What is Video Conferencing?
Posted by Kathleen S on Fri, Dec 04, 2009 @ 08:35 AM
In large national or international companies, an employee may have a number of conversations with a co-worker at a distant location, but never see who they are talking to. That can be the case over many years. When people meet in person or see each other during a conversation, it changes the whole dynamic of the relationship. Video conferencing accomplishes this and much more.
Video conferencing has been around for a long time, but it was the advent of modern webcams and widespread broadband since the late nineties that have been the real catalyst for its common use. Both hardware and software improvements have made video conferencing a practical solution for businesses of all sizes. That availability may even extend to portable devices.
Practical uses and benefits
Video conferencing may even play a key role in helping the environment by making telework more feasible. By creating a virtual work environment, video conferencing can allow co-workers to collaborate on projects in a way not possible before, allowing more employees who live far from their work locations to stay home.
Online courses at universities and colleges have taken a big leap forward because of video conferencing. Students can watch a professor teach a course as if they were there in the classroom. They can watch graphical presentations also as if they were present.
Video conferencing; close to real life
As with other conferencing technologies, video conferencing saves on travel expenses, time absent from the workplace and time spent traveling. It can bring participants together into a virtual meeting that is as close to the real thing as possible.
While high definition has sparked a revolution in the television industry, the same technology has increased the realism of remote participants in a video conference, making the experience as close to having all participants physically in a room as possible. Combined with higher bandwidth capabilities, video conferencing has achieved a more lifelike ability and practicality.
Multiple participants can be projected or displayed on a single screen during a video conference. This allows for instant recognition of the participant who is currently speaking. Improvements in packet loss handling and codec optimization have increased the overall quality of video images, audio and uniformity.
Video Conference Considerations
Considerations for video conferencing include the video call reliability, ease of use and total ROI. Video conferencing has come far enough to be a turnkey solution including second and third generation content delivery tools, networks and services and audio/video integration. Real-time call management services can take control of most of the tasks so that participants can concentrate on their meeting.
Additional considerations for a video conferencing system would be intuitive controls or minimal controls, the ability to remotely diagnose problems on the fly and easy system testing. Cameras should be versatile and easily mounted. Conference phones should reduce noise and distortion and have the capability to capture voices near and far.
