Date: April 8, 2000
Author: Ronald Wolak

Subject: Reply 2 to Walter Usedly's Discussion Topic #3 - Video

Reply 2 to Walter Usedly's Discussion Topic #3 - Video

As Walter pointed out, bandwidth management will be a key concern as video becomes more visible in corporate networked environments. Technologies such as RealServer by Real Networks, OnLive Conferencing Server by OnLive Technologies, VDOLive On-Demand Server by VDOnet Corporation, and NetShow Server by Microsoft will play an important role in minimizing the impact (Nicol, Gutfreund, Paschetto, Rush, & Martin, 1999).

As videoconferencing and desktop videoconferencing become more prevalent in the education and corporate environments, the effects of these communication mediums on personal and group interaction will need a closer look. In fact, a recent study on the effects of narrow-bandwidth multipoint videoconferencing on group decision-making reported significant effects (Takao, 1999, February 22-25). The study found that the quality of group decisions was lower when individual (switched) videoconferencing was used instead of group (mixed) videoconferencing.

Another area in which videoconferencing will play a major role is the office of the future. The office of the future will utilize multiple cameras and video projectors to create a spatially immersive environment (Raskar et al., 1998, July 19-24). Dynamic image-based models and video from the office would then be transmitted to others at remote sites. Here is a link to a graphic that provides a better understanding of what the office of the future will look like.

References

Nicol, J., Gutfreund, Y., Paschetto, J., Rush, K., & Martin, C. (1999). How the Internet helps build collaborative multimedia applications. Communications of the ACM, 42(1), 79-85.

Raskar, R., Welch, G., Cutts, M., Lake, A., Stesin, L., & Fuchs, H. (1998, July 19-24). The office of the future: A unified approach to image-based modeling and spatially immersive displays. International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM, Orlando, pp. 179-188.

Takao, S. (1999, February 22-25). The effects of narrow-bandwidth multipoint videoconferencing on group decision-making and turn distribution. International Joint Conference on Work Activities Coordination and Collaboration, ACM, San Francisco, pp. 109-116.