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Deploying Video Conferencing

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PCQ Bureau
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In today's world of traffic jammed roads, jam-packed public transport

systems, and over-crowded airports, delays have become a part and parcel of

everyone's lives. Earlier for instance, one could easily catch an early morning

flight from one metro city to another (del-bom-blr), and still reach in time to

catch a morning meeting. Today however, thanks to the inadvertent flight delays,

this is just not possible. Instead, you end up taking the previous evening's

flight and reaching your destination very late in the night (because even the

evening flight gets horribly delayed), and attend a morning meeting all bleary

eyed because you couldn't catch enough sleep.

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And then there are the infamous govt. infrastructure projects like the High

Capacity Bus System Corridor in Delhi, which has completely thrown traffic out

of gear over a 14-km stretch. There are also the floods in Mumbai, which happen

during every monsoon, and bring the city to a complete standstill. There are

also the dreaded one-ways in Bangalore, which confuse the hell out of even local

commuters because the routes keep getting redefined.

So what's the solution to all these delays? No business can wait for the

public infrastructure to catch up. If you need to discuss something important

with a customer, then it has to happen at any cost, no matter what the

infrastructure. A phone call doesn't always fulfill the need, and travelling

wastes a lot of time. The only solution left therefore is to deploy video

conferencing.

The first significant boost that video conferencing industry received was

after 9/11, because people were avoiding travel due to fear. Today, air travel

is once again on a high. In fact, it's so high



that the infrastructure is playing catch up to cope with the increasing traffic.
The delays it causes in air travel makes everyone wish that they could somehow

avoid it. That makes another perfect case for video conferencing.

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Interesting applications of Video Conferencing



Besides saving time and money in travel for business meetings, many other
interesting applications of video conferencing have also emerged. One of them is

the famous tele-justice project, a video conferencing deployment by Polycom in

Indian jails and district courts. This has cut down on the transport expenses

(fuel + manpower) associated with taking the accused from jails to courts for

trial. It also reduces the security risk of transporting hard core criminals.

Then there are industrial uses of video conferencing, such as Tandberg's

FieldView, a WiFi-based handheld video device that can be used for remote

inspection of sites, allowing on the spot troubleshooting.

The latest application being talked about is mobile video conferencing,

wherein you can be on the move and still be able to have a video conference with

others. So imagine being able to video conference with others from your phone

over a GPRS or 3G connection.

Let's now look at the different video conferencing solutions that have

emerged to cater to all these requirements.

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One size doesn't fit all



Before implementing a video conferencing solution, remember that there's no
single video conferencing solution that will fulfill every organization's

requirements. For instance, a healthcare institute would use video conferencing

to provide remote diagnostics and tele-medicine services to remote areas. The

tele-medicine deployment at AIIMS is one such example, which is used to provide

medical training and consultation to over 100 locations across the country.

A manufacturing company on the other hand, could use it to monitor production

machinery, or for sharing blueprints of an engineering prototype. Here, the

customer could be sitting abroad, the production plant could be in a remote

area, and the marketing and sales office could be in another area. This would

make it impossible to hold a meeting between sales, customer, and

production/engineering representatives. So, a multi-point video conferencing

solution is the best option. Moreover, the customer might want to suggest a few

changes in the blueprint, so real-time solution collaboration would also be

required.

Likewise, a financial institute might need to keep all branches up to date on

the latest banking schemes and changes in govt. policies. Perhaps the bank's MD

wants to always remain in touch with all his key bank managers across the

country. With so many branches, travelling to each one, or bringing all

executives in one place would be extremely difficult, time consuming, and

expensive.

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Likewise, an educational institute might use video conferencing to provide

remote education to students. Many institutes are already using video

conferencing to host virtual classrooms for their distant learning programs.

Others are recording lessons and streaming them over the Internet for students,

who could be sitting around the world.

As you can see, the video conferencing requirements are completely different

industries for each industry we talked of. So it's not possible to have one

solution for every one.



Tele-Presence in Action
Left Notice the conference table

on both sides. It appears as if the virtual and real tables combine to form

one table. Right: The camera placement is such that when one person talks,

everyone turns to him or her.
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Key elements in a video conferencing solution



Simply speaking, a video conferencing system comprises of a microphone, camera,
display unit, speakers, and a codec. As simple as it sounds, the deployment

isn't as simple, because there are lots of choices available for each component.

All components could be fitted into one standalone unit, a laptop, mobile phone,

or even be available as separate units. You decide what you want depending upon

your requirements. If it's an immersive experience you need, where you feel as

if you're sitting face to face with the person at the remote location, then you

need a high-definition video conferencing solution. This would require a

high-definition camera, a large screen, surround sound speakers, and oodles of

bandwidth.

But if it's just a face you want to see, purely for eye-contact, then a

desktop with a webcam and codec are all you need. All other video conferencing

solutions fit between these extremes. Let's look at the different options that

are available:

Simple Desktop video conferencing: This solution comprises of a web

cam and a software codec installed on a PC or laptop. Most laptops today come

with a built-in webcam. This solution is of course, purely IP based. You could

use it while on the move, but don't expect great video quality because of codec

quality and inconsistent bandwidth.

