. Many organizations of late have introduced company-wide travel bans to counter the soaring cost of air travel and hotel stays — but organizations that have multiple office locations and remote workers still need employees to meet frequently.

High Definition Video Conferencing is a communication technology that provides the ability to conduct two-way, interactive, video and audio classes or meetings in many Wyoming communities. The Division of Outreach Credit Programs in the Outreach School uses this visual delivery method to provide many distance education classes to sites around the state. Video conferencing is also possible over the internet for small classes (less than 20). Video conferencing is undergoing one of its most dynamic and exciting phases of development yet. The field is moving from a state of cacophony and high cost to one in which merging technology (i.e., audio, video and data) seems clearer and surer as world standards are followed and hardware price reductions become a reality.

Unlike the older communications systems new HD video conferencing is easy to use once it is set up correctly. With the right equipment video and audio quality are surprisingly good. Video conferencing is becoming a larger part of business for peripheral makers such as Logitech, who are seeing an increase in the sales of computer-attached video cameras. Logitech, I suspect, is trying to distinguish itself by tightly marrying its hardware to software from SightSpeed. Video conferencing is seen by some as lying between audio and face to face meetings, with text-based conferencing as an example of the ‘deprived’ end of the ‘educational communication technology’ continuum. Yet it is important to question an assumption that ‘more is better’ in the context of channels for classroom interaction. Video conferencing is far superior for training because listening for many minutes without visual stimuli can be very boring. Not only does seeing the presenter hold the attention better, video conferencing, also makes it possible to augment the presentation with video clips, animations, and graphics on boards.

Business travel costs continue to rise. Time is more valuable than ever. High definition video conferencing is getting better and more affordable. Business adoption of IP communications will also be influenced by how companies integrate other communications functionalities, such as wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi and WiMAX, IM, and video applications.

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You may think you understand video conferencing pretty well until someone who isnt at all familiar with it approaches you for a simple definition. When they ask, What exactly is video conferencing? you could suddenly realize youre at a loss for words.

The simplest definition of how video conferencing works is simply by the integration of video, audio and peripherals to enable two or more people to communicate simultaneously over some type of telecommunications lines. In other words, you are transmitting synchronized images and verbal communications between two or more locations in lieu of them being in the same room. How video conferencing works is a little bit harder to explain than answering the question, What is video conferencing?

Millions of people use video conferencing every day around the globe, but very few people know just how the technical aspects of the process work. The main ingredients of successful video conferencing are video cameras, microphones, appropriate computer software and computer equipment and peripherals that will integrate with the transmission lines to relay the information.

The analog information recorded by the microphones and cameras is broken down into discreet units, translating it to ones and zeros. A Codec encodes the information to a digital signal that can then be transmitted to a codec at the other end, which will retranslate these digital signals back into analog video images and audio sounds.

The theorys the same, the transmission has changed

In the earlier days of video conferencing, T1, ATM and ISDN lines were used almost exclusively but were really only practical for room-based video conferencing systems. These dedicated lines were expensive and only large corporations tended to have the facilities and money to invest in this type of set-up.

As the Internet became more a part of the everyday lives of all businesses, however, it changed how video conferencing was conducted. The TCP/IP connections of the Internet are much less expensive and can carry large quantities of information, including video packets for conferencing, relatively easily. Because of this, video conferencing has become much more prevalent in small businesses and in desktop packages that can be set up with software for computer-to-computer networking.

Compression makes video transmission practical

The problem that arises when you convert analog to digital for transmission is the loss of clarity in an image. Analog signals are a continuous wave of amplitudes and frequencies showing shades and ranges of color as well as depth and brightness. When you convert to digital, which is strictly 0s and 1s, you then need to develop a grid to represent values, intensities and saturations of different color values so that the image can be interpreted and reformed at the receiving end.

This vast amount of digital information requires huge bandwidth and means that the time it would take to transmit video images would be impractical for most applications. Thats where compression is crucial. When determining how video conferencing works, one of the most important elements is the compression ratio.

The higher the compression ratio, the more quickly the information is capable of being transmitted. In many cases, however, this also means some loss in clarity or audio/video quality. For instance, a compression ratio of 4:1 would be terribly slow but have a fantastic picture quality. But by the time it was transmitted, everyone at the other end would probably have left the room for a cup of coffee. Lossy compression discards unneeded or irrelevant sections of a signal in order to transmit only the essentials, speeding up the transmission time significantly but sometimes resulting in loss of quality.

Compression can either be intra-frame or inter-frame for material that is repetitive or redundant, such as that wall behind the conference participant. Since the wall remains static and never changes, this image is redundant and can be eliminated from transmissions to an extent with proper compression. Intra-frame compression assumes the redundancy will be present in parts of a frame that are close to each other. Inter-frame compression assumes that there is redundancy over time (i.e., like that wall). Either of these can achieve a fairly high degree of accuracy and reduce the bandwidth needed for transmittal of signals.

