Patent ID: 7929011

Claim:
A method of conducting a conference between a plurality of terminals with a conferencing control unit, the method comprising: designating at the control unit at least one terminal as a panel terminal and at least one terminal as an audience terminal by allocating at least one input video module of the control unit only for the at least one panel terminal and not for the at least one audience terminal; allocating at least one output video module of the control unit for both the at least one panel terminal and the at least one audience terminal; processing at the control unit input video signals only from the at least one panel terminal using the at least one input video module only allocated for the at least one panel terminal to form one or more output video signals; sending the one or more output video signals from the control unit to the at least one panel terminal and to the at least one audience terminal using the at least one output video module; and receiving at the control unit a request from the at least one audience terminal.