Videoconferencing in the New Millennium

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

These are just some of the things videoconferencing was supposed to deliver last decade. And it did, but for a hefty price with lots of arranging and some good luck.

In the old days, back in 1998, if you wanted to do videoconferencing, you had to reserve a special room that was equipped with a dedicated high-speed telephone circuit (usually an ISDN line or part of a T1 line), expensive equipment, and a skilled technician. You'd be charged by the minute, and the charge was substantial.

That was H.320-based ISDN videoconferencing (also known as traditional or ISDN videoconferencing). Getting an H.320 video conference started isn't enough. Sometimes they just die, for no apparent reason, and there's no guarantee that even your skilled technician will be able to get them going again.

The next generation of videoconferencing is changing all of that. Today's H.323 videoconferencing travels over the Internet, using standard Internet TCP/IP transport protocols. (Thus it's also called IP videoconferencing). In fact, the H.323 IP videoconferencing revolution has already started at universities across America, including UIC. What has made H.323 videoconferencing technology possible is high network bandwidth, which is plentiful at Research I institutions such as ours.

Today, you can start an IP video conference from anywhere, at anytime -- from your desktop, from a room down the hall, or from any room on campus that has a decent network connection.

Personal H.323-compliant videoconferencing systems for MS Windows personal computers start at just a few hundred dollars. Business-quality room-based systems start at about two thousand dollars and are as easy to operate as mastering the use of simple remote control.

No Macs As of spring 2001 personal computer-based videoconferencing is for MS Windows personal computers only; there are no viable H.232 or T.120 (applications sharing) standards-compliant conferencing systems for the Apple Macintosh.

However, to consistently get satisfactory results, you should use a full-duplex switched Ethernet connection (which are being installed throughout our campus) to give each networked device 10 Mbps (megabits per second) or even 100 Mbps of uncontested bandwidth. Full-duplex means that you can not use hubs to run multiple connections.

Cable modems and DSL connections also work, although there is no guarantee that the commodity Internet (the regular Internet that most people outside of academia and research institutions use) will be able to sustain the minimum bandwidth requirements for good videoconferencing. This is not a problem for Research I institutions or anyone connected to a high-speed network such as Internet2, Abiliene, or STAR TAP.

If you're thinking of setting up a videoconferencing system, it is most important that you purchase a fully compliant H.323 videoconferencing system (a.k.a. terminal), to guarantee that you can use it in a heterogeneous environment to video conference with other systems of different make and model.

The main components of a basic videoconferencing system are:

1. A video camera, to capture and send video from your local endpoint.
• Preferably a pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) camera.
• Some applications may require multiple cameras or the addition of a document camera such as an Elmo.
2. A video display, to display video received from remote endpoints (the people you're talking to), and, usually, to display the video you're sending out also.
• - For personal-computer videoconferencing systems, this 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 so you can see yourself and the remote site at the same time.
3. Audio components, a microphone to capture and send audio from your local endpoint and speakers to play audio received from remote endpoints.
• A video conference is useless without audio. You need simultaneous, two-way (full-duplex) audio, preferably with echo cancellation.
• For PC videoconferencing, a headset, or
• Microphones and speakers.
4. The codec (compressor/decompressor), software or hardware that compresses or decompresses digital audio or video; the codec is the heart of a videoconferencing system.
• A hardware codec is preferred over a software-only codec; it's generally much faster. A hardware codec is essentially a board that you install in your personal computer, or it comes builtin with some videoconferencing products.
5. The user interface.
• The user interface is typically very intuitive.
• It allows you to interoperate with other H.323 terminals,
• Provides a "dial" menu, address books, and aliases, and
• Can optionally provide inputs and outputs for additional cameras, VCRs, microphones, notebook computers, and so on.

H.323 videoconferencing systems are like telephones -- so long as the system you choose is fully H.323 compliant, you can choose the type, make, and model that suits you the best and use it to connect to other people, regardless of the type, make, and model of the system they're using.

Microsoft NetMeeting

Figure 1: MSNet- Meeting, a software-only desktop unit. This illustration is from the MS NetMeeting Website: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/NetMeeting/default.ASP This figure illustrates a major problem with NetMeeting: it has a very small picture. The larger frame in the figure displays the remote endpoint, the person you’re talking to; the smaller picture-in-picture displays the local endpoint, the video that you’re sending.

Microsoft NetMeeting, figure 1, is the de facto entry-level H.323 terminal. It is a free download and comes pre-loaded with Windows 98/ME/2000 and recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Pros:

low price; good audio quality; can be deployed on almost any personal computer; OK for casual use.

