TANDBERG MXP User Manual - page 44
D14034.04—MAY 2008
44
MXP Video endpoints
User Guide
Video conferencing features
About video conferencing
A video call involving more than two participants is
called a video conference or a MultiSite call.
A multitude of TANDBERGs video endpoints are
capable of initiating video conferences. To be able
to do this the endpoints must have a built-in MCU
(Multipoint Control Unit). This is an optional feature
that may, or may not, be installed in your video
endpoint.
Some video endpoints are without this optional
built-in feature. They can, however, participate in
video meeting initiated by others.
Observe that the infrastructure of your video
network may contain external MCUs. These are
devices dedicated to handle several simultaneous
video conferences, each with many participants.
Consult your system administrator for information
on how to utilize external MCUs, if applicable.
Who becomes the host?
The host of a video conference is the endpoint to
which all the others are connected. In other words,
the one that initiated the conference.
If two systems both supporting MultiSite
have established their own video conference
independent of the other and one of these two call
the other, cascading will take place. This means
that you may have more participants in total than a
single system supports. In this case, the host will
be the one calling the other.
The host has the right to terminate the connection
to any of the participants. The participants cannot
control any of the others, but may disconnect
themselves from the meeting at all times.
Request, release, and assign floor
When you
request the floor
, your video will be
broadcasted in full screen to all other participants
in the conference. Request floor is useful when you
want to speak or display something in front of all
the other participants.
Similarly, you may
release the floor
when you
are done and make the floor available to other
participants in the conference. An indicator
appears when you have the floor and disappears
once you release it.
If your system is the one who initiated the meeting,
you will be the host of the meeting and you will then
be able to
assign the floor to others
.
Split screen and voice switching
In order to be able to see all the participants all the
time, the screen may be set in Split Screen mode,
dividing the screen into several images. When
set up for
voice switching
the system will give
priority to the participant speaking loudest.
Layout
When you are the host of a video conference, you
have control of the
main conference image
layout
. The layout chosen by you is transmitted
to the other participants as a single image and its
layout cannot be changed by them. However, they
may configure their own screen using the Layout
button on the remote control. Their choices are the
image you send out in full screen, or in a side-by–
side layout—your image and their selfview.
If you are the one who initiated
the video conference, you are
considered as the host by the
system.
In MultiSite calls (i.e. video conferences with more than
two participants) the term far end will loose its meaning
since it will not be unambiguous whom we refer to.
This means that some features normally available
during point-to–point calls—like far end camera
control—won’t be available during MultiSite calls.