Multipoint Video Conferencing
Simultaneous videoconferencing among three or more remote points is possible by means of a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). This is a bridge that interconnects calls from several sources (in a similar way to the audio conference call). All parties call the MCU unit, or the MCU unit can also call the parties which are going to participate, in sequence.
There are MCU bridges for IP and ISDN-based videoconferencing. There are MCUs which are pure software, and others which are a combination of hardware and software.
An MCU is characterised according to the number of simultaneous calls it can handle, its ability to conduct transposing of data rates and protocols, and features such as Continuous Presence, in which multiple parties can be seen onscreen at once.
MCUs can be stand-alone hardware devices, or they can be embedded into dedicated VTC units.
Some systems are capable of multipoint conferencing with no MCU, stand-alone, embedded or otherwise. These use a standards-based H.323 technique known as "decentralized multipoint", where each station in a multipoint call exchanges video and audio directly with the other stations with no central "manager" or other bottleneck.
The advantages of this technique are that the video and audio will generally be of higher quality because they don't have to be relayed through a central point. Also, users can make ad-hoc multipoint calls without any concern for the availability or control of an MCU.
This added convenience and quality comes at the expense of some increased network bandwidth, because every station must transmit to every other station directly.
In the video conferencing world, people have the choice of an MCU embedded right in the video end-point itself, an external MCU located on their network, or to utilize services offered from an outside company.
Viscom's expertise can be applied to any of your company's needs for video multi-point bridging on any scale. We will help you make the right decision now, one that makes sense for the future.
We offer you the choice and flexibility of using our convenient automated bridging and gateway services provided to our IntelliNet customers; alternatively, if you wish to use your own bridge, we can deliver that solution to your company and offer you the flexibility of maintaining it at your facility, or we can host it in our state of the art Network Operations Center.
Viscom provides clients with one point of contact for video conferencing sales, installation, service, management and support.
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