Video Conferencing

Video Conferencing

What is Video Conferencing?
 Video conferencing or video communications is the ability to communicate with other people as if they were in the same room. For video conferencing to really succeed, participants need to be able to see, hear and use meeting tools regardless of whether participants are in the same room or across the other side of the world. Video conferencing is defined as: “a live connection between people in separate locations for the purpose of communication, usually involving audio and often text as well as video. At its simplest, videoconferencing provides transmission of static images and text between two locations. At its most sophisticated, it provides transmission of full-motion video images and high-quality audio between multiple locations.”

Video conferencing, as a technology, has been around for approximately 40-50 years. However,
the growth of video conferencing has depended heavily on the availability to run on a reliable
digital communications network. It wasn’t until the early 1990’s that ISDN standards were
introduced and, finally, video conferencing could begin to grow.
Systems in the mid to late 1990’s were expensive and only really a technology that larger
multinational companies could afford and then only at the higher levels in the organisation. The
decrease in endpoint price, increase in quality and functionality as well as global events, such as
the Gulf wars, increased terrorist activity and, more recently, climate change concerns have
fuelled the growth of video conferencing. In addition, just as the standardisation of ISDN networks
fuelled the initial adoption in the early 1990’s, the ability to run video conferencing over computer
data networks has also fuelled growth in the past three years or so. 

Videoconferencing can speed up business processes and procedures in the same way that e-mail has revolutionised the way we share information. The most common reason for implementing video conferencing is to save travel costs. However other benefits are often more important. First, it isn’t just the cost of travel but the cost of the time taken to travel. Travel also causes wear and tear on an individual which reduces their effectiveness. Business travel isn’t going to disappear completely but video conferencing can significantly reduce it and really make a difference to productivity. On top of the time saving benefits there are also significant benefits in changing the way we do business. Video conferencing greatly improves communication between remote sites both within a company and between suppliers and customers. Product or project development times can be decreased and easily involve experts where ever they are. This can increase profit and the quality of the end result. Meetings are often more effective over video and can be held more often. This, in turn, enables companies to make decisions within smaller time frames solving urgent problems more quickly and also enabling companies to react to market changes faster.

Video conference components :

Display

Cameras

Microphone

Amplifier Speakers

Echo cancellation

 Networks