Nice To See You Again

By Peter John Harrison

It was one of the most enduring and understandable images from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey - Dr. Floyd calling his daughter on her birthday while he was out of town.

We've all been there at one time or another, calling a friend or family member to wish them well on some special day when we couldn't be there. The big difference between the phone calls we place when we're out of town and the call Dr. Floyd makes - aside from the fact that he's not just out of town, he's in outer space - is that he actually gets to see his daughter when he calls her. But that's changing. With six years to go, it looks as if mankind has failed 2001's vision of space stations and moon bases, but Stanley Kubrick was right on when it came to TV-quality video phones.

Two years ago video phones - or "videoconferencing systems," as they're called - were big-ticket items that only the largest corporations could afford to buy. Dozens of corporations laid out tens of thousands of dollars to buy equipment for videoconferencing centers so employees at opposite ends of the country or globe could get together for face to face meetings without having to fly anywhere to do it. For all their great cost, though, the components of a videoconferencing system aren't all that complex. . . just a video camera, speakers, a monitor, and some hardware to translate the audio and video signals into a digital "H.120" format and send it down an ISDN line.

Sure enough, several companies have come up with their own videoconferencing systems that let you turn your home computer into the video phone of the future. All you need is a PC-compatible computer running Microsoft Windows, an ISDN phone line, and one of the half-dozen or so videoconferencing packages currently on the market from C-Phone, Intel, PictureTel, Invision, and Eye-Tel.

These PC-based videoconferencing systems are fairly similar. They all have a small and fairly unobtrusive video camera that attaches to the top of your PC's monitor and one or two ISA bus adapter boards that combine the functions of a video capture board, sound card, and an ISDN terminal adapter. Some of these packages come with built-in speaker phones, others with headsets.

All videoconferencing systems use the same transmission formats, so you can use them without having to worry if the person you're calling has the same kind of system. You can even place and receive calls with the big videoconferencing centers costing 50 times what your system cost you.

What may not work is a "white board" that lets you and the person you're calling share and modify drawings, pictures, and screen shots, just as you might do if you were doing a stand-up presentation with an overhead projector, or sharing pictures of your summer vacation with Mom. Cool as video white boards are, every manufacturer does them differently, so unless Mom has the same videoconferencing system that you do, she'll either have to make do with you holding the pictures up in front of the camera, or wait until you can drop by with your album.

Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to call Mom unless she has a videoconferencing system, too, and at US$2000 to $5000 a pop - plus the cost of a computer to run it on and an ISDN line - she probably won't be seeing your beautiful face on the phone anytime soon, but costs are coming down. Entry-level conferencing features that cost $30,000 two years ago are standard fare for PC-based systems costing $2000 today, and, as videoconferencing gains market acceptance, prices will drop further.

So don't be surprised if, in the year 2001, you can call your birthday girl and wish her your best, face to face. You may not be in outer space, as Dr. Floyd was in 2001, but you will share his state of mind.