Videoconferencing over the Internet

IP videoconferencing has arrived at UIC. It will save you time, help you communicate better, and make you do things you never thought you wanted to do.

OK, let's face it: we cannot always be at two places at the same time. Ever wished you could skip that three-hour-long drive for a 90-minute meeting? Would you like to bring that coveted guest speaker to your classroom? Wouldn't be great if you were out-of-town, but you could still give your lecture? How about having your students meet and collaborate with your colleague's class at another institution? Could the Jetson's video phone be a reality?

These are just some of the things videoconferencing was supposed to deliver last decade... And it did, for a hefty price, requiring specialized rooms, a lot of pre-arrangements, coordination, and some luck.

a typical videoconference

IP videoconferencing, based on the H.323 standard, is about to change all of that. In fact, the change has already started across American universities, including UIC.

What has made this possible is high network bandwidth: plentiful and ubiquitous at Research I institutions, like UIC, and the new H.323 videoconferencing technology based on Internet computing.

Back in 1998, if you wanted to do videoconferencing, you had to reserve very special rooms, equipped with dedicated high-speed telephone circuits or ISDN lines, and very expensive H.320 videoconferencing equipment and high per-minute usage costs.

The older (also known as "traditional") H.320 videoconferencing can be rather problematic, requiring having a skilled technician at arm's length. Sometimes, the videoconference just dies, for no apparent reason; worse of all, many times, it can not be brought back up.

Today, you can start an IP videoconference anywhere and at anytime—from your desktop, from a room down the hall, or from any room on campus where there is a decent network connection.

Personal H.323-compliant videoconferencing systems start at just a few hundred dollars. Business-quality room-based systems start at about $2,000 and are as easy to operate as mastering the use of simple remote control.

A typical business-quality videoconference runs at 384 Kbps (Kilobits per second) and can deliver TV-quality video at 30 frames per second. So in theory, an ordinary hard-wired Ethernet connection would work, and often does, when the the shared Ethernet subnetwork is not busy.

video conferences can be very informal

Ideally, however, you want to use a full-duplex Switched Ethernet connection, like those being installed throughout campus, to give each networked device a dedicated 10 megabit or 100 megabit of uncontested bandwidth. Full-duplex, by the way, implies that you should not use hubs to run multiple connections.

Cable modems and DSL connections also work, although you can not always guarantee that the commodity Internet—the regular Internet that most people outside of academia and research institutions use, will be able to sustain the minimal bandwidth requirements.

This is not a problem for Research I institutions and anyone connected to high-speed networks, like Internet 2, Abilene and STAR TAP.

H.323 is an umbrella standard that specifies mandatory and optional requirements, as well as four major components: terminals, gateways, gatekeepers and multi-point control units.

What is most important is that you purchase a fully-compliant H.323 videoconferencing system (aka terminal), to guarantee that you can use it, in a heterogeneous environment, to videoconference with other systems of different make and model.

The main components of a basic videoconferencing system are:

1. a video camera
   - preferably, a pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) camera
   - some applications may require multiple cameras or a document camera, like an Elmo.
   
   
2. a video display
   - which for personal computer systems is just your monitor, or
   - large monitors, or for a room-based system, a computer projector (if NTSC (TV) monitors are used, opt for models with S-Video ports (for best quality) and picture-in-picture (to see yourself and the remote site)
   
   
3. audio components
   - without audio, the conference is useless
   - microphones and speakers, or a headset for personal use
   - you need simultaneous two-way (full-duplex) audio, preferably with echo cancellation
   
   
4. the codec (compressor/decompressor)
   - the codec is the heart of a videoconferencing system
   - prefer hardware codec over software-only codec
   - a hardware codec is essentially a board that you install on your personal computer, or one that comes built-in on some products
   
   
5. the user interface
   - the user interface is typically very intuitive
   - allows you to interoperate with other H.323 terminals
   - provides a "dial" menu, address books and aliases
   - can optionally provide inputs and outputs for additional cameras, VCRs, microphones, notebook computers, etc.
   

There are several types of videoconferencing systems to choose from: software-only desktop clients, hardware-assisted PC clients, integrated USB desktop units and stand-alone set-top units.

Software-only desktop units
These are very inexpensive solutions using software like Microsoft NetMeeting (free) or CuSeeMe Networks' CuSeeMe Pro ($60). Compression/decompression is done in software, so the faster your PC, the better. You also need a little video camera, a microphone and loudspeakers.

Application Sharing
Besides handling video and audio, Microsoft NetMeeting has a another very useful capability: one that allows you to share (view or control) applications (running programs) over the network. For example, NetMeeting users, on one PC, can launch and share their running copies of a Web browser over the network. As they surf the Web, the other participants get to watch their screens.

