What is Videoconferencing?
"Videoconferencing is the conduct of a video-conference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions. It has also been called ‘visual collaboration’ and is a type of groupware" this is what Wikipedia says. So we know that it allows us to see and hear each other at the same time from two or more locations, using various devices attached to computer or laptop or any screen telecommunication technologies.
Where is it used?
It can be hosted in different environments. This is the one reason it is becoming so popular day by day. It can be used in educational training, business meetings and collaboration among health officials or any other representatives. Thus we can say that it is used in:
- Meetings and conferences in Business
- Education field for Distance Learning
- It can be used in courtrooms
- In Telecommuting like if we have our Office at Home
- Telemedicine by doctors or by patients for consulting
Business: Videoconferencing provides the ability to meet and to work with other people doing business over a distance. Benefits of Videoconferencing in business are:
- Swiftness in decision making
- Trim down voyage expenditure.
- Improve utilize of executive time.
- Reduces travel cost of employees and saves fuel as well.
- This creates an environment for conducting business interviews.
- Keep meetings epigrammatic and supplementary focused than face-to-face meetings.
- It also allows management to rapidly and efficiently correspond with their employees sitting at different places.
- It helps in virtual project management by the means of data and video conferencing with geographically isolated peer groups at short notice.
Education: Teachers and students sitting at different places are able to see each other, discuss topics and share documents together even sitting at their homes. They may be in different states or sometimes even countries.
Distance Learning Videoconferencing increases effectiveness by:
- Escalating instructor’s spectators around the place
- It makes interaction between teachers and students more convenient and easy.
- It saves students travelling time and everyday expenditure, as well as that of teachers too.
Now-a-days many schools are using these videoconferencing systems for a variety of purposes like:
- Traditional courses
- It is used in Multi-school project collaboration
- Connecting students to talk with guest speakers and experts
- Enabling teachers to share information and take advice from other teachers from remote sites.
- Virtual field trips to zoos, museums, institutions, aquariums and other interesting locations far away from the school
Courtrooms: This technology is also used in today's courtrooms. These are used to testifying witnesses to "show" in court without traveling to the courtroom. Expert prisoners, witnesses and various other witnesses can provide the same testimonies from far-flung locations. From the prison itself, prisoners can hear and see everything that takes place there in the courtroom and will be able to respond to the questions posed to them by the presiding lawyers and judges. It also offers significant safety and saves travel cost by reducing necessitates for high-security prisoner bringing. The intact courtroom will be made safer, shorter and more cost-effective.
Home Office: Telecommuting use at home has never been simple and easier. Video conferencing makes it achievable to hang about with people in a very easy as well as real way. It allows the users to save resources by meeting with clients or we can say colleagues using this technology. It also helps by reducing travel expenses, whilst maintaining face-to-face contact. For a nominal cost, it is possible to set-up a fully functional video conferencing system that works in a professional and reliable way from our home office.
Telemedicine: There are times when an individual needs therapeutic advice but somehow it is unable for them to visit their individual physician or a specialist. In such situations the use of videoconferencing can build all the discrepancy. With the help of this technology a patient in a rural location easily can see and hear a specialist from anywhere round the world. It also enables patients to get the essential information and expert supervision they need and that too in a nick of a time very easily. Hence it may prove to be a lifesaver.
For more information on Audio visual solutions or video conferencing you can visit DAVS. Tips for a successful video conference can be seen from the video below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48MkJJgidnE]
