Video conferencing actually encompasses a range of technologies used in a wide range of situations, often it is not just video and audio that is transmitted, but also data, allowing collaborative working though shared applications. All of this means having sufficient bandwidth supporting your network is the critical performance factor.
Video conferencing may be…
* One-to-one meetings, also known as point to point communications, usually involving full two-way audio and video.
* One-to-many involving full audio and video broadcast from the main site, where other sites may be able to send audio. For example in a lecture situation, students could ask questions.
* Many-to-many, known as multi-point communication, provides audio and video between more than two sites. With most multi-point systems only one site in a conference can be seen at time, with switching between sites either controlled manually or voice activated (i.e., the loudest site is on screen).
Physically, the most common scenarios of video conferencing are:
* desktop video conferencing – usually a small camera is located on top of the PC or workstation monitor. The actual video is usually displayed in a small window, and shared applications, such as a shared whiteboard are often used.
* studio-based systems – a studio is specially equipped for video conferencing. This will normally include one or more cameras, microphones, one or more large monitors, and possibly other equipment such as an overhead camera for document viewing. Usually used for more formal meetings
In practice a ’studio’ may not be a dedicated room, but a standard seminar room with portable equipment that can be set up when required.
Bandwidth and Compression…
The bandwidth, or baud rate, is the amount of information which can be transmitted every second. The higher the bandwidth, the better quality the signal that can be transmitted. For a video conference audio and video signals must be transmitted in real time, i.e., a lot of information has to be sent every second, requiring a very high bandwidth. For example a ‘true colour’ image will need 24 bits (3 bytes) per pixel. A full screen image might be 640×480 pixels, over 7 million bits. For full motion video, the image is refreshed 25 times per second. This adds to over 184 million bits per second. It is not realistically possible to transmit this amount of information, and your PC certainly could not receive it at this rate. Therefore for digital video some form of compression is required. The type and degree of compression used varies from system to system. It is interesting to note that for most uses, we are more tolerant of poor video than poor audio, and so some systems concentrate on providing consistently good audio.
How To Get The Right Bandwidth To Meet Your Needs…
Don’t take a chance at guessing what bandwidth you’ll need…or in selecting the provider for that bandwidth. You may need a fractional, full, integrated, or bonded T1, DS3, or OC3 network depending on many factors. Solutions offered by providers will vary by cost, Quality of Service (QoS), and Service Level Agreement (SLA). I strongly recommend you use the services of an independant Telecommunications Consultant to help you assess your needs and find the provider who best meets your requirements. For unbiased free advice….as well as real time rate quotes from multiple providers, indepth research, and negotiations with providers on your behalf….I recommend you use FreedomFire Communications.
By: Michael Lemm
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Filed under Communications by on Sep 2nd, 2010. 
Video conferencing is taking the market by storm and more businesses are using it to conduct webinars and meetings. The reason why video conferencing is so popular is because it saves travelling cost. With this, business owners do not need to travel to overseas for a face-to-face meeting anymore – they can sit in front of their computer screens and conduct meetings with their associates.
In this article, let me share with you some tips to conduct a successful webinar:
1. Set up your conferencing equipments properly. To hold a successful webinar, you must get the equipments in place. The quality of the equipments is very important as it will directly affect your video. For example, if you use a low pixel camera, the video output will be grainy.
2. Avoid slow Internet connection. The most common reason why webinars fail is because of slow internet connectivity. Your connection speed should be at least 3mbps.
3. Prepare yourself for the webinar. Before you conduct a webinar, you need to prepare. Plan out the agenda and things that you want to share with your participants. Also, familiarize yourself with the video conferencing platform so that you can guide your participants. If you have one bad experience, you should not give up on video conferencing. Practice makes perfect. By holding more webinars, you will improve and become proficient at it.
4. Send out your invitation early. You need to send out invitations to your guests at least 2 weeks before the actual date. If you are holding a commercial webinar, you should consider advertising it. By building buzz around it, you can attract more people to attend it.
5. Try your best to engage your audience. If your webinar is boring, people will leave. Even if you are using it to pitch your product or service to a potential customer, you must make your presentation as engaging as possible. Again, this takes practice. Do not give up just because of a few bad experiences.
6. Set a convenient time for your audience. One main reason why people don’t turn up for your webinar is because it is set at your local timing. You must set a time that is convenient to your target audience, not for yourself.
7. Build rapport with your audience. When you are conducting a webinar, it is not the time to be shy. You must be comfortable with people and bring across your point to them. Be it a sales webinar or shareholders meeting, you need to make a great impression in their minds.
