Video Conferencing

REVIEWED BY JULIA KAGAN

Updated May 21, 2019

What Is Video Conferencing?

Video conferencing is a technology that allows users in different locations to hold
face-to-face meetings without having to move to a single location together. This
technology is particularly convenient for business users in different cities or even
different countries because it saves time, expense, and hassle associated with
business travel. Uses for video conferencing include holding routine
meetings, negotiating business deals, and interviewing job candidates.

How Video Conferencing Works

Video conferencing's main advantage over teleconferencing is that users can see
each other, which allows them to develop stronger relationships. When a video
conference is held for informal purposes, it is called a video call or video chat.

There are a variety of ways video conferencing can be conducted. Individuals

may use web cameras connected to our built into laptop, tablet, or desktop
computers. Smartphones equipped with cameras may also be used to connect
for video conferences. In such instances, a software-based platform typically is
used to transmit the communication over Internet protocols.

[Important: The stability and quality of the video conference may fluctuate
with the speed and reliability of the data connection.]

Some businesses use dedicated video conferencing rooms that have been
equipped with high-grade cameras and screens to ensure the conversation is
clear and with limited technical faults. Third-party providers often install and
assemble the hardware needed to conduct the video conference.

Uses of Video Conferencing

Companies with multiple offices might establish direct video communications
between their locations in order to allow their teams to work more collaboratively.

Video conferencing can also be used as a medium for conducting training, with
the instructor teaching a remote class from most anywhere. This can be done in
a corporate context, especially for getting workers the knowledge they need to
better perform their jobs. The academic world can also make use of video
conferencing to connect a traditional classroom setting with students who are
based a considerable distance from the school.

A video conference may also be used to conduct regular meetings with a

company staff or to confer with shareholders about the latest activities at the
business. It may be used to announce significant changes at a company, such as
introducing a new CEO or to present information in an interactive way that allows
all participants to engage in discussion about what they see on screen.

Hotels and conference centers sometimes make video conferencing services

available to guests who require such services. This may be offered in suites or
conference rooms that have been equipped for this purpose.

Key Takeaways

 Video conferencing is a highly convenient use of technology that allows

users in different locations to hold face-to-face meetings.
 There are many ways to utilize video conferencing technology, such as
company meetings, job training sessions, or addressing board members.
 Video conferencing can be used to connect a traditional classroom with
students who are taking the class remotely.
 The stability and quality of the video conference may fluctuate with the
speed and reliability of the data connection.
 There are a variety of ways video conferencing can be conducted—like
using smartphones and tablets or via desktop computers.

Different Types of Video Conferencing Systems

There are various kinds of video conferencing systems in the market for individual use or to be
used with multiple people. In order to find out the best video conferencing systems for your
business needs, knowing the different types of video conferencing systems available in the
market is necessary. Among the most common and major types of video conference systems
are telepresence, integrated, desktop, service-based and codec.
1. Telepresence Video Conferencing System
Telepresence is designed to host a meeting as closely as possible. Even if the participants are
not in the same room physically, the set-up is done in a way easily. Large screens are used and
cameras are positioned at eye level. The result is a videoconference set-up that appears as if all
the participants are sitting in the same room and around the same table.

2. Integrated Video Conferencing System

Integrated video conferencing systems are designed generally for group video
conferencing where there's a centralized location for the equipment. It include both the
hardware and codec. All the main camera, displays and other peripheral videos are mounted in
the main conference location. Integrated video conferencing systems are typically ideal for
boardroom and classroom conferences.
3. Desktop Video Conferencing System
As an important one of types of video conferencing systems, desktop video conferencing
system is very popular with people on-the-go and typical office workers. Within this option
there are two choices available: a software client on your desktop or a hardware codec that
doubles as your computer monitor. By using this type of set-up, the video conferencing system
is brought right into your personal computer while still pulling off a full-motion conference.

4. Service-based Video Conferencing System

For serviced-based systems, the provider, which often is a telecom carrier, handles majority of
the control when it comes to the network set-up. This means less work on your end. You just
pay for the solution and your provider manages it for you making more convenient especially if
you don't want to bother with the technicalities.

5. Codec
This alternative is the most like a room-based video conferencing framework in that it utilizes
an outside display, camera and microphone, which is the same as does a framework for your
meeting room. It is the best decision for someone who will utilize a whiteboard in his or her
office who need to collaborate with a physical protest or some else in the room or who likes to
stroll about the space while on a call. The space amongst you and the codec enables the
flexibility to utilize the space in your office. This alternatives ranges in cost from $1500 to
$8000 in addition to yearly charges for authorizing and upkeep.

