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Video Telephony

In the late 80’s I considered seriously buying video telephones. They were for sale at the AT&T store in the Columbia Mall as best I can recall. The price was around $1,000. The problem was that you needed to buy two – one for you to make the call and one for the person to receive the call.

These phones were really cool (this is my 60’s terminology for awesome). They worked over ordinary analog telephone lines, transmitted video at 9,600 bits per second and made ordinary non-video phone calls. I was thinking of getting them to call my parents and my brother’s family in New York, the state.

Then I tried PC video communications and spoke to people overseas (pub bartender in Ireland from a hotel room in Texas) using analog 14,400 bits per second speed. There was the incident where my son Jeremy was trying to set up a video link between our homes. He was on the normal telephone with me coordinating the configuration and at the same time testing the PC video connectivity with other PC video users. I distinctly recall the words “Oh, My God!” jumping out of the phone at me. Apparently he had made an accidental connection to someone that was exposing an excessive amount of skin.

How things have changed technically. Video telephony “has come a long way Baby”. If think that line is from an old TV advertisement. Today we use high speed digital communications over the Internet to send anything and everything. Home Internet access is at speeds of hundreds of thousands to mega (millions) bits per second. A typical Internet voice connection operates at 90 thousand bits per second up from the old AT&T gold standard of 64 thousand bits per second. Bigger numbers mean better quality. Now imaging those old video phones being able to operate at 90 thousand bits per second. They would be used everywhere. Video speed and quality also depends upon sophisticated compression and decompression of the data stream by the PC. Coder-Decoder (CODEC) software does this using sophisticated mathematics. No details to belabor here, they just work very well.

Video telephony and video movie distribution depend most upon speed. Higher speeds translate into more connections and better pictures or video. High speed connections can carry multiple video streams down to the customer site. A Comcast or FIOS 10 Mega Bits Per Second (MBPS) or higher could permit you and your children viewing separate movies simultaneously. A full High Definition TV Video movie uses about 1.544 Million Bits Per Second so 10 MBPS could support roughly four simultaneous movie downloads. As far as speeds go with fiber into the home, we have not seen anything yet. Gigabits per second speeds that could almost keep up with the skyrocketing National Debt are possible.

Enter PC video telephone services like Skype. There are other services, but Skype has been around a long time and is widely used. The software is downloaded from SKYPE.com. In addition you need high speed internet access – best one million bits per second transmit speed and a web camera with a microphone connected to your PC. Web cameras run from $50 to $150 at local stores. The last requirement is that you have an email address. Setting up your PC is simple; the real difficulty is to get your family to set up their PCs with Skype.

Skype uses contact lists to make calls with each user having a unique Skype identifier. My Skype identifier is dialanerd0 because someone else got dialanerd first. The way I figure is that if all of you call me and 10% make a mistake and call dialanerd, maybe he will just give up the Skype identifier. Fat chance with that thought. Regardless Skype and similar packages are a good way to keep in touch with far flung family and friends. It is easy to use but think of the background, lighting, and what you are wearing. No need to create any hilarious family incidents at your expense. When it comes to PCs and Telephony, it is time to think video.


Link to video telephony

P. D. Moulton and Dial A Nerd, a local Columbia, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland(MD) PC repair, computer repair, laptop computer repair, Wi-Fi network and wired LAN network configuration & repair, Windows XP repair, Windows Vista repair, Windows 7 repair, network server computer support, and virus & spyware removal. Dial-A-Nerd repairs PC (s), computers, networks, removes viruses & spyware and upgrades slow computers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. DialANerd provides immediate remote access as well as fixed price computer repair, network repair, virus & spyware removal services at its local Columbia, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland(MD) repair shop. Repair completion is typically 24-hours to 48-hours. Dial A Nerd recovers hard disk data and saves your data. Each hard disk is tested for errors for free. Dial A Nerd makes a fixed disk image, recovers and saves your data for about a 90% of the desktop computer, laptop computer, and netbook PC (s) serviced. Dial A Nerd, a local Columbia, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland(MD) repair business provides fast PC repair, computer repair, desktop computer repair, laptop computer repair, Wi-Fi network and wired LAN network configuration & repair, Windows XP repair, Windows Vista repair, Windows 7 repair, network server support, and virus & spyware removal services with a warranty. Dial A Nerd works on many PCs including Sony computers, Gateway computers, Hewlett Packard computers, Compaq computers, Toshiba computers, Emachines computers, Clone PCs, and Dell computers in the local Columbia, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland(MD). The Dial A Nerd mission is delivering the best quality, affordable cost effective PC repair, computer repair, laptop computer repair, desktop computer repair, Wi-Fi network and wired LAN network configuration & repair, Windows XP repair, Windows Vista repair, Windows 7 repair, network server support, virus & spyware removal, home PC repair, printer configuration, PC - desktop computer - laptop computer - netbook computer performance optimization & speed up service. Homes and small businesses with limited IT service and IT support budgets in the local Columbia, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland(MD) hire Dial A Nerd.


© 2000-2013 P. D. Moulton
DialANerd
7146 Rivers Edge Road Columbia, MD 21044 US
Phone: 410-531-5890 Website: dialanerd.com