My Bite Into The Apple

by Jordan Brock

Try Video Conferencing Services ? Stay Ahead of Time

The world is changing and so are methods of communication available to businesses. To stay afloat in this ever-changing market, you need to keep your business up to date. By replacing your years-old communication process with video conferencing, you can benefit from these changes to technology whilst saving money.

What is Video Conferencing?

Video conferencing is an interface that lets users organise a conference using telecommunication technologies. Users located at different offices or companies can participate in a videoconference to get a real time conferencing experience without the travel.

By streaming video and audio files in real time, video conferencing equipment helps people in two or more locations to interact with each other; creating the right virtual environment for group communication and discussion.

Video conferencing consists of suitable hardware and software to transmit video and audio signal simultaneously.

Videoconference technology is distinguishably different from videophones though both are capable of audio and video transmission simultaneously. Videophone uses duplex transmission process where only two nodes can communicate with each other; whereas, video conferencing is designed for group or one on one communications.

Hence, individuals and groups in two or more places can easily interact with each other with a video conference solution, allowing world wide real time meetings to take place.

Advantages of Video Conference technology:

Video Conference solutions provide real financial benefits in the long run. Without video conferencing in your company when you need to hold conferences or meetings with staff in remote locations, customers or suppliers you need to arrange either a basic telephone conference or visit these locations physically. Both the processes are expensive and limiting. Using video conferencing services, you can meet remotely located people and have a group communication without incurring any additional cost.

Saving travelling time and costs will also reduce the carbon footprint of your company whilst saving lengthy delays caused by most travel methods – weather you are flying or travelling by car.

Finally, the interface is simple to use. Video conferencing equipment does not need highly skilled operators; users can control the hardware and software with just basic training.

Video Conferencing


Image by David Warlick
This was very interesting. It is a video conferencing center where the participants site around the table. The item in the middle is a multi-directional camera. Truly!

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by Alamagordo

Video Conferencing, the World, and You

It’s been a long time coming, but in the final stretch, video conferences sprinted to the finish line… almost. When they first came out, they were expensive, cumbersome, choppy, and hard to find. And now our top-of-the-line video conferencing systems have come far, but they are still expensive and cumbersome. Be expectant, the future is just around the corner.

In 2008, you can pop up a little video window on your computer using a free chat/instant messaging window – having first bought a thirty dollar webcam, of course. It’s small and choppy, but free and easy. You could also spend around a hundred dollars and get a nice webcam and use a video conferencing service. This is a good option for clear, smooth video conferencing. It’s a far cry from a floor to ceiling screen with resolution so good you can count freckles, but unless you have half a million dollars, it’s as close as you’re going to get.

Despite having said that, we’ve come a long way in just five years. Small and choppy video was all you could really get back then, and now we can get decent quality and sound, inexpensively and easily. Imagine what it will be like in five more years.

Even so, to get there, we have to extensively use what we have now to justify progressing the medium. Like a mom telling us to finish our greens before we can get dessert, to get insanely good video conferencing for everyone, we have to show that there is a demand, a need to encourage developers to make things better and cheaper.

The good news is that collectively, we are already doing this. Hospitals are a prime example of cutting edge video conferencing being put to use. Doctors in hospitals across the country or world can discuss a particular diagnosis instantly via a video conference. In some hospitals, screens attached to motorized bases roll around the halls of medicine controlled by doctors in their offices or homes. They follow-up with their patients, look for complications, discuss further treatments, etc. and roll to the next room.

Another incredible use of video conferencing combined with robotics is telesurgery. Robot arms with medical attachments can be controlled remotely and with video conferencing, surgeons can see and be seen despite being worlds away. Imagine the world’s foremost heart surgeon treating patients around the world, all from a room in his local hospital.

For military purposes, video conferencing has provided options that were needed, but not feasible before. HQ can now converse with all of its battlefield commanders at once. No more do leaders have to leave their men to give reports or updates on the situation. More importantly, video conferences allowed for real-time collaboration of all commanders in one session. Splice in real-time video from the front, and a clearer picture of what to do is formed.

Education isn’t left out of the video conferencing revolution. Guest lecturers are no longer a rare and expensive event. They can be piped in to hundreds of classrooms at once to enlighten and teach. And it’s not just on college campuses either, students of all grades are benefitting from remote teaching. Naturally, this led us to remote learning. Especially in low-income locations, students who normally wouldn’t have a shot at an education can log in and be taught by teachers who might not even be in the same country.

Video conferences have made great strides in business as well. Salespeople are able to visit and talk with vastly more customers and potential customers in a fraction of the time that it used to take. A company’s branch managers can quickly get together to discuss strategies and new policies with the time and expense of a phone call. CEOs often get their most important employees on a video conference to get the feel of what is going on in the company.