Minimum system requirements for video

conferencing
To send or receive video with a resolution of 360p, ensure that your system meets the following minimum
requirements:

Action What you need

Send  A webcam capable of producing high-quality video. WebEx supports most webcams
of this type.

 A computer with at least 1 GB of RAM and a dual-core processor.

 A fast network connection.

Receive  A computer with at least 1 GB of RAM and a dual-core processor.

 A fast network connection.

To send or receive video with a resolution of 720p, ensure that your system meets the following minimum
requirements:

Action What you need

Send  A webcam capable of producing HD video. WebEx supports most webcams of this
type.

 A computer with at least 2 GB of RAM and a quad-core processor.

 A fast network connection.

Receive  A computer with at least 2 GB of RAM and a dual-core processor.

 A fast network connection.

Top 7 Uses of Video Conferencing
in Multiple Fields
Read more at https://www.business2community.com/video-marketing/top-7-uses-video-
conferencing-multiple-fields-01902630

1. Meetings or Collaborations
Video calls assist a great deal to set up conferences, whether for business, enjoyment or training.
Essential information can be talked over by managers or company heads even though they are far
away from one another. Groups who would like to pre-plan a project can discuss details conveniently
by applying features like screen sharing, white boarding, etc. An additional common practice to this
particular procedure happens to be the student collaborations. One can effortlessly accomplish
group study or student projects without voyaging or going for a drive.

2. Online Teaching
Technology has aided the world of long distance learning to become an actuality. Consequently, a
teacher no longer requires being in the same room as his students. For example, long distance
education programs have been included by both small as well as premiere Ivy League schools such
as Harvard University in the USA in their syllabus. Even though the majority of these happen to be in
video course form, live web-conference courses also constitute a significant portion.
It is simple to interact with a huge number of people simultaneously by making use of video
conferencing. Questions can be answered by a professional to any student from any location.
Meanwhile, this approach can also be employed for teaching students in rural areas. A proper setup
is only needed and a competent teacher will be capable of teaching his students by making use of
the process.

Apart from the usual student and teacher arrangement, it can likewise be employed to teach the
fellow instructors or even contact them for sharing ideas.
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3. Business Administration
During the past, it was actually out of the question to manage a business on the web. However,
remote workplaces and virtual staff have become a standard setup with the intro of the web.
Interacting through email, chat services, which includes video conferences have grown to be an
important part in motivating these types of companies. It is now feasible for the employers to make
contact with their freelance designers, copy writers, administrative staff along with other staff
remotely. Besides bridging the gap, it likewise creates a more effective and worldwide workplace
with little effort.

4. Video Interviews
In the yesteryears, video interviews were not common. Nowadays, video calls or conferences are
being utilized by numerous industries in an effort to reach a number of experts at once, recognize
the potential workers for the organization, get in touch with correspondents and much more. Leading
news networks usually link different individuals for interview by making use of meetings. At times
while a correspondent is not reachable, a useful internet transmission and an internet service
program which provides video conferencing might help. Each party will be benefited by the volume
of cost savings which includes traveling time.

Different parties can easily interact with one another simultaneously even though they may be from
diverse areas. Although it was once a complicated technology, nowadays it’s feasible to effortlessly
do meetings with more sophisticated phone systems and quicker net services.

5. Working from Home

A lot more staff, at present, is prepared to select an innovative method of working from home.
Workers will be able to make use of video conferencing to keep linked to customers or co-workers in
a realistic way. It will save you considerable time invested on the way and stop you from getting
worn out due to a traffic jam or a crowd in the subway. As a matter of fact, home based work will be
an ideal choice in case you were an expecting mother and actually more and more people are taking
advantage of tools like Skype or many other Skype alternatives for their remote work. They can
easily perform a real-time Internet meeting by just quickly downloading and running it on desktop or
mobile.

6. Distance Diagnostics
The ability to identify a symptom or problem from afar is referred to as remote diagnostics. In health
care, it is feasible for the affected person to be in the home or even overseas and the medical
professional or expert could be in a different area. This tactic is also employed by the cosmonauts in
the International Space Station while using cameras or remote calling for the assistance of the
ground staff. Furthermore, remote diagnostics is likewise employed by business phones too,
particularly those linked with PABX systems; earlier, operators used to switch calls manually, but
right now it is accomplished automatically by special techniques.

