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 [4] 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.