A newer version of compression/decompression is SightSpeed technology, developed by Cornell University. SightSpeed compresses only images considered essential and eliminating what is considered filler, relying on the brain to fill in the decompression at the other end. Based on an artificial intelligence model, SightSpeed achieves compression of about 90:1, compared to the typical 15:1 for video conferencing.

Any video conferencing session you use will provide compression of the transmission signal. The key is determining the balance between speed and video picture quality that is right for your needs.

Point to point video conferencing

Point to point video conferencing is just what it sounds like a link between two different points on the planet, or two different video conferencing terminals. It could be between an office in New York City and a conference room in Munich. Point to point video conferencing can easily be initiated by someone on one end contacting the other end as though making a standard telephone call. There are no special arrangements to be made other than knowing that the participants will be there.

Multipoint conferencing is more complex

Multipoint conferencing is more complicated because it has to coordinate several different locations simultaneously. Since you cant be in direct contact with several places at once while they are all in contact with others, you need one source that will tie them all together. In video conferencing, this is called a multipoint bridge or multipoint conferencing unit (MCU).

An MCU enables multi-location video conferencing by providing a sort of central processing center for all of the locations through which all the information flows. The MCU receives all information from the various locations and then sends it out to each location. In some cases the MCU is located on a particular PC, and in other cases it is located on a remote server (the most common structure, particularly for more powerful MCU networks).

Audio is usually sent and received simultaneously in all locations with an MCU with no problem because of the relatively small bandwidth needed for transmittal. It is broadcast in what is called full duplex mode, meaning everyone can talk and hear at the same time with no cutting off when one person or another speaks.

Video transmission, however, can be broadcast in a number of ways with an MCU depending upon the quality of the software and the complexity of the system. Some common types of video transmission for video conferencing include:

• Continuous Presence video conferencing, which allows up to four conference sites to be seen simultaneously on split screens. This is usually used if you have a small group or individuals in separate locations and will primarily be seeing close-up shots.
• Universal Control video conferencing is controlled by the initiating conference site. The primary site determines who sees what at all other sites.
• Voice Activated video conferencing is by far the most common type used today. The image with these systems shifts to the site that is currently activating the microphone so that you can always see whoever is speaking. However, if there is a good deal of background noise participants should mute their microphones when they arent talking in order to avoid the image jumping about needlessly.

Overcoming the language barrier

Obviously, communicating through video conferencing cant be achieved unless both ends of the conference are speaking the same language. That is, whatever is being transmitted electronically will need to be reassembled properly and heard and seen clearly at the other end. The Codec system (Coder-Decoder) is useless if both ends arent using the same virtual language to interpret the signals.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) developed a set of standards in 1996 dubbed H.323 to outline specific guidelines for Video Conferencing standards and protocols so that compliance and support across networks would be easier to achieve and maintain. Since then, many manufacturers and developers of video conferencing tools have adopted the H.323 guidelines as their own.

Web conferencing solutions such as Click to Meet, Lotuss SameTime, and WebEx also offer corporate solutions that are based on Internet video conferencing. These systems have shared protocols that can be downloaded and used anywhere at any location for subscribers through the Internet. These are becoming more popular with companies who like the convenience and user-friendliness. They will no doubt become more and more refined over time, vying with and perhaps surpassing the H.323 standards.

Overcoming firewall issues

There are, of course, obstacles to overcome when you take a look at how video conferencing works. After all, youre sending vast amounts of translated data either directly or through a gatekeeper system (the MCU) that is switching and transferring information between a variety of computers. Just about any business these days has a firewall system to provide security and protect the system from potential viruses. Trouble is, many firewalls also block the transmission of data for video conferencing.

Recent innovations have largely circumvented these problems by designing firewall solutions that recognize video conferencing signaling requests and allow the information packets to bypass the firewall or router without disabling the firewall protection for other traffic. Even with this, however, there may be occasions when packets are dropped because of heavy traffic on the system, so investing in a firewall system that can handle substantial traffic is essential to quality video conferencing performance.

How video conferencing works will certainly evolve over time and improve in the coming years, but a basic understanding of what it is and how it works now will help you make the best choice for you when youre ready to begin using video conferencing yourself.

This article on the “How Video Conferencing Works” reprinted with permission.
Copyright 2004 Evaluseek Publishing.

