Report No. 188

Video Conferencing

The minimum required components at each endpoint of a videoconference are a microphone, a camera, a Coder/Decoder (codec), a monitor and a speaker. The camera and microphone capture the image and sound, the codec converts the video and audio into a digital signal, encodes it and sends it out. The codec at the other end decodes the signal and distributes the video and audio to the monitor and speaker.

A video conference can run on almost any type of digital network. ISDN is currently the most common network. However, IP is quickly becoming widespread. As a general rule, the higher the bandwidth used to connect the systems, the better the audio and video quality. The people are easy to see and hear and the picture is sharp.

Video conferencing system can be used to interact with anyone who has a standards-based video conferencing system or a telephone. Videoconferencing is increasingly being seen as a mission critical technology and it can be an integral part of functioning of a court on real time basis.