Video Conferencing Facilities: Connecting People In An Easy And Inexpensive Way
An incorporation of peripherals, video and audio technology to make communication easier between two people at distant places is called video conferencing. This is a new method that is carried on some king of telecommunications lines. It helps to transfer coordinated images and verbal interaction amongst more than two locations.
The equipments that are required for video conferencing facilities are-microphones; computer software and equipment selected accordingly, video cameras and other peripherals that are required to link the transmission lines for a successful communication and transfer of information.
There are various methods that enable the working of video conferencing facilities. Cameras and microphones record the analog information, which is divided into small discreet units. These discrete units are further interpreted into zeros and ones. The encoding of information into digital signal is done by a codec. After this is done, it is conveyed to the codec at the other side. This codec will then again translate the digital signal into audio sound and the images of analog video.
Earlier, video conferencing facilities were used by ISDN, ATM and T1 lines. Thus, it was quite an expensive facility. But nowadays, with Internet available at reasonable rates it has become an inexpensive facility and is widely used, especially by large business organizations. Internet employs TCP/IP protocols that are very cheap and can transmit a lot of information easily. Video packets of information can also simply be transmitted. The basic problem that was creating trouble in video conferencing facilities was the fact that there was no image clarity and audio quality as well, incase the information is converted into digital form from analog form. The compression ratio is of prime importance in video conferencing. The higher the ratio, the sooner the information will be converted. There are various video conferencing facilities that are available. By broadcasting or networking a group of computers, one can conduct meetings and interact with several concerned people at the same time. This also saves time and inconvenience of people to gather at a common place. This is of great help to multi-national companies for whom it is practically impossible to take advice from people staying in other countries regarding every important decision that has to be taken. Schools also benefit a lot from this facility. Students can learn this way better than from any textbook. They can conduct discussions with their friends and clear their doubts more effectively. Otherwise, the limitations of distance and time would never allow them such successful discussions. Also, some students are good at visual learning than textbook learning. So, video conferencing facilities are also of great help to such students. Thus, it has overall changed the face of the world by providing an easy and inexpensive way for people to connect to each other.
| 