Video Communication Products at affordable pricing!

==== ====Talk Fusion offers the latest, cutting-edge Video Communication Products at an affordable price!www.TalkFusion.com/1150916==== ====No new technology develops smoothly, and video conferencing had more than its share of bumpsalong the way before becoming the widely used communications staple it is today. The history ofvideo conferencing in its earliest form goes back to the 1960s, when AT&T introduced thePicturephone at the Worlds Fair in New York. While viewed as a fascinating curiosity, it neverbecame popular and was too expensive to be practical for most consumers when it was offered for$160 a month in 1970. Commercial use of real video conferencing was first realized withEricssons demonstration of the first trans-Atlantic LME video telephone call. Soon othercompanies began refining video conferencing technologies, including such advancements asnetwork video protocol (NVP) in 1976 and packet video protocol (PVP) in 1981. None of thesewere put into commercial use, however, and stayed in the laboratory or private company use. In1976, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone established video conferencing (VC) between Tokyo andOsaka for company use. IBM Japan followed suit in 1982 by establishing VC running at 48000bpsto link up with already established internal IBM video conferencing links in the United States sothat they could have weekly meetings. The 1980s introduce commercial video conferencing In1982, Compression Labs introduces their VC system to the world for $250,000 with lines for$1,000 an hour. The system was huge and used enormous resources capable of tripping 15 ampcircuit breakers. It was, however, the only working VC system available until PictureTels VC hitthe market in 1986 with their substantially cheaper $80,000 system with $100 per hour lines. Inthe time in between these two commercially offered systems, there were other video conferencingsystems developed that were never offered commercially. The history of video conferencing isntcomplete without mentioning these systems that were either prototypes or systems developedspecifically for in-house use by a variety of corporations or organizations, including the military.Around 1984, Datapoint was using the Datapoint MINX system on their Texas campus, and hadprovided the system to the military. In the late 1980s, Mitsubishi began selling a still-picturephone that was basically a flop in the market place. They dropped the line two years afterintroducing it. In 1991, the first PC based video conferencing system was introduced by IBM -PicTel. It was a black and white system using what was at the time an incredibly inexpensive $30per hour for the lines, while the system itself was $20,000. In June of the same year, DARTnet hadsuccessfully connected a transcontinental IP network of over a dozen research sites in the UnitedStates and Great Britain using T1 trunks. Today, DARTnet has evolved into the CAIRN system,which connects dozens of institutions. CU-SeeMe revolutionizes video conferencing One of themost famous systems in the history of video conferencing was the CU-SeeMe developed for theMacIntosh system in 1992. Although the first version didnt have audio, it was the best videosystem developed to that point. By 1993, the MAC program had multipoint capability, and in 1994,CU-SeeMe MAC was true video conferencing with audio. Recognizing the limitations of MACcompatibility in a Windows world, developers worked diligently to roll out the April 1994 CU-SeeME for Windows (no audio), followed closely by the audio version, CU-SeeMe v0.66b1 forWindows in August of 1995. In 1992, AT&T rolled out their own $1,500 video phone for thehome market. It was a borderline success. That same year, the worlds first MBone audio/video

