Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Video Conferencing Equipment Has Evolved Into Perfection

By Paul Fraser


Video conferencing equipment has evolved through the years from radio-frequency hookups to high-definition Internet connections. Now, video conferencing is accessible to most businesses and works better than ever before.



If you have a well-documented history in business, you may have been involved in some early teleconferences or video meetings. Those early connections between 2 locations are as different from the experience offered by modern video conferencing equipment as a phonograph is from an MP3 player.



Sure, communication happened on those early connections â€" similair to a phonograph, which reproduced the sounds of vocalists and bands accurately â€" but there were definite quality issues with the equipment and the link.



Nowadays video conferencing equipment has evolved far beyond where anybody could have forecast only one or two years back. Let us take a brief look at the past, present and future. You might just be shocked as to how long videoconferencing has been used â€" and how long it took to create a method and set-up that would essentially get things done.



Like many other things, modern videoconferencing owes a lot to the quality connection between locations provided by the Web.



History of Video Conferencing



A video-conference can be any type of video-audio connection between multiple locations. It can be as simple as a conversation between 2 people at 2 different locations or it can involve a huge number of people spread over multiple sites around the world.



Primitive videophone communication has been used possibly as long as television has been in existence. Nevertheless it was not available for widespread use until much later on. Still, a video phone network was available by coax cable in Berlin and other German towns as early as 1936.



When space exploration started in the U. S. , NASA maintained video communication with its space-going vessels using UHF and VHF radio-frequency video links going in each direction. Television stations used comparable videophones when reporting from the field.



Various attempts to introduce similar technology to business conferences, telemedicine and remote learning in the 1950s often failed however, because picture standard was poor and there was no method of compression available. Further attempts in the 1970s were not successful either, mostly due to significant costs and the comparatively low number of Picture phones being used globally.



When digital telephone technology started to develop in the 1980s, video conferencing started to become a reality. Still, connections were expensive and eccentric. In the 1990s , however , Internet based video conferencing changed into a reality, and business-to-business use increased.



Video Conferencing Equipment Today



Skype and similar services have made video conferencing available to everybody, but these services provide sub-standard connections in a few cases, and hookups frequently fail for seconds to minutes at a time.



In 2005, high-definition video conferencing equipment was first demonstrated. Todays modern cameras and sound hardware are combined with fast, stable connections between locations, near-perfect communication is possible as long as the right bits of equipment are installed at each location.



It's hard to imagine what the future hold's because today's video conferencing equipment is so advanced. But with each new year and each trade show that happens, extra refinements are introduced.



Today's video conferencing equipment is near perfect nonetheless, it's a great time to have it installed in your business. It's a far way from the low definition, low-quality connections of the past and even miles ahead of what Videophones could do.




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