A Framework for High Quality/Low Cost Conferencing Systems

This paper presents a framework for the development of advanced video conferencing systems with very high quality. The design and performance of the developed components like session management, real-time scheduler and a specific transport system are outlined. The core of the framework consists of a toolkit for the processing of audio and video data. It integrates capturing, compression, transmission and presentation of media streams into an object oriented class library. The specifics of audio/video hardware, preferred operation modes, compression algorithms and transport protocol properties are encapsulated. Due to the achieved abstraction level complex application software can easily be developed resulting in very short design cycles. Contrary to existing systems the developed application is regarded in its entirety. The focus on highest possible performance throughout all components is unique to our approach. Due to a number of optimisations, specific compression hardware is not required which leads to low overall system costs.