What does this mean for you if you are not one of the people in the examples above? It means that because of the ground-breakers in science, medicine, the military, education, and business, video conferencing is a very real and very affordable option for you. If your business doesn’t have it, get it. There are a myriad of ways that video conferencing can help you improve your communication, efficiency, and budget. All you have to have is a little imagination. If you can’t imagine anything, wait five years and take your pick of the incredible solutions to be had then.

A mobile Video Conferencing Cart


Image by mano3268
This cart had everthing one would need to do a tele-presence call – it had wheels and the camera/monitor mount could be raised/lowered

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by kga245

Video Conferencing – the Next Best Thing to a Face to Face Conversation

These days it’s certainly not uncommon for businesses to operate on a global scale, and more and more companies are establishing their presence in various countries all of the time. While this can lead to significant advancements and success for many businesses, it can also potentially lead to issues regarding effective communication. This is because it’s not always possible or cost-effective to hold face-to-face meetings and conversations. However, strong relationships and solid connections are vital to the survival and success of any business. As a result, it’s important to be able to communicate effectively and to engage other people even when not in the same location. Fortunately, thanks to technological advancements, businesses can now make use of video conferences, the next best thing to face-to-face conversations.

Video conferencing solutions use interactive telecommunications technologies to allow people in different locations to connect with each other through real-time video and audio transmissions. It can be used to connect people in two locations or in multiple different locations. Video meetings that take place between only two people are known as point-to-point conferences while meetings involving several locations are known as multi-point conferences. In the latter type of case, a Multipoint Control Unit serves as a bridge to interconnect video calls coming in from several different locations. By allowing participants to both see and hear each other in real-time, video conferencing solution provide a way to experience live conversations without being situated in the same physical location.

While face-to-face conversations may still be necessary in certain circumstances, video conferences will often provide an excellent alternative to on-site meetings. As a result, video meetings have the potential to provide companies and corporations with a wide array of significant benefits. First of all, using video conferences to connect with others allows businesses to enjoy significant time savings. With video conferencing solutions from quality service providers, planning and initiating video meetings can be achieved very quickly and easily. In fact, it’s possible to connect with others via video meetings in a matter of minutes. Moreover, by being able to communicate with co-workers and clients without the need to leave the office, precious time no longer needs to be wasted by traveling back-and-forth across town, the country or the world.

In a similar fashion, video conferencing solutions can also lead to significant savings of money. When time delays between meetings and conversations are reduced, action can be taken faster and opportunities can be seized more quickly. In addition, when business travel is no longer necessary in order to communicate effectively with people in different locations, travel costs can be greatly reduced. After all, it’s no secret that the costs of fuel, plane tickets and accommodation are becoming more and more of a concern. So whether the bulk of a company’s business travel previously involved driving across the city or jetting across the ocean, video conferencing is a great solution to tight budgets.

Another important consideration in today’s world is the environment. With global warming and sustainability becoming increasingly important issues for both individuals and corporations, finding ways to reduce negative impacts upon the environment is a major aspect of improving business practices. Since video conferencing solutions allow business people to connect and converse very effectively without the need for travel, this form of communication allows companies to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. As a result, it provides the benefits of face-to-face conversations without harming the environment with the excessive carbon emissions that come with traveling by land or air.

While video conferencing provides many benefits with respect to time, money and the environment, they are also extremely versatile. In fact, it can be used by companies in many different industries for many different purposes. Whether businesses operate in the investment, medical or educational sectors, video conferencing solutions can be used to provide online training sessions, to conduct long-distance interviews, to showcase new products, to conduct focus groups and to hold sales meetings. Thus, while face-to-face meetings are held for a wide variety of purposes and to achieve many different goals, video conferences are also highly flexible and can be used to connect people for a multitude of different reasons.

Considering the fact that so many companies and corporations now operate on a global scale and conduct daily operations in numerous different countries, it’s understandable that business communications needs are no longer the same as they were in the past. With video conferencing solutions from leading service providers such as InterCall®, companies can save time and money while still creating and maintaining strong bonds and relationships with associates and clients around the globe. With so many excellent benefits and advantages, video conferences really are the next best thing to face-to-face conversations.

Polycom HDX 9000 Series HD Video Conferencing


Image by AV-1
Polycom’s high def video conferencing solution. It will transmit 720P at 30 frames per second. They expect to transmit 720P at 60 frames per second early next year.
1080p ? It will take a while.
www.polycom.com/usa/en/home/index.html

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