VideoConversation is an award winning portfolio of videoconferencing Intellectual Property owned and developed by Firebrand Innovations LLC. Through the use of advanced zooming and camera choice algorithms, VideoConversation can capture your team’s dynamics and portray them to the other side of the conference in an immersive way. The VideoConversation IP portfolio includes our first patent, the family of continuation patents, copyrights to the prototype software, and the VideoConversation trademark.
A standard videoconferencing system would be limited to only one view of all participants. The camera is centered and zoomed all the way out to show the full room, but no individuals can be seen clearly. VideoConversation solves this problem with two independent yet synergistic algorithms. Both of these algorithms leverage the knowledge of where and when people speak in a conference to display the conference in a natural way.
VideoConversation’s first algorithm is Conversation Sensitive Zooming, which records how recently each person has spoken and frames the video to show all people who have spoken recently. This allows for conversations to be displayed in a natural way by including non-verbal communication.
The second algorithm is Camera Selection, which chooses which one out of the multiple available cameras to display to the other side of the conference. As can be seen in the picture to the left, the current conversation is shown best by the camera which is focused on the left side of the room. This improved perspective shows each of the participants in the conversation at a better angle, displaying facial movements in a better way.
Firebrand Innovations has developed a prototype system which implements the VideoConversation technology. This prototype can be set up and used in any standard conferencing room, just as the final system woul be. For this prototype, the speaker location is accomplished with individual speaker microphones. This is not the core technology however, and could be replaced by any other available method.
Watch a Live Demonstration Behind the ScenesVideoConversation is designed to be used by teams of all kinds. Target customers are any company or organization who wants to upgrade a normal conferencing room to also be used for videoconferencing for a reasonable price. VideoConversation does not require any reconstruction of the room and does not prevent upgraded rooms from being used for normal off-line conferences.
Simple videoconferencing systems such as LifeSize’s Icon system do not provide the necessary automatic zoom for immersive group videoconferencing. This lack of automatic zoom results in a static wide shot of all participants, efectively hiding all the important facial expressions and body movement. Polycom’s Eagle Eye Director does provide automatic zooming, but can only display conversations if participants are sitting directly next to each other. Our system can display conversations for any part of the room, including across the table as seen our demonstration video. Cisco’s TelePresence TX9000 and 3200 Series systems are very effective but they are both prohibitively expensive and prevent the upgraded room from ever being used as a normal conference room. These factors prevent the systems from being bought by small to medium size companies as well as cost or space conscious large companies.
If you would like to license our IP or hear more about VideoConversation please email contact@firebrandinnovations.com