As videoconferencing standards become more widely adopted, prices are bound to drop even more. Two images show on the PC screen. The image coming from the distant site fills most of the screen, and a small window contains the local image to help ensure that your people are within camera range and in focus. Either end of the connection can switch to the document camera as desired. Transmission of a video signal of this quality through phone lines requires sophisticated software and video compression.
Sound quality deteriorates with increased motion in the video image.
The ability to share a whiteboard and other applications, such as a spreadsheet or a word processor, is very product-specific at present. The ERIS VCS has a slightly different configuration. It can be used by both IBM-compatible and Macintosh systems. We connected ERIS via a Macintosh PowerBook to the PictureTel system at the distant site. Because we had connected two different systems, we were unable to share a whiteboard or other applications.