-- JeromeWillis - 28 Oct 2008

Video Phones activity 4.5

A videophone, also known by the trademarked name Picture phone, is a telephone which is capable of both audio and video duplex transmission. It differs from videoconferencing in that it expects to serve individuals, not groups.The demo unit was usually in a small oval cabinet on a swivel stand, intended to stand on a desk. Videophones, possibly AT&T units, were featured at the Telephone Association of Canada Pavilion (The 'Bell' Pavilion) at Expo 67, an International World's Fair held in Montreal, Canada in 1967. Several demonstration videophone units were available for the Fair-going public to try, who were permitted to make live video calls to recipient volunteers in the United States. Color was not employed. The equipment packaged a Plumb icon camera and a small CRT display in the cabinet. The camera was located atop the screen, to help users see eye to eye. One reason may be that even today videophones are a poor analog for face-to-face conversation. Primarily, users mutually look at the video screens and not at the video cameras, causing the eyes to take on an unnatural and unnerving sideways glance. Another reason may be that people actually desire less fidelity in their communication, as evidenced by the popularity of written conversation (ie texting and instant messaging, which is available on all video-enabled cell phones and web chat programs).

* Current use* : Video telephony is used in large corporate conferencing setups, and is supported by systems such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and similar systems from companies such as Tandberg, Radvision, and Polycom.

Today the principles, if not the precise mechanisms of a videophone are employed by many users world-wide in the form of web cam conferences using personal computers, with cheaply available web cams and microphones and free instant messenger programs. Thus an activity that was disappointing as a separate service found a niche as a minor feature of products intended for other purposes. A videophone can be created by using an old or inexpensive computer and dedicating it to run a video soft phone In many science fiction movies and shows that take place in the future, videophones are used as a primary method of communication. One of the first movies where a video phone was used is Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

-- RavitejAkkiraju

--Activity 4.5

AT&T conducted experiments and demonstrations of a Picture phone product and service in the early 1960s, including at the 1964 New York World's Fair. The demo unit was usually in a small oval cabinet on a swivel stand, intended to stand on a desk. Videophones, possibly AT&T units, were featured at the Telephone Association of Canada Pavilion (The 'Bell' Pavilion) at Expo 67, an International World's Fair held in Montreal, Canada in 1967. Several demonstration videophone units were available for the Fair-going public to try, who were permitted to make live video calls to recipient volunteers in the United States. Color was not employed. The equipment packaged a Plumbicon camera and a small CRT display in the cabinet. Video bandwidth was 1 MHz with about 200 scan lines. The equipment included a Speakerphone hands free telephone, with an added box to control picture transmission. Cable amplifiers were spaced about a mile apart (1.6 Kilometers) using ordinary twisted pair cables with built-in six-band adjustable equalization filters. For distances of more than a few miles, the signal was digitized at 2 MHz and 3 bits per sample DPCM, and transmitted on a T-2 carrier.

Videophones can be used by the deaf to communicate with sign language over a distance.

--People.VijayendraBoyapati

Video Phones activity by Amit

Videophones for people with visual impairments may sound like a contradiction of terms. In the eye-phone pilot project, the idea was to use the videophone as a communication channel to a sighted eye. An important question therefore was: What is the need for the human eye today and in the future? Visually impaired people have different expectations and needs, but when do they really need access to a sighted eye? Can existing information technology and dedicated devices solve most of the daily needs for blind and partially sighted persons, or do videophones offer new and/or better solutions to some of these needs? The eye-phone concept is selected to demonstrate a complete system: videophones and a sighted operator. The operators are usually located in a central, but the sighted person may instead be a personal reading assistant.

--People.AmitPanchabhai

VideoPhones

In the past, video phones had few users because the service was expensive. It cost approximately USD$90 per month in 1974. However as modern technology reduced the costs to nominal videophones continue to be marginaly used even today. This contrasts to the unanimous certainty through many decades that videophones would be an obvious, highly sought-after technology. One reason may be that even today videophones are a poor analog for face-to-face conversation. Primarily, users mutually look at the video screens and not at the video cameras, causing the eyes to take on an unnatural and unnerving sideways glance. Also it could be because many people actually desire less fidelity in their communication.

-- PhaniManchiraju

Video phone Activity 4.5 by Mital Patel

Videotelephony is used in large corporate conferencing setups, and is supported by systems such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and similar systems from companies such as Tandberg, Radvision, and Polycom.Today the principles, if not the precise mechanisms of a videophone are employed by many users world-wide in the form of webcam conferences using personal computers, with cheaply available webcams and microphones and free instant messenger programs.

