Videoconference

A videoconference is a telecommunication technology that allows more than two parties to interact with other parties using both audio and video transmission simultaneous. This technology is also referred as video teleconference (VTC Since video transmission is added to ordinary teleconference).For more information about it look at TANDBERG video conferencing

Videoconferencing was first demonstrated in 1968, with twisted pairs. But it was very expensive to setup links between two or more conferencing locations and the rate and quality of communication was worse. Then by 1980s transmission networks like ISDN was setup enabling a transfer rate of about 128Kb/sec.Then by 1990s the IP based internet teleconferencing came into existence. After that the firms NetMeeting, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Skype, so on had introduced their own software plugins for this purpose.

The basic technology used for video conferencing is the digital compression used to reduce the size of data transferred. The hardware or software that performs this function is called as codec (abbreviation for coder, decoder).

For VTC two kinds of systems can be used,

One dedicated hardware system and other a desktop software system. Dedicated hardware system usually consists of high quality camera, microphone and the hardware to process before transferring it.

Other one is desktop system that uses hardware boards (add-ons) to capture audio and video and softwares to process, and performs compression before transmission. These types of conference carried out are known as e-meetings.