Author: Lucy P. Roberts
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No new technology develops smoothly, and video conferencing had more than its share of bumps along the way before becoming the widely used communications staple it is today. The history of video conferencing in its earliest form goes back to the 1960s, when AT&T introduced the Picturephone at the Worlds Fair in New York. While viewed as a fascinating curiosity, it never became popular and was too expensive to be practical for most consumers when it was offered for $160 a month in 1970.

Commercial use of real video conferencing was first realized with Ericssons demonstration of the first trans-Atlantic LME video telephone call. Soon other companies began refining video conferencing technologies, including such advancements as network video protocol (NVP) in 1976 and packet video protocol (PVP) in 1981. None of these were put into commercial use, however, and stayed in the laboratory or private company use.

In 1976, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone established video conferencing (VC) between Tokyo and Osaka for company use. IBM Japan followed suit in 1982 by establishing VC running at 48000bps to link up with already established internal IBM video conferencing links in the United States so that they could have weekly meetings.

The 1980s introduce commercial video conferencing

In 1982, Compression Labs introduces their VC system to the world for $250,000 with lines for $1,000 an hour. The system was huge and used enormous resources capable of tripping 15 amp circuit breakers. It was, however, the only working VC system available until PictureTels VC hit the market in 1986 with their substantially cheaper $80,000 system with $100 per hour lines.

In the time in between these two commercially offered systems, there were other video conferencing systems developed that were never offered commercially. The history of video conferencing isnt complete without mentioning these systems that were either prototypes or systems developed specifically for in-house use by a variety of corporations or organizations, including the military. Around 1984, Datapoint was using the Datapoint MINX system on their Texas campus, and had provided the system to the military.

In the late 1980s, Mitsubishi began selling a still-picture phone that was basically a flop in the market place. They dropped the line two years after introducing it. In 1991, the first PC based video conferencing system was introduced by IBM PicTel. It was a black and white system using what was at the time an incredibly inexpensive $30 per hour for the lines, while the system itself was $20,000. In June of the same year, DARTnet had successfully connected a transcontinental IP network of over a dozen research sites in the United States and Great Britain using T1 trunks. Today, DARTnet has evolved into the CAIRN system, which connects dozens of institutions.

CU-SeeMe revolutionizes video conferencing

One of the most famous systems in the history of video conferencing was the CU-SeeMe developed for the MacIntosh system in 1992. Although the first version didnt have audio, it was the best video system developed to that point. By 1993, the MAC program had multipoint capability, and in 1994, CU-SeeMe MAC was true video conferencing with audio. Recognizing the limitations of MAC compatibility in a Windows world, developers worked diligently to roll out the April 1994 CU-SeeME for Windows (no audio), followed closely by the audio version, CU-SeeMe v0.66b1 for Windows in August of 1995.

In 1992, AT&T rolled out their own $1,500 video phone for the home market. It was a borderline success. That same year, the worlds first MBone audio/video broadcast took place and in July INRIAs video conferencing system was introduced. This is the year that saw the first real explosion in video conferencing for businesses around the globe and eventually led to the standards developed by the ITU.

International Telecommunications Union develops coding standards

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) began developing standards for video conferencing coding in 1996, when they established Standard H.263 to reduce bandwidth for transmission for low bit rate communication. Other standards were developed, including H.323 for packet-based multi-media communications. These are a variety of other telecommunications standards were revised and updated in 1998. In 1999, Standard MPEG-4 was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as an ISO standard for multimedia content.

In 1993, VocalChat Novell IPX networks introduced their video conferencing system, but it was doomed from the start and didnt last. Microsoft finally came on board the video conferencing bandwagon with NetMeeting, a descendent of PictureTels Liveshare Plus, in August of 1996 (although it didnt have video in this release). By December of the same year, Microsoft NetMeeting v2.0b2 with video had been released. That same month, VocalTecs Internet Phone v4.0 for Windows was introduced.

VRVS links global research centers

The Virtual Room Videoconferencing System (VRVS) project at Caltech-CERN kicked off in July of 1997. They developed the VRVS specifically to provide video conferencing to researchers on the Large Hadron Collider Project and scientists in the High Energy and Nuclear Physics Community in the U.S. and Europe. It has been so successful that seed money has been allotted for phase two, CalREN-2, to improve and expand on the already in-place VRVS system in order to expand it to encompass geneticists, doctors, and a host of other scientists in the video conferencing network around the world.

Cornell Universitys development team released CU-SeeMe v1.0 in 1998. This color video version was compatible with both Windows and MacIntosh, and huge step forward in pc video conferencing. By May of that year, the team has moved on to other projects.

