Task 1: Read and translate the text in written form

2 
VIDEO CONFERENCING

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The Elements of Video Conferencing 
A video conference facility is made up of the room, the video pickup and display 
component, the audio pickup and delivery system, and the codec (code/decode) 
that is used to convert the signals into a compressed digital form to be transmitted. 
While the codec and the available transmission bandwidth largely determine what 
the best transmitted audio and video signal quality can be, it is still important to 
design the other components for optimum performance. It is important to 
remember that when there is a requirement for upgradability the easiest item to 
improve is the codec and the network connection, so the design of the room, and 
the audio and video components should support foreseeable improvements in 
transmission bandwidth. 
The Room 
The video conference room has a tremendous impact on the audio and video 
systems used in that room. The room acoustics affects both the microphone pickup 
and the audio playback in the room. Where there is full duplex voice 
communication, the room acoustics are a critical element in minimizing the echo-
cancellation problems, and potential feedback problems. HVAC noise, 
reverberation and reflections that may not be noticeable to a person seated in the 
room can be problematic when a microphone is opened in the room. A microphone 
does not have the sophisticated biological processing that the human brain has for 
ignoring unwanted sounds in favour of the important sounds. 
Ambient light affects the quality of the video display as well. Where there are 
reflections of light sources on the video display screen or lack of contrast caused 
by elevated ambient light levels the image quality will be significantly degraded. 
The Video System 
The modern video conference system also makes extensive use of other video 
sources such as interactive computer presentations to augment the communication. 
This can be especially valuable for technical applications where models, drawings, 
sketches, and broken or defective parts can be shown to the receiving station. In 
addition to standard video sources, the use of interactive displays or collaborative 
computing software on tablets allow material displayed in the source room to be 
shared at the receiving end. Where a similar interactive computer is located in the 
receiving station, true interactive design, troubleshooting and problem solving can 
take place in near real time. 

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8 
Where the video conference room also functions as a meeting room, the video 
display for the video conference system can be made to double as the display for 
meeting support materials. The same document camera, as well as other video 
devices, can be used with these display systems.