Videoconferencing Technologies Date: 11/7/03 Presenters: Robert Evans Director, Office of IT Mike Eldridge Coordinator of Distance Education & User Services

What is videoconferencing? Videoconferencing: (Compliments of Webopoedia online encyclopedia) Conducting a conference between two or more participants at different sites by using computer networks to transmit audio and video data. VC is synchronous (real-time)... not to be confused with delivery of streaming video and audio asynchronously

What is videoconferencing?

What is H.323? H.323: (Compliments of Webopoedia online encyclopedia) A standard approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that defines how audiovisual conferencing data is transmitted across networks. In theory, H.323 should enable users to participate in the same conference even though they are using different videoconferencing applications.

What is Bandwidth? Bandwidth: (Compliments of Webopoedia online encyclopedia) The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).

Point-to-point Point-to-Point: A point-to-point (two-person) video conferencing system works much like a video telephone. As the two participants speak to one another, their voices are carried over the network and delivered to the other's speakers, and whatever images appear in front of the video camera appear in a window on the other participant's monitor.

Point-to-point

Multipoint Multipoint: Multipoint videoconferencing allows three or more participants to sit in a virtual conference room and communicate as if they were sitting right next to each other. Until the mid 90s, the hardware costs made videoconferencing prohibitively expensive for most organizations, but that situation is changing rapidly.

Multipoint

SOE Videoconferencing Hardware Hardware typically used in the SOE Polycom ViaVideo (Desktop System) Polycom Viewstation SP Polycom Viewstation 128 Polycom Viewstation FX (Built-in MCU)

SOE Videoconferencing Software Software typically used in the SOE: Polycom ViaVideo (PC Application) CUSeeMe Conferencing Server (Software-based MCU) Polycom Global Management System

Questions? ? Questions