Video in Vogue - Hardware Review - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, July, 2000 by Don Labriola

New ways to use video in your home office

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER YOU'RE A telecommuter calling company headquarters or an entrepreneur running a business out of your basement: Adding a video camera to your PC can connect you to the world. Video is the only electronic medium that preserves the subtle body language and facial expressions of in-person meetings, and it's a great way to humanize conversations with clients, suppliers, and coworkers around the globe.

This hasn't always been the case. The first PC video cameras (or Webcams) produced poor picture quality--typically in a tiny window running at a twitchy 5 to 10 frames per second. Worse yet, video chats held over the Internet were plagued by bandwidth problems that often produced output more resembling a slide show than a motion picture.

Today's PC video cameras are much more than mere picture phones. The latest offerings boast an array of nifty features that can enhance virtually any conferencing or Web application that incorporates live or recorded video. Better yet, thanks to today's fast PC processors and more efficient compression schemes, many cameras can produce smooth video at an easy-on-the-eyes 640 by 480-pixel resolution.

Products like Intel's PC Camera Pack line ($79 to $99; 800-538-3373, www.intel. com/pccamera) and the Logitech Quick-Cam Pro USB ($150; 800-231-7717, www.logitech.com) also include USB connections, which provide fast throughput and are far easier to set up than old-fashioned video add-in cards. When connected to the Internet through a broadband (DSL or cable) connection, these cameras generate output that rivals the quality of commercial TV, making it faster and easier to use video for presentations, product demos, and training.

FACE-TO-FACE FROM ANYPLACE

Live videoconferencing was the first killer application for monitor-top minicameras, and it's still the most popular. The primary benefit is being able to present the same message as if you were in the room. Videoconferencing packages like White Pine Software's CU-SeeMe Pro ($69 download, $79 CD-ROM; 603-886-9050, www.wpine.com) and Microsoft NetMeeting (free download; 800-426-9400, www.microsoft.com/windows/ netmeeting) even include document-conferencing capabilities that let workers at different sites jointly edit documents, spreadsheets, or presentations during a video call.

Virtually any type of home business can benefit from videoconferencing, particularly the high-quality, high-bandwidth variety. Consider the case of David Ditzler who runs Dynamic Media Design, a Web-authoring company, out of his Chicago loft. Faced with the need to work closely with an associate in Luxembourg, Ditzler found a simple solution in 3Com's HomeConnect PC Digital WebCam ($150; 800-NET-3COM, www.3com.com/ client/pcd/homeconnect). Using HomeConnect's bundled software, he set up a pair of simple Web pages that let the two men see and hear each other over the Internet.

"There are so many great technologies these days that make it easy and efficient to collaborate," Ditzler says. "During the day we have five people working here and one virtual partner in Luxembourg. The WebCam isn't crucial to every project, but it certainly makes work more fun."

You can go a step further and tap into Web-based videoconferencing services like Sprint's Internet Collaboration Center (www.sprint.com/icc) or V-Span (www. v-span.com).

These offerings make it easy to broadcast video-enhanced presentations, product demonstrations, or seminars to large numbers of people in different locations from your home office, using streaming audio and video solutions. All you need is a computer, a phone line, and a video camera.

There are now several video chat applications available as well. Although these services mimic videoconferencing, video chat is generally an informal, Web-based, consumer medium. Bruce Friedricks, director of marketing for Logitech's video business unit, explains: "Video chat also refers to the use of video in a chat room environment, where the video is one-way and the chat is two-way ... video conferencing is more of a business-to-business term."

THE CLIP'S IN THE MAIL

Another way to communicate with colleagues in distant time zones is via video e-mail. V-mail, as it's sometimes called, lets you use your camcorder or PC video camera to record and PC software to compress videoclips into small files that can be sent as attachments through almost any e-mail system. Most late-model cameras are bundled with v-mail software, and you can find low-priced standalone packages like ChilliSoft Ltd.'s VideoMail ($15; 800-222-7232, www.chillisoft.com.au), which can squeeze a chatty 9 minutes of video into a modem-friendly 1.5MB file.

Many v-mail programs also provide handy utilities that can help you spruce up your clips before mailing them to clients or coworkers. The ChilliSoft package, for example, offers simple video editing, animated borders, and the ability to overlay text on top of recorded video. The final result can be a personalized marketing or sales message that loses the "cold call" feel.