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Dedicated Standalone Unit: These are dedicated units, complete with

all video conferencing elements like LCD TV, camera, microphone, etc. These are

costlier, but provide better quality. You could use them in a small office, or

even out of home, because they're small and portable.

Group Video Conferencing: The equipment needed here would be

individual cameras, screens, microphones, all connected to a MCU (multipoint

control unit). The numbers and type of each depends upon the size of the meeting

room, the number of locations that need to be connected, and the quality of

conference that's required. This sort of a solution is suitable for conference

rooms, boardrooms, etc.

Web Conferencing: If you need to go beyond face to face meetings and

into sharing data like presentations, engineering blueprints, etc, then a

web-based meeting is the best option. Multiple people can join into the meeting

with their laptops and webcams. Due to this, you don't need to invest in any

equipment. All you need is bandwidth, and even the requirement for that is not

very high. There are many online collaboration sites that provide this service.

Web-Ex for instance is a well-known solution in this domain.

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Deploying Tele-Presence



This is actually a group video conferencing system, ideal for the boardroom of a
large enterprise, but we've kept it as a separate category because it's suddenly

started gaining momentum in the market. Tele-presence is the ability to have

life-like images of the remote locations right into your meeting room, on the

other side of the table. A tele-presence solution comprises of very large

displays that produce life-like images of the person sitting at the remote

location. Images will be captured using high-definition cameras, which will be

strategically placed to create the appearance of direct eye contact. This, along

with surround sound speakers will make you almost feel as if you're sitting face

to face with all others in the conference.

One key point to remember while deploying tele-presence is that it's supposed

to give you the impression of a face-to-face meeting. It's the experience you

get from such a solution that really matters, and you have to ensure that the

solution you deploy provides you that experience. So many finer points need to

be looked into while deploying a tele-presence solution. One is the quality of

cameras and their placing. They should be placed so as to give you the

impression of eye contact. It should not appear that anybody is looking at the

camera. The cameras must be able to follow the sound, so the moment anybody

speaks, then the cameras need to focus on that person.

If you really want to get the feeling of sitting face to face with somebody,

then the meeting room environments of both areas have to look similar. A tele-presence

system should be able to provide you this kind of a setup.

Another very critical part of a tele-presence solution is ease of use.

Remember, it's a company's top brass that would be using it, and they don't have

time to toil with the technicalities of a technology.

Deploying high-definition video conferencing



Another rising star is high-definition video conferencing, which provides much
better quality than conventional video conferencing. As the name implies,

high-definition video conferencing provides much better visual quality than

standard definition. So while a SDVC setup would provide a resolution of 480p or

640x480, an HDVC setup can offer 720p or 1280 x 720 resolution, leading to far

better quality. You obviously need high-definition equipment in a tele-presence

deployment, but you can also use it otherwise. Benefits of high-definition are

quite obvious. As you use larger screens, the image quality of standard

definition is likely to distort because you're basically 'stretching' a lower

resolution picture on a higher resolution screen. But with high-definition this

doesn't happen, thereby giving you excellent picture quality.

While there can be many applications for it, one interesting application is

for conducting remote operations. The objective of using high-definition is that

the patient should be able to see the expressions on the doctor's face during

the operation. This instills confidence in the patient's mind for the doctor.

How much bandwidth?



Bandwidth plays a critical role in any video conferencing system. You might have
spent a bomb on the video conferencing solution, but if you haven't provisioned

for sufficient bandwidth, then your deployment will just not succeed. Since

video conferencing is about the ability to have a face-to-face meeting, you

can't afford to have connection difficulties, poor image quality, jitters,

dropped calls, etc. These will dissuade anybody from using the video

conferencing system, and people would resort back to phone calls or personal

meetings.

So the question obviously is-how much bandwidth? For a conventional video

conferencing solution, you need 384 kbps bandwidth for a full-screen, jitter

free video conference. Similarly, high definition video conferencing would

require at least 1 Mbps, while tele presence requires 15-20 Mbps. Not only that,

video conferencing traffic is also delay sensitive; so you need to configure QoS

policies on your network. In case of tele-presence, you need to even check your

service provider's network and ensure it's able to handle the load.

What to expect in future?



On the technology front, you can already get a feel of a face-to-face meeting
thanks to tele-presence. The only thing that's left now is to convert the

high-definition image into a 3D one. Holographic displays are the answer to

this, which actually create a 3D image of a person. This technology is of course

still far from being commercially deployed for video conferencing, but given the

pace at which things are moving, you never know.

Other developments in video conferencing include integration with unified

communication, and moving away from the H.323 standard to SIP. Currently video

conferencing is still considered to be an overlay network, but in the near

future, it will form a part of the IP network, and you'll have to enforce strong

QoS policies to ensure good quality video conferencing.

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