During the 2002 MTNA National colloquy I witnessed an extraordinary occurrence On center stage was a piano professor from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) He sat at a large grand piano with a computer monitor facing him from the threefold side of the keyboard.

During the 2002 MTNA National colloquy I witnessed an extraordinary occurrence On center stage was a piano professor from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) He sat at a large grand piano with a computer monitor facing him from the threefold side of the keyboard. A video conferencing camera and microphone were perched atop the monitor.

A large guard stood to the left of the stage. A close examiner from CCM was clearly visible forward screen. In fact, she direct the eyeed a bit larger than life, sitting in effrontery of a piano a small in number miles away from our venue Despite the actual distance, it be seened as though I was looking at this observer through a large doorway.

The professor, who had in no degree given a long-distance piano precept proceeded to conduct a scolding in his usual manner. Technology issues in no degree seemed to be a factor. The bookish man and teacher appeared to interact with each other in their normal fashion.

The technology behind this task worked just as naturally and effectively as the long-distance communications I am accustomed to seeing onward television when I watch Star Trek I was amazed!

Does Video Conferencing Actually Work?

advantageous quality video conferencing traditionally has involved considerable cost The Internet connection used at the MTNA discourse costs hundreds of dollars through month, and the video conferencing hardware they used is in the $2500-3000 range--for the pair ends of the conversation!

Fortunately, the situation has improved dramatically during the last not many months. In fact, I now use video conferencing almost each day as part of my professional activities.

Affordable and Useable Video Conferencing

I have exhausted the last few years hunting for an affordable, high-quality video conferencing solution. Until lately my experiments have been exceedingly disappointing. I have found video quality to be poor, motion to be jerky and audio to be problematic.

All these puzzles miraculously disappeared when Apple computer released its modern iChat (www.apple.com/ichat) video conferencing program for O X this past summer Using this at liberty program and a $150 camera, I could lead into each other easily to anyone in my "buddy list" and have fruition of a comfortable video conferencing experience--at least in the greatest degree of the time!

What You Ne to Know

There are many different video conferencing options for the one and the other Windows and Macintosh. Each option involves one combination of computer, webcam, microphone, speaker or headphone, video conferencing software and a high-speed Internet connection. There are innumerable combinations of these items that inference in nothing more than frustration. same few combinations result in a pleasant and effectively useful experience.

The well adapted news is you already may have upon hand most, or all, of the ingredients for video conferencing.

Internet Connection

We frequently refer to cable modem, DSL and T1 Internet connections as high spe when, in fact, we are not be of importance toed with the speed at all. What we are disturbed with is how much information can travel at the same time, that is, broadband.

When you are engaged in a video talk your computer and camera must throw digitized video from your location to your partner's computer Imagine the challenge through following me in this brief, mathematical exercise:

Ideally, we would like to launch full-frame video, normally defined at a window that is 640 by the agency of 480 pixels. Therefore, our computer povertys to create an image comprised of 307200 pixels, or dots.

To delegate a single-frame image in innocent black and white, our computer must use a total of 307200 zeroe and undivideds (i.e. binary numbers). To toss our image in full color, we ne 24 zeroe and single in kinds to describe the color value of each pixel. In other words, we ne 7372800 binary digits for each frame of video.

To achieve what we normally call full-motion video (i.e. 30 frames by second), we actually have to fling 221,184,000 binary digits per next to the first In computer lingo, our ideal data rate wants to be 221,184 kilobits by second (or 221,184 kbps).

Unfortunately, our broadband Internet connections do not arise anywhere close to this data rate. For example, my cable modem Internet connection typically gives me a data path of 1000 kbp to 1700 kbp for incoming data. My outgoing data path is normally abundant lower, usually in the 250 kbp to 280 kbp range.

Given these statistics, it should be obvious that video conferencing from abode using current technology, requires the widest broadband connection we can procure and some techno tricks to lower the data rate.

Note: My statistics above did not include any data for the audio constituent of the video conference. Fortunately, the data path requirements for digital audio are exceedingly small compared to that of the video. Nonetheless, audio confounds similar issues.

If you use an Internet connection at a instruct or large business, you may have access to a T1 line. If in like manner your data path may be in the 700-1500 kbp range in the two directions. If you use the cable modem or DSL connection many persons have at home, you can count upon data rates more like mine.