Video conferencing uses telecommunications of audio and video to bring people at different sites together for a meeting. This can be anywhere from a conversation between two people in private offices or involving several people located at different sites.

In today's economy, companies are are looking at cutting costs, including travel, while maintaining and even increasing productivity levels.  Video Conferencing is an ideal solution because it enables a geographically dispersed workforce to communicate and collaborate more effectively and productively over distances from their desktops, meeting rooms, class rooms, mobile settings, etc.

Besides the audio and visual transmission of people, video conferencing platforms are also used to share documents, computer-displayed information, and whiteboards.  Integrating the use of video within an organization has been shown to accelerate decision making, scale knowledge, unify the organization and provide better work/life balance for employees.

There are a couple of different options for those looking for a videoconferencing system.  There's VC through a "dedicated system", where all the required components are packaged into a single piece of equipment, usually a console with a high quality remote controlled pan/tilt/zoom video camera.  Then there's what's called a "desktop system" or PC-based peripheral set-up where components are added to a desktop computer in order to make it a video conferencing system.  The third option is a relatively new and highly

Cisco Telepresence

expensive trend called "telepresence". Telepresence is defined as “a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.” (Wikipedia 2010)  Basically, with telepresence, the person not in the office comes through in almost a 3D fashion making it seem as though they are actually sitting next to you when they are not.

(On a quick side note, I was given the opportunity to check out some of the telepresence systems being demonstrated at Infocomm 2008 and they were amazing!)

Mass adoption and use of video conferencing is still relatively low and has been attributed to the following reasons:

  • Complexity of systems. Most users are not technical and want a simple interface. If anything goes wrong, unless there's a person within the organization to help troubleshoot the problem, people get frustrated and tend to scrap the system all together.
  • Perceived lack of interoperability: not all systems are 'plug n play" and have different component requirements based on how a person tries to connect it.
  • Bandwidth and quality of service: In some countries it is difficult or expensive to get a high quality connection that is fast enough for good-quality video conferencing. Technologies such as ADSL have limited upload speeds and cannot upload and download simultaneously at full speed. As Internet speeds increase higher quality and high definition video conferencing will become more readily available.
  • Expense of commercial systems - a well designed system requires a specially designed room and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fit out the room with codecs, integration equipment and furniture.
  • Participants being self-conscious about being on camera, especially new users and older generations.
  • Lack of eye contact

Although having a dedicated system is ideal for larger companies with bigger budgets to spend on video conferencing set-ups, the PC-based camera set-up seems more ideal for companies or people who are on a budget.

Most companies have one computer to each employee in the office and most people have at least one personal computer at home.  For those looking at setting up a PC-based VC system, they've already eliminated about 40% of the cost since virtually any modern computer system (that you already posess) will work with the right components.  Whether USB or PCI bus, so long as new peripherals have device drivers, software vendors such as Nefsis can use these new components via standardized APIs and leverage their availability, low-cost and consumer-driven SD and HD quality.

The Sony EVI series of pan/tilt/zoom robotic cameras are a popular choice for conference room applications. The EVI-D70 has a large installed base, and it is commonly used with online video conferencing platforms like Nefsis. When using Nefsis, the EVI-D70 is used for full-screen (640x0480), full motion (30 fps) video conferencing). The EVI-HD1 is a relatively new addition to the Sony product line offering users true High Defintion capabilities.  In 2009, Sony introduced its new line of BRC ptz cameras, although not quite as popular as their EVI counterparts due to their higher cost, they are also widely used for video conferencing applications.

As technology advances and more bandwidth becomes available, people are migrating away from standard definition towards HD quality because it provides an excellent user experience with true-to-life quality for rich interaction and team collaboration.

HD resolution generally starts at 720p and can go up to "full HD" at 1080p resolution. The resolution, or number of pixels, determines the clarity of your video. The "frame rate" determines the “smoothness” of your video. It is the time it takes to complete a full round of the system's processing tasks  in order for the camera to feed real time images directly to a screen for immediate observation. The faster the frame rate, the more "real-time" the video transmition becomes.  If the frame rate of a real-time system is 60 frame per second, the system reevaluates all necessary inputs and updates the necessary outputs 60 times per second.

While High Definition is not used in all locations or applications today, choosing a video system that can easily scale up to HD when needed ensures you have a system that is useful today and into the future.  This need is where the EVI-HD1 becomes ideal.  This single chip-based, pan/tilt/zoom camera features multi-format capabilities to output both standard- and high-definition video so users can easily migrate from standard-definition to HD.

To use the newer HD1 at high definition quality levels requires a PCI bus video capture card that supports HD signaling and frame rates, plus an available DirectX device driver. At the present time, there are a few new capture cards that meet these requirements including dPict Imaging's new Nexeon HD Xtra PCI Express video frame grabber that comes with DVI, HDMI, HD-SDI and analog component.  This board was recently tested with the Sony EVI-HD1 and worked beautifully!

For the standard definition EVI-D70, with the Viewcast Osprey-210 Capture card offers users crisp, TV-quality video on a PC.  Other components required for both standard and high defintion PC-based peripheral systems include, a wall or ceiling mount for the camera and cables, most PTZ cameras come with their own remote control for panning, tilting and zooming.

Nefsis is compatible with Sony Pan-Tilt-Zoom HD cameras.

Sony EVI-HD1 SD/HD P/T/Z camera

In review, whether looking for a simple SD video conferencing system or a higher quality HD system, there is going to be some sort of investement required to get your system set-up. People have been known to get a $200 webcam to work for video conferencing but neither quality, durability or support comes with the product and all they are usually left with is an 800 number which may or may not be helpful and a good dose of frustration.  Dedicated systems on the other hand are great but carry an extremely hefty price tag which is why they are typically found in larger companies.  Telepresence is still relatively new and let's face it, most small to medium sized companies are looking into VC systems in order to save money, not to spend a small fortune in order to have a 3D visual of their employees when seeing them on a large screen display will do the job.

As for the camera/computer set-up, the list price of the EVI-D70 runs $1,575, $209 for the Osprey-210 capture card and cabling and mounts can range from $50-$125/each depending on the product.  The list price for the EVI-HD1 runs roughly $4,000 and the Nexeon HD Xtra runs $1,795 list but again, this camera system gives you a long term advantage of being able to switch from SD to HD in the future when the time is right.

 

No matter what system set-up you chose, the fact still remains that video conferencing and telepresence systems are just the next evolutionary step in how the world communicates and interacts with eachother.  Whether from home, on the road or in the office if you do not already have video conferencing in place,  when are you going to?

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