Video conferencing is definitely the way to conduct presentations and meetings. So get yourself comfortable in front of a video camera and start holding webinars now.
By: Cheow Yu Yuan
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Filed under Communications by on Sep 2nd, 2010.
By: Jordan H
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Filed under 6519 by on Sep 2nd, 2010.
Thanks in advance!
By: Kevin
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Filed under Other - Computers by on Sep 2nd, 2010.
How can this be set?
By: Universal Citizen
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Filed under Camcorders by on Sep 2nd, 2010.
By: Mark
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Filed under Camcorders by on Sep 1st, 2010.
Did Internet Kill the Video Star?
What did we do before video? We had a cute subject line. We had pre-calls made to the client/prospect asking them to “look out” for our important-email. We visited offices with the promise of a follow-up email to relay any facts or info the prospect wanted in writing. This seemed all nice and neat, however; it never really got the attention we thought our product or service deserved. Sometimes they responded to our follow up calls or emails, sometimes they did not.
Now, if you send an email with the promise of a “Personal Video Message from ME!” you will get results. Competing with yesterday’s marketing strategies and methods grows hazardous as world class competitors vigorously challenge each other. Never before have the latest and best marketing and sales practices been more essential in conquering new markets and defending hard-won gains.
Marketers are becoming increasingly convinced of the benefits of video email, social media, and personalization or targeting. Over 80 percent of survey respondents plan to use video emails in 2010 and over 90 percent of SMB marketers plan to integrate social media into their email campaigns this year. With over a 96% increase in click-through rates, isn’t this the kind of attention we want our emails to get?
Interest in video usage is growing, according to Multichannel Merchant’s recent Outlook 2010. Of the 594 respondents who said they sell via catalogs and/or Websites, 46% said they are using rich media to include video on their sites. What’s more, 37.4% said they are using video to help boost their rankings in the search engines.
Use of video is set to increase this year: The Outlook study indicates that 42.3% of merchants will incorporate videos into their Websites in 2010.
With the popularity of video on the web now, it makes sense to cater to the audience that is viewing these videos. Even the older generation can’t seem to escape the “here and now” of video. Trying several different approaches to get the attention of a prospect or a customer by using video will make you stand out from the ordinary emails that fill their inbox everyday. The power of video in marketing is undeniable. See you on the web!
By: Bruce Pressman
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Filed under Business by on Sep 1st, 2010.
Video conferencing is a highly technical, vastly complicated technology that has been structured from the ground up to be as simple and user-friendly as possible. Even though video conferencing has only really become a viable medium in the past few years, it’s taken off as an attractive option when communicating with friends, families, colleagues, and clients. Despite its simplicity, there are many things you can do to – or not do – to ensure a great virtual meeting.
1. Give and take — questions and answers — are the bedrock of communication. In a video conference, you are hampered by not having everyone in front of you. This is especially apparent when you ask a question, as it is sometimes difficult for your participants to know who you are talking to. Make sure you say a person’s name at the beginning of your question.
2. An issue specific to virtual meetings is the mute button. Mute buttons are essential to having a well-ordered and quiet meeting, and their use should be encouraged. However, they can slow up Q&A sessions, especially impromptu ones. When you ask someone a question, make sure you give them a few seconds to respond. This allows them time to unmute themselves.
3. With everyone separated, it’s difficult to get a consensus. Asking people to raise their hands if they agree only really works in smaller video conferences where you have a window for each person. On larger calls or multiple meeting rooms, it can be impossible to get an accurate answer. Couch your questions to address the least amount of responses. For example, don’t ask if everyone understands; ask who doesn’t understand.
4. Video conferencing technology is hi-tech, but that just means it will do what it is supposed to. Shouting or speaking loud is not only annoying, but it also shows inexperience with virtual meeting technology. Speak in a normal tone of voice. Don’t worry, they will hear you.
5. If you can’t help but worry that people can’t hear you, test your sound first. Get your participants to introduce themselves at the beginning of the conference. Not only will this help break the ice, but will also allow you to hear their volume and sound quality. If you’re still anxious about your own output, simply ask someone if they can hear you well.
6. It may feel counterintuitive, but you shouldn’t look very often at the people on your screen, especially when you are addressing them. The best place to look while speaking is directly into the camera lens. Your participants will get the impression that you are looking directly at them. This creates a more trustworthy, congenial experience between them and you.