In February of 1999, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) was launched by MMUSIC. The platform showed some advantages over H.323 that user appreciated and soon made it almost as popular. 1999 was a very busy year, with NetMeeting v3.0b coming out, followed quickly by version three of the ITU standard H.323. Then came the release of iVisit v2.3b5 for both Windows and Mac, followed by Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), version 1. In December, Microsoft released a service pack for NetMeeting v3.01 (4.4.3388) and an ISO standard MPEG-4 version two was released. Finally, PSInet was the first company to launch H.323 automated multipoint services. Like we said, 1999 was a very busy year.

SIP entered version 1.30 in November of 2000, the same year that standard H.323 hit version 4, and Samsung released their MPEG-4 streaming 3G video cell phone, the first of its kind. It was a hit, particularly in Japan. Rather predictably, Microsoft NetMeeting had to release another service pack for version 3.01.

In 2001, Windows XP messenger announced that it would now support Session Initiation Protocol. This was the same year the worlds first transatlantic tele-surgery took place utilizing video conferencing. In this instance, video conferencing was instrumental in allowing a surgeon in the U.S. to use a robot overseas to perform gall bladder surgery on a patient. It was one of the most compelling non-business uses in the history of video conferencing, and brought the technology to the attention of the medical profession and the general public.

In October of 2001, television reporters began using a portable satellite and a videophone to broadcast live from Afghanistan during the war. It was the first use of video conferencing technology to converse live with video with someone in a war zone, again bringing video conferencing to the forefront of peoples imaginations.

Founded in December of 2001, the Joint Video Team completed basic research leading to ITU-T H.264 by December of 2002. This protocol standardized video compression technology for both MPEG-4 and ITU-T over a broad range of application areas, making it more versatile than its predecessors. In March of 2003, the new technology was ready for launch to the industry.

New uses for video conferencing technologies

2003 also saw the rise in use of video conferencing for off-campus classrooms. Interactive classrooms became more popular as the quality of streaming video increased and the delay decreased. Companies such as VBrick provided various MPEG-4 systems to colleges across the country. Desktop video conferencing is also on the rise and gaining popularity.

Companies newer to the market are now refining the details of performance in addition to the nuts and bolts of transmission. In April of 2004, Applied Global Technologies developed a voice-activated camera for use in video conferencing that tracks the voice of various speakers in order to focus on whoever is speaking during a conference call. In March 2004, Linux announced the release of GnomeMeeting, an H.323 compliant, free video conferencing platform that is NetMeeting compatible.

With the constant advances in video conferencing systems, it seems obvious that the technology will continue to evolve and become an integral part of business and personal life. As new advances are made and systems become more reasonably priced, keep in mind that choices are still determined by network type, system requirements and what your particular conferencing needs are.

This article on the “The History of Video Conferencing” reprinted with permission.
Copyright 2004 Evaluseek Publishing.

Author: Lucy P. Roberts
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

The following are important information that will help you choose the web conferencing hosting provider that fits to your needs.

1. Understand the difference between the different kinds of hosting services.

As the web hosting industry evolved and became more specialized to answer different business needs, it is important to understand how providers differ to make the right decision.

Shared Hosting is a service where all the clients of the host can use the server. It is like sharing a very large conference room with other clients. That means that if multiple clients use the server at the same time, the performance of the site may be affected. The good thing, however, is that this service is often cheap.

Dedicated Hosting is basically leasing a server from the host where you are the only client who can use it, unlike shared hosting. The level of technical support depends on the price you pay; but still, this is the best option for large businesses and industries who wish to have an uninterrupted online communication and large size data storage.

2. Do not place budget your top priority.

Saving money is good but make sure that the money you save from selecting a cheaper hosting company can answer your service requirements. Remember the old saying “you get what you pay for”? A cheaper hosting company may not offer features that are important to your business. Connection speed can also become an issue. Over-prioritizing on the price can bring you to lots of problems later on and maybe, can cost you more.

3. Don’t get blinded with the brand.

Big and familiar names in the industry may have reliable services but that doesn’t mean they are stable. When choosing your hosting company, open up yourself to all available companies that can provide your needs.

4. Prioritize on security.

During web conferencing, you send, receive and store confidential information about your business that you don’t want others to know. If the hosting company is not well-equipped with standard security features, spammers, hackers and online criminals can access freely to your information. A good hosting company has Secure Socket Layer (SSL), non-persistent data flow and intrusion control features. These security standards are set by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to protect the users and the data from authorized access.

5. Understand the payment methods and make sure that you know how much do the maintenance and technical support cost.

The different maintenance and technical support services should be properly outlined. Know which services are free and paid.

6. Take note of your needs.

Ending up with wrong hosting company is not only annoying but also expensive. Before purchasing a service, make sure that you know what are the features they offer and if these features fit to your need. It is important to list down all the features you need and find a host that provide these features.

Web conferencing are reliable and economical but make sure that you choose the host carefully so that you can enjoy and maximize the benefits of this technology.

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