Systems and methods for distributed conferencing

摘要

Distributed conferencing systems and methods provide local meeting contents to remote participants. In accordance with various example embodiments, a plurality of authorized source units generate media content responsive to and representative of respective content for a meeting. In response to the generated media content, one or more data streams are developed at each authorized source, each stream being a separately-decodable real-time representation of at least a portion of the media content generated at the respective authorized source. The separate data streams are transmitted by each authorized source to a common multicast IP group address for retrieval/access by remote participants.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
providing access to a distributed conferencing system that provides local meeting contents to remote participants from a plurality of circuit-based source units using a meeting multicast group IP address; using logic circuitry at each of the source units; and causing or operating the logic circuitry at each of the source units to perform the steps of:
generating media content responsive to and representative of respective portions of the meeting contents;in response to the logic circuitry accessing the generated media content and identifying its IP address in a corresponding announcement for a meeting to be using the generated media content, automatically configuring the source unit and developing at least one data stream, each data stream being a separately decodable real time representation of at least a portion of the media content generated at the source unit;transmitting the at least one data stream to the meeting multicast group IP address;in the logic circuitry of at least two source units, configuring the source unit to transmit to the same meeting multicast group IP address in response to configuration data received from circuitry in a local control unit; andin the logic circuitry of each source unit, subscribing to the meeting multicast group IP address to communicate via the meeting multicast group IP address.