I need to know how to best configure my system for videoconferencing. All the info. I find about graphics cards relates to gaming. But what specs should I look for in a graphics card to enable optimal performance in videoconferencing?

What other configurations are important for a desktop computer that will be dedicated to videoconferencing?

Brazil Bryan

I would think that any budget ($100) video card could do it. Hell, maby Intels intergraded graphics could do it!!??!!

I really wouldn't know how much strain video confrencing puts on the graphics card, but I imagine it couldn't be that much. Lets but it this way, if it can play a movie off a dvd, it can do video confrencing.

An optimal config would be cheap processer, cheap ram, cheap video card, cheap everything since it wouldn't be that taxing right?

-dragonx

Well, I will need to input video into the computer, so I would imagine I would need a firewire port. Don't you also think RAM might be important? Is it possible that the computer could operate slower than the high-speed internet connection?

Not likely. Five years ago I was running and old version of MS Netmeeting on a Pentium 133MHz using a parallel port webcam over a 56K dialup. It was hardly stunning, but it worked.

That depends entirely on your video device. If you're using a DV camera, then yes, firewire. That'd be bloody expensive though. Do you need super-high quality images for some reason? If so another expensive solution would be to use something like a Matrox framegrabber card and an expensive camera.

For video conferencing though, a simple USB webcam should suffice. (Hell, I've got a couple of old parallel port webcams that'd suffice if image quality isn't too important.) Or if you get a video card with VIVO you should be able to hook up any camera with a video out.

Not really, no. You're not drawing a logo into the frames as you recieve them, are you?

Of course, knowing how you actually plan to use this videoconferencing setup would be awfully useful information. For all I know you'd be best off with a simple network camera from Axis instead of hosting the video stream from a PC. There are so many different types of video conferencing. What are you actually intending to do?

thanks for the help. Here is a fuller description of what we will be doing. First of all, we are in Brazil, where our "high-speed internet" isn't so high speed.

The application is for college-level instruction via internet. We have a seminary in Sao Paulo that will broadcast a 3 hour class via internet to several different cities in Brazil. Initially, we will only be a receiving point, but we hope to also broadcast from here (Porto Alegre) in the future.

So what we need is the ability to receive a good quality "talking head" image that can be enlarged with a video projector and eventually to broadcast a good quality image. Since the broadcast will go to several different cities, we will probably use some sort of internet hosting service to help increase the quality of our stream.

It's not just Brazil that has that problem. Even in the USA my 'high speed' is only 512K. And that's only recently. I was still on 56K dialup for a very long time. I sure wish I lived in Europe some times.

Okay, as a reciever, you shouldn't need much of anything. Unless you're recieving an Mpeg4/DivX/etc. highly-compressed stream (which generally isn't done) you wouldn't even need anything over a 500MHz P3 for a smooth stream decoding. (And that's at high quality. A low quality stream could be done on a Pentium 133MHz.)

What you really need to know there is what encoding your video stream is coming in as. Typically things are done either as MPEG1 or 2, or as MJPEG. And usually they're done in either NTSC or PAL, quite often as low as 1/4 NTSC or PAL to conserve bandwidth. These are all super easy for PCs to handle. So again, reception should be no problem unless you've got a really rare high-quality feed going.

And just about any 800x600 (maybe even 640x480) VGA projector should do fine for putting it up on a big screen. No special video card should be needed for that.

Okay, to transmit you'll probably need a bit more CPU horsepower because doing the compression always takes more than doing decompression. But again, using normal video feeds, this shouldn't be a concern. Any modern PC could do it without a problem. But again, there are so many options here depending on how professional you want to get. A simple USB webcam might be enough. Or you could go as pro as a camcorder with a DV connection over Firewire if you like to zoom, pan, or add special fade outs. Or, a possibly cheaper solution is to skip the DV quality and just use an old (or cheap) camcorder with its video out line run into a VIVO video card's line in. (Even my old GeForce4 Ti 4200 could do that.)

But if your number of recievers is limited, you might just be better off using something like an Axis or Sony network camera. (Well, there are other brands too, but I trust those two companies. I'm currently testing out an Axis 211 and a Sony SNC-CS3N at work with a custom microscope lens.) The network camera not only records the video, but compresses and streams it over a network like a computer. Just plug them in, plug in the network cable, and that's it. They'll typically have a web-browser-based interface so that clients can connect directly to the camera's stream over a network. (And an administrator can connect in this way to make settings changes.) Just set up the camera's IP address to be available to the www like you would with any other server and you've got a nice cheap and simple stream setup. Their prices vary by what options you need (like zoom lens, panning, audio, number of simultaneous clients, etc.), but they're usually pretty affordable. And they're small, so you can, for example, just mount the camera in a classroom's corner and once it's all set up you can pretty much forget that it's even there.

But anyway, to reiterate, video stream reception can be done by just about any old PC. And the hardware you need for transmission really depends on the quality of broadcasting that you plan to do and if you're going to just leave it stationary or actually have someone play with the camera in real time.

*edit: Another big thing to consider when transmitting a stream is the software you use. I think there's a freeware project to set up a PC like a Real video webserver. Otherwise there's more limited softwares like Netmeeting and some instant messengers and junk. :? I don't know too much about what good software is available for streaming a video from a camera. I never found any good software for this when I last looked. That was what got me to try using a network camera, because it broadcasts the video for you, so you don't need any special software to transmit.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!