VIDEO CONFERENCING

Video Conferencing

Video Conferencing

Introduction

Video conferencing is basically the communication between two or more person located in different location by using electronic video linkages. Videoconferencing can be point to point, i.e., when performed between two distant places, or multi-point, when people are in three or more different sites. So actually it is a virtual meeting.

In the first case, each point has a console that controls the different functions such as camera movement, focus, sound, etc and every place can be looked through monitors. In multi-point video conferencing, it is not possible to achieve the so-called "continuous presence", i.e., all users cannot see each other simultaneously. At any given time, one can only see a person (McCain, 2003).

In video conferencing the communication takes place in real time, via telephone, and transmits both picture and sound in both directions. The partners view and speak as if they are in the same room together, while they can exchange information, fax graphic and documentary video slides, etc.

Videoconferencing systems are composed of monitors, cameras, microphones, speakers and the Codec .The most common videoconferencing terminal has all the elements integrated in one product: video camera, monitor, and the codec with the compressor. Other systems have as a personal computer platform (PC, MAC) which installs a kit consisting of a camera, microphone, speaker, video cards and audio coding, communication terminal (ISDN) and software operation.

History of Videoconferencing

The interest in communication using moving images had grown since the introduction of commercial television in 1940 .Television developed as a valuable source of information and entertainment. We can have visual access to the most relevant world events when they occur. We have quickly become visual receptors. In 2004 world trade fair at New York, AT & T introduced a videophone prototype which required quite expensive communication lines to broadcast video in motion, with costs of nearly a thousand dollars per minute.

The dilemma was the amount and type of information required to display video images. Video signals included much higher frequencies than they could bear the telephone network (particularly those of the 60's). The only possible method for transmitting video signals over long distances was via satellite, the satellite industry was in its infancy then, and the cost of ground equipment combined with income from satellite time far exceeded the benefits to be gained, by having small groups of people using this medium.

Discussion

First of all the question is that whether video conferencing is an effective tool or not. One factor contributing to the effectiveness of videoconferencing, unlike usual on television, is the presence of a group of students at each site connected, rather than a transmitter (the teacher or a speaker) is only to the cameras. This gives assistance to the activities of teachers and students, and allows the design to all classrooms connected as a single large 'virtual' classroom (Phillips 2005).

The symmetrical nature of video conferencing, audio conferencing and electronic mail is a significant determinant of its importance for education. A major consequence of symmetry is that the media allows ...