One could even grant control of a program to remote participants, who could view an operate the program, over the network, on the distant PC.

Application sharing offers a powerful means of demonstrating, tutoring and mentoring over the Internet. Instructors could launch their programs and let students see what they are doing. Students could share their programs with TAs and show them what they might not be doing correctly.

Add NetMeeting's audio to it, and other T.120 Data Conferencing standards-compliant applications, like a keyboard chat and whiteboard sharing, and you have something a lot better than the Jetson's video phone. Note: when using application sharing, be sure that everyone uses the same PC screen resolution.

Hardware assisted PC clients
Also known as personal desktop videoconferencing systems, their setup generally include an onboard card for video capture and codec hardware, an analog video camera, some software, a microphone and a headset. A 450 MHz Pentium II or better PC is typically required.

They support 384 Kbps max speed, and range in price, from $700 to $2000. Leading products in this group include: VCON Escort 25, Zydacron OnWAN IP (Z340 codec), PictureTel Live 550 and LiveLAN, and VTEL Smart Station. Pros: relatively inexpensive, good video quality, adequate for videoconferencing with a group of up to three people in front of the PC. Cons: installation is not always straight forward.

Integrated USB desktop units
These are a new breed of easy-to-install and simple-to-use personal videoconferencing systems, consisting of a self-contained video camera, a mic and a codec, which connect to the USB port of a desktop PC or notebook computer. They support 30 frames per second at 384 Kbps, their video quality is good, and they are well-suited for a small group of people seating in front of the camera.

	The best units are the Polycom ViaVideo ($400), pictured on the left, and the VCON Vigo ($600). We have the Polycom ViaVideo in the ITL and we like it very much. Pros: affordable and extremely easy to use, great for notebook computers. Cons: none. For more information, visit the ITL, www.polycom.com or www.vcon.com.
Polycom ViaVideo

Do not confuse these USB videoconferencing systems (appliances) with those small and inexpensive video cameras that connect to the USB or parallel ports—they are just video cameras, and have no built-in hardware codec or H.323 protocol support.

Also, as of Spring 2001, there are no viable H.323 or T.120 standards-compliant conferencing systems for the Apple Macintosh.

Stand-alone set-top units
Stand-alone videoconferencing systems are the ideal solution for classrooms and conference rooms, and provide the highest possible quality. These units are compact (the size of a cable set-top box), are extremely easy to use, and require no personal computer hookup. All that is needed is a network connection and an NTSC (TV) monitor.

Stand-alone systems include high-quality Pan Zoom and Tilt cameras, hardware codecs, microphones, and have a variety of additional input and output ports to connect secondary cameras, document cameras, VCRs, computer video, projectors and alternate microphones.

	Operation is straight forward, typically using a simple remote control interface. The leading stand-alone system in the market is, without question, the Polycom ViewStation, with several models to choose from. The Polycom ViewStation has a built-in Web server, which makes it easy to control and operate over the network.
Polycom ViewStation

Polycom ViewStation Back View

Certain Polycom ViewStation models can be equipped with a VGA adapter to accommodate video fed directly from a PC monitor port. Other models, like the ViewStation 512, are hybrid systems: supporting IP (H.323) and ISDN-based (H.320) videoconferencing.

UIC has standardized its IP videoconferencing operations on the Polycom ViewStation, which is supported by ACCC-Telecom and the ITL. A number of systems are already installed on campus: at ACCC, the Provost Office, OVCR, OVCHA, College of Medicine, Engineering, Human Resources and other departments.

Choosing a Polycom ViewStation means not only getting a leading product, but having access to a lot of user experience on campus. ViewStation prices range from $2,000 to $7,000.

For more information or a demo, please contact Peter Garcia, of ACCC-Telecom, at 6-7144 or audio@uic.edu, or stop by the ITL.

By themselves, the videoconferencing systems, described above, allow you to hold a point-to-point (one-on-one) videoconference with any other H.323 videoconferencing user. To hold a multi-point videoconference over the network with three (3) or more sites, an H.323 Multi-point Control Unit (MCU) videconference server and an H.323 Gatekeeper are needed.

point-to-point videoconference	multi-point videconference

An MCU is a central multimedia server to which videoconferencing terminals connect. The MCU manages the audio and video for each participant, providing, in a sense, a virtual meeting room for the group. Several MCUs can be cascaded to increase capacity and for load balancing.

An H.323 Gatekeeper is another server that controls and manages videoconferencing resources, like H.323 MCUs. It operates "behind-the-scenes", confirming what terminals can do, assisting in call setup and take-downs, address translation, admission control, bandwidth management, zone and call management, and so forth.