7. If you’ve done your preparations correctly, you know exactly how far you can move while in front of your camera. To help you hit your “mark,” use your mouse as your anchor point. Hold on to the mouse naturally while setting up your camera. Then, as you move back and forth pay attention to how far your arm bends or straightens. When you’re live, you’ll be able to keep yourself on screen without distracting yourself.
8. Unless you have dropped $50,000 to $150,000 on your video conferencing setup, you won’t have perfectly smooth, indistinguishable-from-real-life video. So, you need to work within the limitations of you and your participant’s equipment and bandwidth. The most important thing to remember is to keep your gestures small and your movements slower than normal. A little attention to this detail will minimize any choppy effects.
9. Your cloths say a lot about you, but through a video conference, some clothes say it loudly. To provide the best view of you, try to dress in light pastels and muted colors. Bright, loud colors can make your skin look weird on screen. Don’t wear all-light or all-dark colors to avoid any white balance or contrast issues. Busy patterns too are something to avoid.
10. While your clothes are telling your participants about you, so is the spot that you chose to do your conference from. Other than the obvious point that what you have on your desk and behind you will make impressions on your participants, they can also be detrimental to your video quality. Try to have a clean or bare background with a neutral color. Keep all camera-visible areas neat and decluttered. Not only will you look better on screen, it says something about how you work.
Video conferences are a great way to save money, time, and energy while still getting as much or more work done than before. They are hi-tech and worth a lot of “cool” points in the business world. If you put in the time and planning, your video conferences can be like the technology itself: complicated, yet smooth and on the cutting edge.
By: David Byrd
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Filed under Communications by on Sep 1st, 2010.
There are so many video resources in so many formats by now, and you need to convert them to some certain format so as to play them on some certain device. You need to choose a video converter first. Since most video converters are similar at the first look and those applications usually have a lot functions and features in common, it is difficult to make a decision. In fact, there is never the best choice but there is always the most suitable one for your needs.
Here we list 5 essential features of video converter software according to most users’ needs and you might want to have a look when you are searching for a video converter.
1) Support almost all input and popular output video formats
The first thing you need to find out is whether the video converter supports the input formats that you are converting from and the output formats that you are converting to. The supported input formats should contain almost all video formats while the supported output formats should include most of popular video formats. For example, Sothink Free Video Converter supports AVI (DivX, XivD), MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, TS, FLV, SWF, ASF, MPG, 3GP, 3G2, VOB (VCD), and DV. That will probably be enough.
Most video converters also support audio, and usually the formats should be MP3, WMA, M4A, AAC, AC3, OGG, MKA, FLAC, WAV, AIF, and AU.
What’s more, as the high definition video came, the video converter had better support H.264 HD video conversion, too.
2) Support popular multimedia devices
To successfully and perfectly play videos on some multimedia devices, especially HD devices, you need to convert video to correct format and appropriate dimension, zoom mode, aspect ratio, bit rate, frame rate, and so on. It will not be necessary to know those professional details if you choose some video converter that automatically set all related properties for the best and directly convert video to your desired target device. Just check out whether the video convert software supports iPad, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPhone 4, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, Zune, Wii, Blackberry, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Google Android, Nexus One, Samsung, Motorola, etc.
3) Support trimming video to clip
Since you convert files from some source video or audio, you can definitely trim the files to the part you really need. Many video convert tools support trimming video to the desired clip and some of them even support cropping. Whether it is easy to trim is also important. Directly setting the start time and end time of the trimmed clip will be great.
4) Support batch conversion and convert fast
Those are time-saving features that will come in handy when you have many video files, especially big files, to convert. It is easy to find out whether the video converter supports batch conversion. However, what about converting speed? Check that whether the converter supports multi-CPUs and multiple threads. If it does, it probably converts fast. And Sothink Free Video Converter even supports automatically shut down, sleep and hibernate when video conversion task is finished. It is another great feature about time-saving.
5) Easy to use
Some of the video convert products are of wizard interface while others offer Microsoft Office style. Whatever the software is, it should be easy to use and user-friendly. That is to say, the video converter you choose should make you only need to click rather than to type. Not to mention thinking or doubt. All converting configuration had better be automatically set and you never need to know the details.
What’s more
There are also many other features that you could consider when you are looking for in a video converter, for example, able to preview, support image output, etc.
By: Sheldon Bang
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Filed under Computers And Technology by on Sep 1st, 2010.
We must commence our journey from the grass root level for developing Bangladesh. Every minor has to be ensured in regards to entry into College fair from the primary level. More information: things
Filed under Uncategorized by on Sep 1st, 2010.