Lesser-Known Facts of Video Conferencing

Who on earth is not fond of facts? They are found in all sorts of fields and specialties. Even while working on VC solutions and services, we often come across some factual details that we didn't know. We are living in a cutting-edge age wherein 87% more people use video conferencing today than two years ago. But, if you start jotting down all these facts, the list will be endless.

Scroll down for some of the particular facts about video conferencing that might interest you.

1. Facts from history | The first video call was in 1956:

Imagine how long has video conference technology has been in the market. Well, the debut of video conference technology is a lot older than you might expect. In 1956, AT&T started working on the first "Picturephone" prototype test system. However, it was only capable of transmitting one image once every two seconds. After almost a decade of testing and refinements, this raw technology finally made its debut at the 1964 World's Fair in New York City.

2. The mistakes made | Videoconferencing was a Commercial Failure:

Thanks to tablets, smartphones and high-speed Internet has made networking smooth for us. The technology has made video chatting as simple as pressing an icon from your contacts. Though it's hard to imagine that video conferencing was such a massive failure for so many years, there's a dark history and drawbacks that led the unfolding this formidable system of conversation. To make video chat technology what it is today, companies after companies failed in an exercise in absurdity. Although people were largely curious about this new technology, it never caught on the chatter it needed to accelerate. According to AT&T, the system failed due to a lot of things including its large size, the problems with the telephone infrastructure, the expense of using it, and its obtuse controls.

3. Start of a new era | Progress of VRVS due to the Large Hadron Collider Project:

By the end of the '80s, many videophone technologies came in the picture, but none of which could see the days of success they expected to see. In 1997, researchers at Caltech-CERN developed a video conferencing technology called Virtual Room Videoconferencing System (VRVS) to help the scientists to collaborate on the Large Hadron Collider Project in a better way. This turned out to be a massive hit as it showed a right amount of involvement and showed us the dynamics in which the video conferencing software could be used.

4. 2001 - The year of live broadcast | First Live Satellite Broadcast:

The first live broadcast to ever happen was from a war zone using satellite video conferencing technology came from Afghanistan in 2001 during the opening of the second Gulf War. This new technology was used by the reporters to send live video footage back to their network headquarters for rebroadcast to television viewers.

5. 2003 - Skype makes an entry | Release of the first public version of Skype:

Skype's backend is based on KaZaa Three Estonian software engineers - Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn, who used the backend from their illegal music-sharing application called KaZaa to power Skype. The first public version of this application was released in August 2003.

6. The future is here | Cloud generated VC:

Today, there is a multitude of different video conferencing systems and services that are enjoying the limelight. One such solution that is gaining the most buzz has to be the cloud-based services which are more conventional while used in hardware-based video conferencing services . These services are steadily gaining momentum and recognition as they require a low amount of upfront cost and convenient to use. The cloud-based services are being improved continuously to inculcate better features for the benefit of the users. Not just that, the cloud video conferencing providers are also available to offer scalability and opportunities for cost reduction, along with sufficient time flexibility.

As a closure, we would state that this all-time evolving technology is surpassing all kinds of technological limits and boundaries in a flash of seconds. With low latency and general availability, it surely makes life easy for all of us.