Video Conferencing IT Roundtable January 21 st, 2009

Today’s Topics Introduction Basics / Requires Product walkthrough free / non-free Camera types Software demo Q & A

Introduction Text Chat Audio Chat Screen Sharing Video Conference Telepresence

Basics & Requirements Dedicated hardware Computer Microphone Webcamera Software - ?? Broadband – 384k+

Software Office Communicator Skype Gtalk (gmail) ooVoo Yahoo

Office Communicator Supports text / audio / video chat Integrates with windows network Inter-network traffic ~25meg installed size Requires communicator server for server 30 for user CAL Two people per “call”

Yahoo Supports text / audio / video chat Supports multiple viewers ( * ) Free (ad supported) Video quality not the greatest Multiple people per “call”

Google / Gmail / Gchat Supports text / audio / video chat Free (integrated into gmail) ~ 5meg plug-in to web browser Good sound / video Two people per “call”

ooVoo Supports text / audio / video chat Supports multiple people per “call” Supports ‘High Quality’ calls Ability to record calls Free – Ad Supported Advanced cam options ~ 18meg installed

Skype Supports text / audio / video chat Free – Premium version support ~ 30meg installed Large user base Good video quality

Memory Usage

Web Cams Big brands: Microsoft / Logitech / Toshiba / Labtec Quality:.3 / 1.0 / 1.3 / 2.0 Built into laptops ‘Special Features’

Possible issues “ Videoconferencing in the Field: A Heuristic Processing Model ” This research uses dual-process cognitive theory to describe how people process information differently when it is delivered via videoconference rather than when it is delivered face-to-face. According to this theory, relative to face-to-face communication, people in videoconferences tend to be more influenced by heuristic cues—such as how likeable they perceive the speaker to be—than by the quality of the arguments presented by the speaker. This is due to the higher cognitive demands that videoconferencing places on participants. We report on a field study of medical professionals in which we found differences in information processing as predicted: participants attending a seminar via videoconference were more influenced by the likeability of the speaker than by the quality of the arguments presented, whereas the opposite pattern was true for participants attending in-person. We also found that differences in cognitive load explain these effects. The discussion on the theoretical model and associated findings explains why prior videoconference studies have not consistently found main effects for media. The findings also show that videoconferencing is not like face-to-face communication, despite apparent similarities.

DEMO

Questions?