IP Based Video Conferencing

1. IP Based Video Conferencing By Tom Petersen May 3 2007

2. Introduction • History • Components • How it Works • Benefits • Cost • Problems • Common Questions

3. History • Started in the 90’s • Done over ISDN lines • Very expensive • H.320 protocols were used

4. Protocols • SIP Session Initiation Protocol • Internet based application that uses TCP, UDP and others • User agents can be telephones, video units, PDA’s and more • H.323 • A family of protocols that is made up of many different protocols

5. Protocols cont. Table1: taken from: howstuffworks.com • The most important protocols in this family are H.225 and H.245 which are both in the transport layer. H.225 performs call control while H.245 performs call management

6. Components • Camera • Video Display • Audio Components • Codec • User Interface

7. How it Works • Quality of Service (QoS) • Manages data traffic • Makes sure that the quality of the IP video transmission is good • It does this by setting aside an amount of bandwidth for video calls and doesn’t allow other traffic to use it

8. How it Works cont. • Gatekeeper • Software that allows you to register all the users that you might want to contact for a video conference • Makes it easy for people that aren’t experts in computers • Can connect to Conference Room 1 or the phone number to that room instead of the IP address of the computer in that room • Can limit bandwidth for specific users

9. Quality and Technical Advantages Some of the things that effect video quality are bandwidth, frame rate, resolution, picture size, and codec’s used Ease of Use ISDN is difficult to understand Need a special technician to fix a lot of the problems IP based can be used by just about anyone with little training Benefits

10. Benefits cont. • The amount of people that already use it • ISDN was never available in every geographic region and the regions that did have it only had it in specific conference rooms • IP based is available just about everywhere and can be installed on any computer not just in meeting rooms

11. Benefits cont. • Cuts down on travel cost • Don’t have to spend money flying employees to meetings, pay for hotels and food while they are away • Allows the employee to be more productive • They don’t have to spend half a day traveling, they can use that time to get work done

12. Cost • The biggest benefit to IP video conferencing is cost • Cost can be split up into two main categories • Initial set up • Monthly Fee

13. Initial Set Up • Initial setup includes buying all the equipment needed for video conferencing • There are two different ways you can go when buying equipment depending on your needs • You can buy an all in one unit • You can buy all the parts separately

14. Initial Set Up • All in one units • View station • Buying parts separately • Good if you already have some parts and only need a few others • Good if you have a specific set up in mind and what to pick out your own parts

15. Initial Set Up Figure 1: done with Visio some pictures taken from polycom.com

16. Monthly Fee • The price can depend on many different things including, bandwidth and how much you use it • Price can range anywhere from free to $1,000 a month depending on the type of service you want

17. Monthly Fee • No monthly Fee Services • Windows Live, Skype, AIM • Monthly Fees Services • Glowpoint

18. Monthly Fee Figure2: Monthly charges for using IP instead of ISDN Taken from:glowpoint.com

19. Problems • You can’t have eye contact with the person you are speaking to • Some people don’t like to be on camera • The biggest problem with IP based video conferencing is bandwidth problems

20. Fixing Bandwidth Problems • Multi-cast • Multi-cast allows multiple endpoints to receive data at the same time with about the same overhead as sending the data to a single endpoint • Real-time • Guarantees that packets are delivered in a timely manner

21. Common Questions • How many users can be linked together in a conference call? • Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) • Shows you who is talking • Grid with all the endpoints on it at once • All the users don’t have to have the same setup either

22. Questions • Do all users have to support video on the conference call? • No you can connect with just audio • This allows meeting rooms to connect with video and people that can’t get to the meeting can connect with audio • Audio users can still see the video • Can even connect with a cell phone

23. Questions • Can you connect IP based video conferencing with ISDN? • Yes, but there are fees that are not included in the monthly fee • The fees are a lot cheaper than if you were connecting ISDN to another ISDN system

24. IP to ISDN Connection Fee Table 2: Taken from:glowpoint.com

25. References • [1] Edward A. Garay, “Videoconferencing over the Internet” http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/itl/pubs/ipvc/index.html Accessed March 25, 2007. Last updated March 21, 2001. • [2] Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System. “How does IP video conferencing work?” http://www.ihets.org/progserv/dms/videoconferencing/tutorials/instructors/02_how.html Accessed March 26, 2007. Last updated September 01, 2006. • [3] Hitachi Software Engineering Technology Solutions Group, “Why IP-based Videoconferencing” http://www.hitachi-soft.com/tsg/solutions/video/ipbased.html Accessed March 12, 2007. Last updated 2007. • [4]Techphonic Corporation, http://www.techphonic.com/html/faq.html#1 Accessed April 1, 2007. Last updated 2006. • [5] Ford, Steve, “Video Conferencing” http://www.objs.com/survey/vc.htm Accessed April 1, 2007. Last updated April 22, 1996. • [6]Saqib Jang, “A Technical FAQ Frequently Asked Questions About Voice and Video over IP Networks” http://www.wainhouse.com/files/papers/wr-faq-ip-conf.pdf Accessed April 2, 2007. Last updated January, 2003. • [7]GlowPoint, Glowpoint.com Accessed March 12 2007. Last updated 2007. • [8]Polycom, Polycom.com Accessed April 1 2007. Last updated 2007. • [9]Wikipedia, “Video conferencing” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_conferencing Accessed April 1 2007. Last updated February 2007.