7. Legal Environment
Video conferencing is utilized by a lot of courtrooms as well as prestigious authorized offices for
connecting with unwilling prisoners or witnesses that are struggling to appear personally to be
questioned. The individual will feel like he is actually there because of the amazingly impressive
actions taken by high quality video conferencing. It is sometimes far easier to have a witness or a
prisoner broadcast themselves digitally as compared to having them appear face-to-face. Despite
the fact that the courtrooms are the places to make use of video conferencing for this task, it can be
useful to any business that requires making use of the testimony of somebody who does not wish to
appear face-to-face.
Conclusion
Top quality video conferencing solutions are creating incredibly helpful business equipment which
can be used in lots of innovative as well as interesting ways. Just like the leading businesses, this
technology may be used by any organizations in the multiple field to fully make use of the
enhancement in productiveness, cohesion, as well as development.

7 Benefits of Video Conferencing

Video conferencing is the technology that allows you to hold meetings
with several correspondents who are located in different places while seeing and talking
to them in real time. It is different from simple video calling, which is normally one-to-
one video communication.

Some time ago, video calling or conferencing was a luxury that required expensive and
(then) complex equipment and expertise. Today, you literally carry it in your pocket. You
can participate in or host video conferencing sessions on your smartphone and mobile
device as well as on your computer with basic hardware and adequate Internet
connectivity.

Video conferencing has become more common and more accessible thanks to the
advent and development of Voice over IP, which harnesses the
underlying IP infrastructure of the Internet to make free communication
possible. Packets of video, voice, and other types of data are carried on the Internet,
thereby making voice and video communication free.

You need to be aware that video conferencing has a much higher bandwidth
requirement than a simple video call. A typical estimate for a session with decent quality
video would be 1 Mbps for each participant. If HD video quality is of importance,
consider this as the minimum value. Each participant also needs to have the same
connectivity provisions, failing which they risk missing much of the session and also
messing around with the whole collective experience.

The most well-established free video conferencing tool around is Skype. As it stands
today, however, it may not be the best. Alternative tools include TeamViewer, Google
Hangouts, join.me, and many others.
No Need To Travel

It costs a lot of money and a lot of time to travel to meet people. With video
conferencing, you can organize and hold a meeting within the hour with participants
from remote places all over the world. They only need to have the necessary equipment
and be present in front of the screen at the chosen time. The pre-meeting organization
can be done via email or instant messaging.

02
of 07

Bind Your Mobile Worker

Your workforce may be scattered around the city of around the country if they are
mobile workers. They connect back to base through their mobile devices. You can
leverage this existing mobile infrastructure to conduct video conferencing meetings with
your workforce. Besides, the visual nature of video conferencing even allows you to
check the activities and whereabouts of your employees.

03
of 07

It Aids Telecommuting

Video conferencing is also an essential tool for teleworking or telecommuting- working

away from the office, often at home. If your business has a quite open timetable and
your workers or co-workers work from home, one way to curb the lack of interaction
within the workforce and the lack of downward instruction or upward reporting is video
conferencing.

04
of 07

Organize Meetings Independent of Time

Now that meetings online are free from the huge obstacle of travel expenses and
restrictions, they can be organized more often. You can meet people around the world
every day or even several times a day. This allows your business to move at the speed
the world is moving. Your business moves without you having to move and that's very
fast.
Your meetings can be very short notice. Participants will no longer have excuses related
to location and travel; they only have to free themselves. This means that you can
schedule video conferencing meetings quickly and get it running quickly. You can also
easily squeeze in anyone with a tight schedule.

05
of 07

Humanize Your Conversation

Take this point in contrast with voice communication or email correspondence. A video
is moving pictures, which are worth more than a million words. By showing yourself and
seeing others, you can work the charms of body language, which is so important in
business and other activities involving human interaction. Also, seeing someone while
talking to them completely changes the nomenclature of a conversation, be it for
business or in a personal relationship.

06
of 07

Show Things

Seeing is believing, and showing is convincing. Through video conferencing, you can
write on a board and show it to everyone, demonstrate your latest product, or introduce
a new recruit. Often, you can show things that you cannot take along with you in your
suitcase while traveling to a meeting.

07
of 07

Learn and Teach Online

There are great courses being offered and great teachers teaching everywhere, but
most of them are probably very far from you. If you are a teacher or trainer, your market
may be far from where you are. Video conferencing is a great way of acquiring and
sharing knowledge beyond hurdles. While it will not be like being physically present, the
interaction is adequate. You will be able to use multimedia facilities like online
interactive whiteboards, and you can use online collaboration tools
 Main Advantages of Video Conferencing
Video conferencing was once utilized by large enterprises only, but now it has become a
mainstream method of communication and collaboration for organizations of all sizes in almost
every industries like education, medicine, financing and military, etc. Like all technologies,
video conferencing also has its benefits and drawbacks from different viewpoints. In this
article, we will talk over the definition of video conferencing, advantages and disadvantages of
using video conferencing technology in order to help you make a smart decision.

