Patent ID: 8659636

Claim:
An apparatus for executing a video conference, comprising: an audio mixer residing in a network and capable of determining the active speaker associated with one end point of one or more end points, the audio mixer being able to create a mixed audio stream that may be communicated to the one or more end points such that the one or more end points do not have to perform audio mixing, the mixed audio stream is a mix of input audio streams from the one or more end points, and the audio mixer being able to determine an input-to-output mapping for each input audio stream, the input-to-output mapping indicating the delay of the input audio stream to the communicated mixed audio stream; and one or more media switches operable to receive information associated with the active speaker, the input-to-output mapping for the audio stream associated with the active speaker, and one or more video streams associated with the video conference, wherein at least one media switch of the one or more media switches is operable to suppress the one or more video streams except for a selected video stream associated with the active speaker and delay the selected video according to the input-to-output mapping such that the selected video stream corresponds to the audio stream of the active speaker, the selected video stream propagating to the one or more media switches during the video conference without audio, and wherein a selected media switch of the one or more media switches is operable to replicate the selected video stream such that it may be communicated to one or more end points associated with the selected media switch.