TVM The Virtual Meeting

Visual Communications Software for Macintosh and Windows Computers

Multi Point Conferencing

The Virtual Meeting Software can be used to connect several users together to collaborate while they are talking on a a conference call.

Conferencing Over A Network Using The TVM Conference Server

In a multi party conference Each conference participant's computer is connected to a TVM Conference Server . The Conference Server is a Macintosh or Windows application that broadcasts the messages it receives from participants in a multimedia conference to all the other participants in the conference. Connections can be made between the Conference Gateways in the system and the Conference Server using networks or modems.

Using The Virtual Meeting with a direct network connection means A single phone call can be used by each conference participant to connect them to the audio conference call.

Using The Virtual Meeting without direct network connections is usually accomplished by using two phone lines one for the audio telephone call and one for the computer network connection but there are other possible options as well .

Simultaneous voice and data modems have become available from ATT and others that allow one telephone line to be used for data and voice connections. Of course the same type of modem must be used on either end of the connection for this to work.

ISDN Basic Rate Interface lines also provide separate voice and data channels and have much higher data and audio bandwidth capability. One Bearer (B) channel can be used to provide a network connection the other Bearer (B) channel can be used for voice communications. The additional Data (D) channel can be used for other purposes if desired.

Once they are Connected to a TVM Conference Server the meeting moderator can take control of the Conference Gateways and start controlling what every participant sees on his computer screen.

Each Conference Server needs to run on its own dedicated computer and provides one electronic meeting room that can hold about 50 people. For larger conferences multiple Conference Servers can be linked together.

An organization or school may want to to have several simultaneous conferences to accommodated different subjects. This can be easily accomplished by setting up as many Conference Serves as necessary.

Conferencing Over An On-Line Services Chat Facilities

Some versions of the TVM Conference Gateway allow modem or serial connections to be made to other Conference Gateways, Conference Servers and thru on-line chat services. Users whose Conference Gateways have that capability can join their computers together without a Conference Server by using the chat or conference room area of an on-line service like Delphi or GEnie to broadcast the required messages to each users Conference Gateway. In this scenario each user connects to the on-line service and navigates to the designated conference room. Once there the Meeting Moderator can take control of all the Conference Gateways and start controlling what every meeting participant sees on their computer screen.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this style of multi partly conferencing

ADVANTAGES

No facilities or infrastructure required to hold a conference.
Requires no Network, Conference Server software or hardware to run it on.
Good venue to hold large one time conferences or lectures.
You just pay for what you use.
Conference attendees usually pay their own hourly connect charges.
On-Line services are available via a local phone call to many users.

DISADVANTAGES

Care must be taken to set the correct options when using an on-line conference room.
The local echo and typing buffer must be turned off. This can be accomplished by typing commands when entering the on-line conference room. Delphi and GEnie both allow these attributes to be set by conference attendees.
Some on-line services like Compuserve do not allow users to set the necessary attributes however.
On-Line conference rooms present extra overhead to the Conference Gateways and may reduce performance slightly.
Limits to the lengths of messages in on-line conference rooms may adversely affect the operation of Extended TVM features. Experimentation may be required to evaluate how well the TVM functions you plan to use in your conference operate with the on-line service you have chosen.
On demand web Conferencing doesn't make much sense using on-line because an INTERNET or File server network connection would be required as well. Web Browsers can still be used to view files or access multimedia on each users local disk or CD ROM drive. Distributed conferencing works well in this type of environment however.

Copyright 1996 by Seth Snyder All Rights Reserved