Thus an activity that was disappointing as a separate service found a niche as a minor feature of products intended for other purposes. A videophone can be created by using an old or inexpensive computer and dedicating it to run a video softphone. This proves users are eager to use videophones, but are likely to trade convenience for cheaper costs. As long as cheaper alternatives are available, unless a dedicated services provides tremendous added value at a reasonable cost, it's unlikely the dedicated solution will spread much.

Videoconferencing uses telecommunications of audio and video to bring people at different sites together for a meeting. This can be as simple as a conversation between two people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several sites (multi-point) with more than one person in large rooms at different sites. Besides the audio and visual transmission of meeting activities, videoconferencing can be used to share documents, computer-displayed information, and whiteboards.

The video phones allow people who are deaf and hard or hearing to communicate with others using American Sign Language over a videophone connection. They can contact other deaf people who also have videophones directly, or they can contact hearing people through the Video Relay Service. The videophone stations are open to the entire community, and are located in the UMD Multicultural Center.

The videophone produces a video image on screen that allows participants in the call to sign to each other. Deaf and hard of hearing people, their friends and families can communicate with each other more efficiently and more naturally than ever before. As well, deaf and hard of hearing people can conduct business, and contact service providers of all kinds directly and easily through VRS.

Telecommunication access is an important community service for UMD to provide. The video phone stations will serve all members of the UMD community as well as the larger Twin Ports region. There are deaf students enrolled at all of the area colleges, for whom this service will be very valuable. Additionally, there are several faculty members at UMD who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as numerous students who have deaf or hard of hearing family members or friends with whom they would like to communicate.

AnirudhChowdaryKolli

A videophone, also known by the trademarked name Picturephone, is a telephone which is capable of both audio and video duplex transmission. It differs from videoconferencing in that it expects to serve individuals, not groups.

In general, video telephony refers to visual communication using both video and audio transmitted over a communications network. It includes both mobile and stationary video telephony. Typically, video telephony refers to packet-switched and circuit-switched, wireless and wired, audio and video communications, such as voice over IP or VoIP? communications, and video teleconferencing. Such applications facilitate remote communication by providing a visual image of each conference participant. Accordingly, video telephony allows parties to communicate audibly and visibly, without requiring lengthy and expensive travel. A videophone allows the transmission of video images over a standard telephone line. A fundamental problem associated with such transmission is the excessive frequency bandwidth of the video signal, as compared to the bandwidth of the telephone line. It is clear that video communication requires a relatively wideband channel, and telephone lines were not designed for this purpose. Full motion video and in particular full motion interactive video, requires the delivery of a very significant amount of data in a relatively uninterrupted stream. The standard two-wire telephone-set connection, referred to as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), is designed to exchange audio information, specifically voice, between two or more users. One way to solve this problem is to digitize the arbitrary signal (convert it to a stream of binary bits), and then transmit the digital data that result using a modem (modulator/demodulator). Modems can transmit digital data in the form of analog pulses through the essentially analog, band-limited telephone network. At the transmitter end, digital data is modulated into analog tones within the restricted bandwidth of the PSTN. At the receiver end, the analog tones are demodulated, the digital data extracted, and the arbitrary signal reconstructed.

Videophones can be used by the deaf to communicate with sign language over a distance. In the US the FCC pays companies for providing Video Relay Service to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, where they use a videophone to talk through a sign-language translator to people using audio phones. Videophones are also used to do on-site sign-language translation (Video Remote Interpreting). The relatively low cost and widespread availability of mobile phones with video calling capabilities have given deaf people new possibilities to communicate with the same ease as others, with some wireless operators even starting up free sign language gateways.

Mutualdiscovery.AnubhavJolly

Video phones are good for video conferencing and were not that successful as they were very expensive.I got some info on the net regarding the videophones.

Early AT&T Picturephones had few users, in part because the service was expensive. It cost approximately USD$90 per month in 1974. However as modern technology reduced the costs to nominal (see: webcams and UMTS), videophones continue to be marginaly used. This contrasts to the unanimous certainty of pundits through many decades that videophones would be an obvious, highly sought-after technology. One reason may be that even today videophones are a poor analog for face-to-face conversation. Primarily, users mutually look at the video screens and not at the video cameras, causing the eyes to take on an unnatural and unnerving sideways glance. Another reason may be that people actually desire less fidelity in their communication, as evidenced by the popularity of written conversation (ie texting and instant messaging, which is available on all video-enabled cell phones and webchat programs).