Cons:

low-quality, small video screen; maximum speed only 128 Kbps; typically banned from multipoint video conferences.

Application Sharing

For example, a NetMeeting user can run a Web browser on one PC and share its display over the the Internet. Other conference participants can then watch their screens as the original user surfs the Web. One could even grant control of a program to remote participants, who could operate the program, over the Internet, from a distant PC.

Application sharing offers a powerful means of demonstrating, tutoring, and mentoring over the Internet. Instructors can launch programs and let their students see what they are doing. Students can share their programs with TAs and TAs can show them what they are doing wrong.

Note: when using application sharing, be sure that everyone uses the same screen resolution on their personal computer screens.

Add NetMeeting's audio and its other T.120 data conferencing standards-compliant applications, such as keyboard chat and whiteboard sharing, to NetMeeting's H.323 videoconferencing, and you have something that's a lot better than the Jetson's video phone, for not a lot of money.

But, like the Jetson's video phone, NetMeeting is at its best for point-to-point video conferences, involving only two H.323 terminals. If you want to participate in multipoint video conferences, you'll probably need something better than NetMeeting; it is typically banned from multipoint conferences.

Hardware-assisted PC clients have a maximum speed of 384 Kbps 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, PictureTel 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.

Figure 2: Polycom ViaVideo, and integrated USB desktop unit.

These are a new breed of easy-to-install and simple-to-use personal video conferencing systems, consisting of a single unit containing the video camera, microphone, and codec. This unit connects to the USB port of a desktop PC or notebook computer. USB desktop units provide good quality video, 30 frames per second at 384 Kbps; they are well-suited for a small group of people siting in front of the camera.

The best units are the Polycom ViaVideo ($400), pictured in figure 2, 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.

Note: don't confuse these USB videoconferencing systems (appliances) with the small, inexpensive video cameras that connect to USB or parallel ports; those are just video cameras and have no builtin hardware codec or H.323 protocol support.

Figure 3: Polycom Viewstation, and integrated USB desktop unit, front and rear views.

All stand-alone systems include high-quality pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) cameras, hardware codecs, and microphones. They have a variety of additional input and output ports to connect secondary cameras, document cameras, VCRs, computer video, projectors, and alternate microphones.

The operation of stand-alone units is straight forward, typically using a simple remote control interface.

The leading stand-alone system in the market is, without question, the Polycom ViewStation, which is available in several models. The Polycom ViewStation has a builtin Web server, which makes it easy to control and operate over the network.

Certain Polycom ViewStation models can be equipped with a VGA adapter to accommodate video directly from a computer. Other models, like the ViewStation 512 shown in figure 3, are hybrid systems, supporting H.323-based videoconferencing running over the Internet and H.320-based videoconferencing running over IDSN telephone lines.

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 instance, an H.323 video conference 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. Similarly, H.323 video conferences could be recorded and made available on demand, asynchronously, via a RealVideo streaming server, for those who couldn't make the live event.

Or stop by the ITL, either during its its open hours, Mondays and Thursdays, 1:00–5:00 p.m., or make an appointment to visit at other times, Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m.–5:00 p.m.. You can contact the ITL by phone at (312)996-9824 or by email at itl@uic.edu.

The ITL is on the west side of campus, room 181 of the Benjamin Goldberg Research Center (BGRC), 1940 West Taylor Street. The campus shuttle bus stops one block east at the corner of Taylor and Wolcott.

ITL on Videoconferencing:

http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/itl/videoconferencing/

and

http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/itl/conf2001/video/videoapps.html

ViDeNet Videoconferencing Cookbook:

http://www.vide.gatech.edu/cookbook2.0/

This is a practical, thorough, and easy-to-understand introduction to video conferencing, with simple, step-by-step instructions on how to use a number of videoconferencing systems.

The Cavner model for network video services:

http://www.cavner.org/model/ and other Cavner Web pages.

Polycom videoconferencing products:

http://www.polycom.com/products/video_family.html

RADVision Web site:

http://www.radvision.com/

 University of Wisconsin Extension's Distance Education Clearinghouse:

http://www.uwex.edu/disted/h323.htm 
Has descriptions of and links to varous Web pages on H.323 videoconferencing, including how it works with firewalls.

We at the ITL and at ACCC-Telecom look forward to helping the university make use of this new opportunity.

Comments are welcome; please send them
to Ed Garay, garay@uic.edu