Patent ID: 7487211

Claim:
A video conferencing system, comprising: a plurality of general purpose computing devices, each of which is in communication with the same distributed computer network, and each of which comprises audio equipment and a video camera for capturing audio and video (A/V) at a site where a conferencee is located; and each computing device further comprising a computer program having program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to, multicast A/V feeds, which are captured at the conferencee's location by said audio equipment and video camera, over the network directly to other conferencees participating in a video conference via the network, said multicasting comprising, contacting a server that is in communication with the network using a prescribed network address to obtain a multicast address assigned to the conference, requesting multicast addresses associated with conference venues to which the requesting conferencee is allowed access including the multicast address assigned to the conference by providing information to the server which the server uses to assess whether the conferencee is allowed access to a conference venue based on the access criteria established for that venue, wherein the server maintains a plurality of multicast addresses associated with different conference venues, and a list of criteria for determining whether a conferencee is allowed access to a particular venue, receiving from the server over the network multicast addresses of venues to which the conferencee is authorized to access including the multicast address assigned to the conference, and transmitting said A/V feeds to the multicast address assigned to the conference, subscribe to and receive A/V feeds multicasted over the network from other conferencees participating in a video conference via the network, wherein said multicasted A/V feeds are received directly from each other multicasting conferencee, and render and play the A/V feeds received over the network from the other conferencees.