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MXP Series Video Endpoints
User Guide
D1479201 MXP Series User Guide, May 2011.
© 2010-2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
A
video call involving more than
two participants is called a video
conference or a MultiSite call.
A multitude of TANDBERGs video
endpoints are capable of initiating
video conferences. To be able to do
this the endpoints must have a built-in
MCU (Multipoint Control Unit). This
is an optional feature that may, or
may not, be installed in your video
endpoint.
Some video endpoints are without
this optional built-in feature. They
can, however, participate in video
meeting initiated by others.
Observe that the infrastructure of
your video network may contain
external
MCUs. These are devices
dedicated to handle several
simultaneous video conferences,
each with many participants.
Consult your system administrator for
information on how to utilize external
MCUs, if applicable.
Who becomes the host?
The host of a video conference is the
endpoint to which all the others are
connected. In other words, the one
that initiated the conference.
If two systems both supporting
MultiSite have established their own
video conference independent of
the other and one of these two call
the other, cascading will take place.
This means that you may have more
participants in total than a single
system supports. In this case, the
host will be the one calling the other.
The host has the right to terminate
the connection to any of the
participants. The participants cannot
control any of the others, but may
disconnect themselves from the
meeting at all times.
Request, release, and assign
floor
When you
request the floor
, your
video will be broadcasted in full
screen to all other participants in the
conference. Request floor is useful
when you want to speak or display
something in front of all the other
participants.
Similarly, you may
release the floor
when you are done and make the
floor available to other participants
in the conference. An indicator
appears when you have the floor and
disappears once you release it.
If your system is the one who initiated
the meeting, you will be the host of
the meeting and you will then be able
to
assign the floor to others
.
Split screen & voice switching
In order to be able to see all the
participants all the time, the screen
may be set in
Split Screen
mode,
dividing the screen into several
images. When set up for
voice
switching
the system will give priority
to the participant speaking loudest.
Layout
When you are the host of a video
conference, you have control of the
main conference image layout
. The
layout chosen by you is transmitted
to the other participants as a single
image and its layout cannot be
changed by them. However, they may
configure their own screen using the
Layout
button on the remote control.
Their choices are the image you send
out in full screen, or in a side-by–side
layout—your image and their selfview.
About video conferencing
Understanding the video system basics
If you are the one
who initiated the
video conference,
you are considered
as the host by the
system.
In MultiSite calls (i.e. video conferences with more
than two participants) the term
far end
will loose its
meaning since it will not be unambiguous whom we
refer to.
This means that some features normally available
during point-to–point calls—like far end camera
control—won’t be available during MultiSite calls.
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