A video conference is a live communications connection between
people in separate locations involving audio, video, and often
data transmission (text, graphics, PowerPoint presentations,
sharing Word or Excel documents, etc.). At its simplest, video
conferencing provides transmission of static images and text
between just two locations. At its most sophisticated, it
provides transmission of full-motion video images and high-
quality audio between multiple locations. Video conferencing
systems typically consist of cameras, microphones, a codec
(coder-decoder, which handles the video, audio, and data
signals), network access equipment, a network, and other
specialized equipment. It is important to distinguish between
conferences with only two remote sites and those conferences
where a larger number of sites are involved. A point-to-point
video conference is only between two sites. A multi-point video
conference includes more than two sites, and requires some
method for each site to receive the communications fro