broadcast took place and in July INRIAs video conferencing system was introduced. This is theyear that saw the first real explosion in video conferencing for businesses around the globe andeventually led to the standards developed by the ITU. International Telecommunications Uniondevelops coding standards The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) began developingstandards for video conferencing coding in 1996, when they established Standard H.263 to reducebandwidth for transmission for low bit rate communication. Other standards were developed,including H.323 for packet-based multi-media communications. These are a variety of othertelecommunications standards were revised and updated in 1998. In 1999, Standard MPEG-4 wasdeveloped by the Moving Picture Experts Group as an ISO standard for multimedia content. In1993, VocalChat Novell IPX networks introduced their video conferencing system, but it wasdoomed from the start and didnt last. Microsoft finally came on board the video conferencingbandwagon with NetMeeting, a descendent of PictureTels Liveshare Plus, in August of 1996(although it didnt have video in this release). By December of the same year, MicrosoftNetMeeting v2.0b2 with video had been released. That same month, VocalTecs Internet Phonev4.0 for Windows was introduced. VRVS links global research centers The Virtual RoomVideoconferencing System (VRVS) project at Caltech-CERN kicked off in July of 1997. Theydeveloped the VRVS specifically to provide video conferencing to researchers on the LargeHadron Collider Project and scientists in the High Energy and Nuclear Physics Community in theU.S. and Europe. It has been so successful that seed money has been allotted for phase two,CalREN-2, to improve and expand on the already in-place VRVS system in order to expand it toencompass geneticists, doctors, and a host of other scientists in the video conferencing networkaround the world. Cornell Universitys development team released CU-SeeMe v1.0 in 1998. Thiscolor video version was compatible with both Windows and MacIntosh, and huge step forward inpc video conferencing. By May of that year, the team has moved on to other projects. In Februaryof 1999, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) was launched by MMUSIC. The platform showed someadvantages over H.323 that user appreciated and soon made it almost as popular. 1999 was avery busy year, with NetMeeting v3.0b coming out, followed quickly by version three of the ITUstandard H.323. Then came the release of iVisit v2.3b5 for both Windows and Mac, followed byMedia Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), version 1. In December, Microsoft released a servicepack for NetMeeting v3.01 (4.4.3388) and an ISO standard MPEG-4 version two was released.Finally, PSInet was the first company to launch H.323 automated multipoint services. Like we said,1999 was a very busy year. SIP entered version 1.30 in November of 2000, the same year thatstandard H.323 hit version 4, and Samsung released their MPEG-4 streaming 3G video cellphone, the first of its kind. It was a hit, particularly in Japan. Rather predictably, MicrosoftNetMeeting had to release another service pack for version 3.01. In 2001, Windows XPmessenger announced that it would now support Session Initiation Protocol. This was the sameyear the worlds first transatlantic tele-surgery took place utilizing video conferencing. In thisinstance, video conferencing was instrumental in allowing a surgeon in the U.S. to use a robotoverseas to perform gall bladder surgery on a patient. It was one of the most compelling non-business uses in the history of video conferencing, and brought the technology to the attention ofthe medical profession and the general public. In October of 2001, television reporters beganusing a portable satellite and a videophone to broadcast live from Afghanistan during the war. Itwas the first use of video conferencing technology to converse live with video with someone in awar zone, again bringing video conferencing to the forefront of peoples imaginations. Founded inDecember of 2001, the Joint Video Team completed basic research leading to ITU-T H.264 byDecember of 2002. This protocol standardized video compression technology for both MPEG-4and ITU-T over a broad range of application areas, making it more versatile than its predecessors.In March of 2003, the new technology was ready for launch to the industry. New uses for video

conferencing technologies 2003 also saw the rise in use of video conferencing for off-campusclassrooms. Interactive classrooms became more popular as the quality of streaming videoincreased and the delay decreased. Companies such as VBrick provided various MPEG-4systems to colleges across the country. Desktop video conferencing is also on the rise and gainingpopularity. Companies newer to the market are now refining the details of performance in additionto the nuts and bolts of transmission. In April of 2004, Applied Global Technologies developed avoice-activated camera for use in video conferencing that tracks the voice of various speakers inorder to focus on whoever is speaking during a conference call. In March 2004, Linux announcedthe release of GnomeMeeting, an H.323 compliant, free video conferencing platform that isNetMeeting compatible. With the constant advances in video conferencing systems, it seemsobvious that the technology will continue to evolve and become an integral part of business andpersonal life. As new advances are made and systems become more reasonably priced, keep inmind that choices are still determined by network type, system requirements and what yourparticular conferencing needs are. This article on the "The History of Video Conferencing"reprinted with permission.Copyright © 2004 Evaluseek Publishing.About the AuthorLori Wilkerson is a full-time freelance writer who loves her job because itgives her the opportunity to learn more about the world every day. Right now,she knows a little bit about almost everything, and a lot aboutvideo conferencing,renting avideo conference facility, and whichvideoconferencing conferencing solution is best for small groups. She has two dogs who arespoiledand one teenager who is not. She does her video conferencing in pink bunnyslippers.Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lucy_P._Roberts

==== ====Talk Fusion offers the latest, cutting-edge Video Communication Products at an affordable price!www.TalkFusion.com/1150916==== ====

Video Communication Products at affordable pricing!

by cschimmel1

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

Video Communication Products at affordable pricing! Document Transcript