Patent ID: 8154578

Claim:
A video communication system comprising: an image display device; a first image capture device responsive to first video capture settings that acquires video images from a wide field of view of a local environment including images of one or more individuals therein; a second image capture device responsive to second video capture settings that acquires video images from a narrow field of view that is at least partially included within the wide field of view; a computer in operative communication with the image display device and the image capture devices with said computer causing the first image capture device and the second image capture device to capture video images in real time during the communication event, and with said computer further being adapted to identify a video context for the communication event based upon the activities of at least the individuals that is occurring in the captured video; and a communication system that is adapted to use a communication network to transmit outgoing video images; wherein said computer uses a scene analysis algorithm in real time to examine the concurrent video images from both the first image capture device and the second image capture device based upon the identified video context to determine the extent to which video images from the first image capture device and the second image capture device are provided in a field of view of the outgoing video images transmitted by the communication device; and wherein the scene analysis algorithm is further used to assess the activity occurring in the fields of view captured by the image capture devices, as compared to that in the transmitted video, so as to identify scene transitions in the video context that responsively cause changes in either the first video capture settings or the second video capture settings such that at least one of the transmitted field of view and an image quality attribute of the outgoing video images are changed.