SameerVerma

A videophone is a system for bidirectionally transmitting moving pictures and speech of minimum quality over conventional telephone lines. Video telephones are used in communication systems to provide a two-way audio and video communications link. A videophone is capable of transmitting not only speeches but also the image of a person who is communicating and is therefore considered promising ways for implementing communications between persons who are too far apart to readily meet each other. Unlike conventional speech and data communications systems, the videophone allows one party to look the other party in the face and see expressions thereon, and a large amount of information can be transmitted to each party. Initially introduced in the communications art for such a purpose was a videophone for a still picture which was inexpensive and simple in construction. With the progress of video signal coding technology, however, a videophone for a moving picture has recently come to attract increasing attention. In particular, with the recent advent of powerful video compression algorithms and miniaturized video camera technology such as the use of charge coupled devices (CCD) in consumer products, video telephones are becoming a commercially viable alternative means of communication. Additionally, wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones, cordless telephones, two-way wireless communicators, and other such two-way portable wireless communication devices, are including powerful and fast processors capable of managing video signals and compression for communication over a wireless communication channel.

Madhuri Jangama - Video Phones

Videophones are not successfull because the cost of videophone is very expensive and it requires a large amount of bandwidth. The infrastructure is not well built. It is not accessible to everyone.

Video bandwidth was 1 MHz with vertical scan rate of 30 Hz, horizontal scan rate of 8 kHz, and about 250 visible scan lines. The equipment included a Speakerphone hands free telephone, with an added box to control picture transmission. Each Picturephone line used three twisted pairs of ordinary telephone cable, two pairs for video and one for audio and signaling. Cable amplifiers were spaced about a mile apart (1.6 Kilometers) with built-in six-band adjustable equalization filters. For distances of more than a few miles, the signal was digitized at 2 MHz and 3 bits per sample DPCM, and transmitted on a T-2 carrier.AT&T sold the VideoPhone? 2500 to the general public in 1992 to 1995 with prices starting at US$1,500 and later US$1,000.[1] It was limited by connecting by analog phone lines at about 19 kbit/s; the video portion was 11,200 bit/s,[2] with a maximum frame rate of 10 frames per second, but typically much lower. The VideoPhone? 2500 used proprietary protocols.

Aniruddha dongre

A videophone, also known by the trademarked name Picture phone, is a telephone which is capable of both audio and video duplex transmission. It differs from videoconferencing in that it expects to serve individuals, not groups.A videophone is capable of transmitting not only speeches but also the image of a person who is communicating and is therefore considered promising ways for implementing communications between persons who are too far apart to readily meet each other. Unlike conventional speech and data communications systems, the videophone allows one party to look the other party in the face and see expressions thereon, and a large amount of information can be transmitted to each party.Early AT&T Picturephones had few users, in part because the service was expensive. It cost approximately USD$90 per month in 1974. However as modern technology reduced the costs to nominal (see: webcams and UMTS), videophones continue to be marginaly used. This contrasts to the unanimous certainty of pundits through many decades that videophones would be an obvious, highly sought-after technology.

The camera phone, like many complex systems, is the result of converging and enabling technologies. There are dozens of relevant patents dating back as far as the 1960s. Compared to digital cameras of the 90s, a consumer-viable camera in a mobile phone would require far less power and a higher level of camera electronics integration to permit the miniaturization. The CMOS active pixel image sensor "camera-on-a-chip" developed by Dr. Eric Fossum and his team in the early 1990s achieved the first step of realizing the modern camera phone as described in a March 1995 Business Week article. While the first camera phones, as successfully marketed by J-Phone in Japan, used CCD sensors and not CMOS sensors, more than 90% of camera phones sold today use CMOS image sensor technology.

Jatin Aneja Activity

Video Phone technology is one of the best and one of the latest technologies in this world of technology, to be able to talk to someone over the phone and also watch the person speak millions of miles away is an incredible achievement in itself. Video phone allows video conferencing between two parties/locations also known as which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously. It is an absolute excellent technology which helps a great deal in solving communication gap, or filling that communication gap which a normal phone device would show. It mainly helps in mass communication like News channel, news reporters reporting some news from other cities , countries can be spoken to on the phone while watching them on the screen , That helps a great deal understanding not just the content but also the emotions and presentation layer attached with it.