 What Is Video Conferencing?

Video conferencing refers to the conduct of a video meeting by a set of communication
technologies, which allows two or more people in different locations to communicate
simultaneously through audio and video transmission, according to Wikipedia. You can easily
host a live video conference as long as you have a video conferencing software like ezTalks
Meetings, a computer with webcam and microphone speaker equipped, and a fast Internet
connection.
 Advantages of Video Conferencing
The invisible advantages and benefits of video conferencing are as follows:
#1 Higher productivity and efficiency. By eliminating time and space barriers, video
conference can be conducted to communicate with colleagues, customers and partners
anytime, anywhere. In this way, meetings could become much shorter and more efficient.
#2 More flexibility. One of advantages of video call is that it gives you more flexibility. Even if
you are outside for some reason, you can still easily start or join a video conference for an
important matter on your laptop, smartphone, iPad or other mobile devices.
#3 More effective communication. In comparison to audio-only calls, video conferencing
provides participants with a kind of non-verbal communication which is reported to be an
effective communication means.
#4 Good options for remote working, online interview and distance learning. Besides
business meeting and staff training, video conferencing can also make remote working like
telecommuting, online interview and e-learning possible.
#5 Save money and time. The tangible advantages of video conferencing include lower costs
on business travels and staff training; less time for meetings, training and projects because of
improved communication among participants, trainees and teammates.

 Disadvantages of Video Conferencing

Frankly speaking, video conferencing also has its downsides although the advantages of using
video conferencing are numerous. The major disadvantage of video conference is that it may be
heavily dependent on the network connection. Bandwidth issue could lead in a bad
transmission of video, sound and files, which is likely to affect the communication and
cooperation. Besides, although we can use video conferencing tool to create a virtual face-to-
face meeting, it is still lack of personal interaction to some extent.
Video conferencing is an effective means of real-time communication which enables people
across distance to collaborate with each other in a more productive and convenient way. From
what we talked above, the advantages of video conferencing obviously outweigh its
disadvantages.

The importance of video conferencing

With the world getting smaller, there has been a soar in global corporations. Technology has given rise to new
possibilities; breakthroughs in a lot of limitations that businesses had to deal with before. You don’t have to
catch connecting flights all the way to Los Angeles for a meeting anymore. All you need to do is just open
your laptop screen.

Businesses have come a long way, and we at Salt stress that businesses should evolve as their consumers do.
Technology has made it possible for people from all parts of the world to communicate with each other and
share ideas. The same goes for businesses. Because the world has
become such a small place, a business in Namibia is now able to cater for Russian residents. The world
becoming smaller, impacts on competition too; customers have now shifted from a geographic way of looking
for their needs to get solved, to a more expertise, “who can do it better”
way.

There are a lot of businesses operating globally now, and internal communication is imperative to ensure that
each satellite works injunction with the rest, and to keep track of business operations globally. Having to fly
six people from different regions to headquarters just for a meeting has always been a mission because it takes
up a lot of money, money that could’ve been used for important resources. Communicating using emails is
also not ideal, especially when trying to communicate as a group. It takes up a lot of time and effort.
This leaves us with one more option – conferencing. Conferencing is ideal because parties involved are in the
same situation simultaneously; they can all hear what is being said at the same time and can also be heard
immediately. Telephone conferencing was done a lot previously to communicate with stakeholders from
different regions of the world/country but as the world moves forward, so should business. Skype offers
collaborative tools for businesses of any magnitude. One of these tools is video conferencing where
participants from various parts of the world/country can communicate while they see each other
simultaneously.

Video conferencing breaks a number of limitations:

1. It saves you on your telecoms bills and travelling costs, and without having to spend money on travelling,
meetings can be scheduled frequently to increase interaction and thus bettering internal communication.

2. It saves time where people with tight schedules are concerned; Skype just needs you to have a strong
internet connection and a laptop or mobile device.

3. You can show things in real time using video conferencing as opposed to email correspondence or
telephonic conferencing.

4. Although this could be seen as insignificant, it is important to have a real human experience, especially
when dealing with people you don’t know such as new clients. Skype gives you an opportunity to humanise
the experience. Just the way you look, or the way you communicate with your body could win a client over.