VIDEO OVERVIEW:
In distance learning situations, video equipment allows remote students to view the instructor and classroom. Video cameras/cards that do compression are important in a wireless setting with limited bandwidth. Software compression steals valuable CPU cycles from the machine and can severely degrade performance of other applications like the whiteboard.

CONSIDERATIONS:

There are a large number of video cameras and video cards available on the market today. Every video card we have seen is supported under Windows 95. Linux, however, is a different story. For a reasonable listing of video cards that are supported under FreeBSD or Linux see the FreeBSD/Linux Bt848 homepage or Linux video hardware support . Since we are using laptops for most of our work, we had to find a camera that could directly attach to the parallell port or a pcmcia card. The Connectix Quickcam cameras are the best of the cameras we found that attach to a parallel port or pcmcia card and are supported by Linux. Another requirement for us is support of vic, the MBONE video tool. A list of hardware supported by vic for Windows 95 can be found at the UCL vic page .

OUR CHOICE:

We chose the Connectix Quickcam simply because it is the only camera we found that is supported by Windows 95 and Linux as well as works in vic under Windows 95 and Linux. It also connects to the parallel port which is a requirement for laptops.

LINKS:

Information on specific video equipment can be found at the following sites:

wintv or wintv
Computer Eyes
Stinger
video blaster
winnov
connectix

Information on vic can be found at MBONE tools - vic . For specific information on vic for Windows 95 see UCL's vic page .