PGi Video Conferencing

To meet and collaborate across a distance right from a desktop, many businesses turn to video conferencing technology. Transferring audiovisual data through your computer’s microphone, webcam, speakers and monitor, it replicates the face-to-face meeting experience.

Essentially, it’s just like calling a friend on the phone, except with video conferencing you can see them, not just hear them.

Video conferencing, also spelled videoconferencing by IT experts, is most commonly performed via the Internet on a personal device like your computer, tablet or smartphone. Although it can also be conducted with a room-based video system, the lack of hardware costs and ability to leverage users’ existing devices makes cloud-based video conferencing more appealing and prevalent among companies of all sizes.

In fact, this virtual meeting room is increasingly replacing the physical conference room, making point-to-point contact between individuals or multipoint contact between groups easier than ever.

How Video Conferencing Differs From Web Conferencing

As collaboration tools evolve to meet market demands and adapt to changing workflows, both video conferencing and web conferencing tools incorporate features from the other. Though from the beginning, video conferencing’s primary feature was video streams, while web conferencing’s was file sharing and annotation.

However, both share the same benefits: instant sharing and feedback, a global reach across time zones, convenience for busy schedules and mobile workers and no travel required. Plus, the benefit of better relationship building benefits live meetings, training, interviews and more.

Changes on the Horizon in Video Conferencing

In addition to the merge with web conferencing features, video conferencing will continue evolving in other ways as the presence of telecommuting, globalization and Millennial workers grows in the workplace.

Expect to see video conferencing technology that is even more intuitive and equipped with better video and sound quality, as well as more integrations of video conferencing within unified communications tools. As more industries discover the versatility of video conferencing for both internal and external communication, this tool may find its way to line-of-business applications, as well.

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