April 10, 2010 at 22:52Video Conferencing Development
He sits in front of his screens, on each screen - on the snout, or even two, and he talks with all these snouts. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, “Guy from the Underworld”
The 1973 Strugatsky book describes the future of our planet. Very far away. The authors did not expect that at least in the field of video conferencing it will come much earlier. With a snout on the screen, or even two, now you will not surprise anyone particularly. Surprisingly, the videoconferencing system has almost a century of history.
In 1925, the American telephone monopoly AT&T created its research unit - Bell Laboratories. It was there that the attempts to create a videophone began, the first of which was demonstrated on April 7, 1927. On that day, a video call from Washington to New York took place; the video, however, was one-way. The conversation was attended by the head of the Ministry of Commerce Herbert Hoover (right) and AT&T President Walter Gifford (left).
What is noteworthy, the image was formed mechanically - the cathode ray tube has not yet gained credibility.
Together with these three things, the videophone is returning to the world. By the 1950s, AT&T's technological potential had grown significantly: transistors were invented, automatic telephone exchanges were developed and implemented, a mobile communication service was launched, and a television broadcasting network was developed. In 1956, a working prototype of a "picture background" was created, a device capable of transmitting images of each other at a frequency of 2 frames per second. The picture background required three telephone lines for its work: one for transmitting video, one for receiving video, and a third for voice and initializing the connection.
After a series of improvements at the New York World's Fair 1964, a commercial version of the Mod-1 background image was presented. Then the commercial operation of the service began in New York, Washington and Chicago. A New York-Washington call cost $ 16, and New York-Chicago $ 27 in three minutes.
AT&T expected the widespread adoption of videophones by the mid-1980s with a million subscribers and a total turnover of $ 5 billion. The development of second-generation picture backgrounds with a varifocal lens, which never went on sale, began - in 1973 AT&T turned off the use of picture backgrounds.
For a couple of decades, videophones lived only in laboratories and science fiction films. There were several attempts to launch the commercial operation of video conferencing, but only one can be called successful: in 1982, the Japanese division of IBM created a video conferencing system that was used at weekly corporate meetings. Commercial failures are primarily explained by the price of equipment and the cost of connection. A subscriber video conferencing device of the 1980s cost more than $ 80,000, and an hour of communication cost no less than $ 100. And the dollar in those days was not what it is now.
Actually in the 1990s, the rapid development of video conferencing began: there were videophones with an adequate price (only $ 1,500), the first software solutions for a PC were developed, the H.323 protocol was standardized, and packet transmission was gaining momentum. Video conferencing has become color and affordable.
But this is the newest story that everyone knows.
The 1973 Strugatsky book describes the future of our planet. Very far away. The authors did not expect that at least in the field of video conferencing it will come much earlier. With a snout on the screen, or even two, now you will not surprise anyone particularly. Surprisingly, the videoconferencing system has almost a century of history.
Once upon a time
In 1925, the American telephone monopoly AT&T created its research unit - Bell Laboratories. It was there that the attempts to create a videophone began, the first of which was demonstrated on April 7, 1927. On that day, a video call from Washington to New York took place; the video, however, was one-way. The conversation was attended by the head of the Ministry of Commerce Herbert Hoover (right) and AT&T President Walter Gifford (left).
What is noteworthy, the image was formed mechanically - the cathode ray tube has not yet gained credibility.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll
Together with these three things, the videophone is returning to the world. By the 1950s, AT&T's technological potential had grown significantly: transistors were invented, automatic telephone exchanges were developed and implemented, a mobile communication service was launched, and a television broadcasting network was developed. In 1956, a working prototype of a "picture background" was created, a device capable of transmitting images of each other at a frequency of 2 frames per second. The picture background required three telephone lines for its work: one for transmitting video, one for receiving video, and a third for voice and initializing the connection.
After a series of improvements at the New York World's Fair 1964, a commercial version of the Mod-1 background image was presented. Then the commercial operation of the service began in New York, Washington and Chicago. A New York-Washington call cost $ 16, and New York-Chicago $ 27 in three minutes.
AT&T expected the widespread adoption of videophones by the mid-1980s with a million subscribers and a total turnover of $ 5 billion. The development of second-generation picture backgrounds with a varifocal lens, which never went on sale, began - in 1973 AT&T turned off the use of picture backgrounds.
During this time, the general was replaced by the president
For a couple of decades, videophones lived only in laboratories and science fiction films. There were several attempts to launch the commercial operation of video conferencing, but only one can be called successful: in 1982, the Japanese division of IBM created a video conferencing system that was used at weekly corporate meetings. Commercial failures are primarily explained by the price of equipment and the cost of connection. A subscriber video conferencing device of the 1980s cost more than $ 80,000, and an hour of communication cost no less than $ 100. And the dollar in those days was not what it is now.
Actually in the 1990s, the rapid development of video conferencing began: there were videophones with an adequate price (only $ 1,500), the first software solutions for a PC were developed, the H.323 protocol was standardized, and packet transmission was gaining momentum. Video conferencing has become color and affordable.
But this is the newest story that everyone knows.