A New Teleconference System for Healthcare Applications by GigaEther-based Omni-directional Video Transmission

In this paper, a new teleconference system by using Gigabit Ethernet based omni-directional camera system and flexible middleware system in realtime and bi-directional video transmission is introduced. The omni-directional image has more advantages than conventional one-directional camera in that it provides a wider view than a single directional camera and able to realize flexible teleconferencing even between remotely separated small rooms. System architecture and functions of the middleware for high-definition omni-directional video control and effective video transmission system using Windows Media Video(WMV) format are precisely described. QoS control function is also introduced to dynamically control the frame rate of video depending on the changes of network and CPU load. The prototype system of a teleconference is constructed to apply for remote healthcare education and evaluate the performance of our suggested high-definition omni-directional video system. Through the performance evaluation of the prototyped system, we could verify the usefulness of our proposed system.