In an H.323 environment, all H.323 videoconferencing systems automatically register themselves with the local zone Gatekeeper (also behind the scenes). To simplify matters, Gatekeeper administrators often exchange Gatekeeper information, establishing so-called neighboring Gatekeepers, as has been done between UIC and Urbana.

At UIC, ACCC already has MCUs and Gatekeepers in operation. UIC's MCUs can handle multi-point conferences at various speeds (from 128Kbps to 1.5Mbps), groups ranging from three (3) to nine (9), or a combination thereof, as well as continuous presence multi-point conferences—one where the video screen is split in four (4) quadrants, allowing up to four (4) participants to be seen at the same time, a la Brady Bunch.

The UIC H.323 MCUs and H.323 Gatekeeper are run by the ITL. To reserve them, you simply need to contact Peter Garcia, who is ACCC's main point of contact for all videoconferencing activities. Additional H.323 MCU capacity, if ever needed, is available from CIC.

IP videoconferencing opens up the door to a number of applications never before possible. For example, it is a lot easier and much more affordable to have guest speakers meet your class and engage your students over the network, or have more regular ERP meetings than otherwise possible. A number of CIC committee meetings use IP videoconferencing.

a typical classroom videoconference

Several classes could "meet" periodically, in cyberspace to exchange experiences and collaborate. Students taking distance learning courses could get to know each other and get together one-on-one or in groups with or without instructor participation.

UIC professor Robert Bruegmann has been doing just that: he took one of his Art History classes to several videoconference meetings with students from University of Southern California, to share what they were learning: Art History of Old Chicago, at UIC, and Old LA at USC.

They coupled their videoconferencing with a Blackboard CourseInfo course site. "We asked students to put up Websites to introduce themselves and we asked everyone to post information on their paper topics on the Discussion Board. There was a considerable volume of discussion."

This term, one of his classes is collaborating with a class in Washington University. Things don't run often perfectly, but the students get to see or hear each other live, via videoconferencing, and asynchronously, on Blackboard CourseInfo.

As another example, consider Dr. Robert Folberg's application. Not new to videoconferencing, Dr. Folberg feels right at home, teaching Pathology of the Eye, from his lab at UIC, in the College of Medicine, to students at University of Chicago, Cornell, Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and Missouri-Columbia.

He is planning on extending the program to the Philippines and India. "Most of the videoconferencing I do now is done over IP". Sometimes, when network bandwidth is not available at the other institution, he relies on ISDN-based videoconferencing to deliver his highly interactive lectures.

At the heart of Dr. Folberg's setup is a Polycom ViewStation 512 to which he connects a high-end microscope with an overlay pointer, a laptop computer and an Elmo document camera. A small video switch enables him to quickly switch video sources among the aforementioned peripherals and the Polycom's built-in PTZ camera. "We now supplement our on-line teaching with a robust CourseInfo website."

Downstate at Urbana, communication professor Noshir Contractor has been using IP videoconferencing to teach distributed cooperative learning classes. One such class, between UIUC, Purdue, University of Southern California and University of California at Santa Barbara had a total of 42 students, physically located far away from each other. They met every week, using one of the CIC MCUs housed at Ohio State.

This also points out that when it comes to H.323 videoconferencing, the people and the hardware can be at distant locations. What happens behind the scenes is not important; what matters is the capability to have face-to-face communication, anywhere, anytime and without running any huge telephone bills.

IP videoconferencing activities can be supplemented and seamlessly integrated with other digital video technologies, like live Webcasts and video on-demand.

For instance, an H.323 videoconference could be made available via a live RealVideo streaming Webcast so that distance students without an H.323 videoconferencing terminal could at least watch and listen in. they would not be able to talk back and interact with the other conference participants, however.

Similarly, H.323 videoconferences could be recorded and made available on-demand, off the ACCC RealVideo Streaming Server, asynchronously, for those who could not make the live event.

Videoconferencing over the Internet is a new enabling technology for a number of applications in education, research, collaboration and day-to-day communication.

Distance education and traditional classroom courses can benefit tremendously from this new, reliable and affordable means of interactive two-way communication.

At the Instructional Technology Lab and at ACCC-Telecom, we look forward to helping the university make use of this new opportunity.

	ITL Seminar: Videoconferencing over the network
	ITL Talk: DigitalVideo Applications in the Classroom
	ViDeNet Videoconferencing Cookbook
	The Cavner model for network video services
	Cavner network architectures for video
	Cavner home page
	Polycom videoconferencing products
	Polycom ViewStation Model Matrix
	RADVision Web site