Initiation, failure recovery and setting sharing in video and teleconferences

摘要

A method for providing setting information for a video or teleconference comprising the sets of: receiving a request for a conference from a communications endpoint 404, determining if the endpoint has previously engaged in a conference 406 and sending default settings to the communications endpoint 408 wherein the default settings are associated with the type of communications endpoint. An endpoint configuration may then be created for the communication endpoint 410 and the default settings saved into the endpoint configuration 412. Also disclosed is a communications system in which two multipoint control units (MCUs) are able to share conference settings from a first communications endpoint thus enabling a second conference to be executed according to the settings obtained from the first communications endpoint. Further disclosed is a method for recovering from failure of a communication endpoint or a MCU during a conference (Figure 5.) The system enables MCUs to provide default settings to endpoints, monitor conference conditions, detect failures and share conference setting information with other MCUs.