| 摘要 |
A teleconferencing system that integrates separate real-time and asynchronous networks the former for real-time audio and video, and the latter for control signals and textual, graphical and other data - in a manner which closely approximates the experience of face-to-face collaboration. The system provides an audio/video (AV) path 13 for carrying AV signal among the workstations, a video mosaic generator (36) for combining images, and an audio summer or mixer 38. The system architecture is readily scalable to the largest enterprise network environments. It accommodates differing levels of collaborative capabilities available to individual users and permits high-quality audio and video capabilities(Figs 2A,2B,8C) to be readily superimposed onto existing personal computers and workstations 12 and their interconnecting LANs 10 and WANs 15. In the case of a plurality of geographically dispersed LANs 10 interconnected by a WAN 15, the demands made on the WAN are significantly reduced by employing multi-hopping techniques, including avoiding the unnecessary decompression of data at intermediate hops, as well as video mosaicing and cut-and-paste technology. This application discloses separate data and video network paths as well as the facility for storing and forwarding multimedia mail messages.
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