Notes

THE FUNDAMENTALS of Video Conferencing
Modern business operations all share the same rapidly depleting commodity: Time. When time is leveraged, productivity and output invariably increases inside a business organization. Technology continues to provide workers and businesses with new tools to greatly help leverage time. Video conferencing could prove to be the most important time leveraging business tools of the 21st century.

Once an extravagance for only the biggest companies, video conferencing is starting to change the landscape of how businesses communicate with both employees and clients. In its simplest form, video conferencing allows two individuals to be thousands of miles apart but still effectively communicate as though they were in exactly the same room. Systems used today can now connect multiple parties across multiple continents - instantly with excellent and high quality video and audio.

The Origins of Video Conferencing

Video conferencing capabilities started in the 1970s. Much like every other technology in use today, video conferencing has changed dramatically since first being developed. Early proponents of video conferencing technology had no standards or protocols to rely on. This fact made a teleconference via video a pricey proposition - one that only huge companies and government agencies could afford. In a time where mobile phones were still a decade away for some consumers and businesses, video teleconferences were few and far between.

Today, affordable networks and systems are accessible around the world. Interoperability of video teleconferencing systems is virtually guaranteed now that standards and protocols have been clearly established.

Specific Standards and Protocols for Video Conferencing

To create any technology usable for the masses, standards and protocols are required to insure systems, software and hardware are ubiquitous across the board.

To help guarantee video teleconferencing compatibility between manufacturers, the International Telecommunications Union developed and defined a series of video conferencing standards. Set up since the mid-1990s, current standards are defined with regards to H.3xx.

H.3xx are "umbrella" tips for video conferencing. They include the protocols for coding video/audio, multiplexing, signaling, and control.

The core H.3xx recommendations are as follows:

H.320 - Narrow-band video conferencing over circuit-switched networks (N-ISDN, SW56, dedicated networks) H.321 - Narrow-band video conferencing over ATM and B-ISDN H.323 - Narrow-band video conferencing over non-guaranteed quality-of-service packet networks (LAN, Internet, etc.) H.324 - Very narrow-band video conferencing on the general (dial-up) telephone network H.310 - Wide-band (MPEG-2) video conferencing over ATM and B-ISDN H.323 is a standard for audio, video, and data communication over IP-based (Internet Protocol) networks.

All major video conferencing manufacturers produce ITU compliant equipment. Whenever choosing video conference equipment, be sure that you select something that does not offer only proprietary ways of operation.

How Video Conferencing Works

The success of a video teleconference depends entirely on the equipment and network capabilities behind that equipment.

Since real-time video contains a tremendous amount of data, it is imperative that the system being used can handle a high amount of bandwidth at any moment. Fortunately, video conferencing systems are created to "sample" and "compress" a certain part of data (such as the unchanging "background' of the room) to greatly help conserve bandwidth. This compression is accomplished through what is commonly known as a "codec". A video codec may be the device or software that enables video compression and or decompression for digital video.

It's the job of the codec to "sample" data at specific time intervals (fractions of a second) and then compress this data in order that it can be delivered over the network. The codec on the receiving end then reassembles audio and video for transmission onto a television or computer screen. To conserve bandwidth, the codec focuses on the most crucial data - i.e. moving objects such as people, props, etc. Moving objects have a considerable amount of processing power, so the better the codec, the higher quality your video conference can look.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Choosing a Video Conferencing Solution

A multitude of video conferencing systems are available in the marketplace. Before purchasing PABX System or services from vendors, consider the following as a starting point to narrow down the requirements of something that fits together with your business needs:

How will you be using video conferencing? A straightforward video conference between employees in exactly the same town, building or area will require a far more basic solution than video conferencing multiple parties across the vast distances. Determine the maximum video conference scenario you will be utilizing to narrow down bandwidth and equipment requirements.
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