Videoconferencing

Video conferencing - what is it?

Videoconferencing delivers audio and video to bring people together irrespective of their geographical locations with the added ability to share content in real time.

Video conference sessions can be as simple as a conversation between two people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several sites (multi-point) with more than one person in rooms of various sizes and complexity at different locations sharing information stored on computers, views of objects, documents etc.

To enable desktop video conference access to all JCU Staff and students, Zoom was introduced in March 2018.

At JCU, videoconferencing venues include smaller board rooms, medium sized presentation/lecture rooms and large theatres, all with fully integrated videoconferencing systems. Some of these JCU venues are multi-point capable with in built resources to connect 3 video participants and 3 telephone calls concurrently. Bridging equipment or Multipoint Control Units (MCU) allow several concurrent video conferences with a large number of participants.

JCU Videoconference Rooms

Some 150 JCU videoconferencing systems (personal and room based) are located in Atherton, Cairns (Smithfield and CBD), Cloncurry, Longreach, Mackay, Mount Isa, Singapore, Thursday Island and Townsville (Douglas and CBD campus) with additional back-end infrastructure hardware such as gateways, VCS, MCU and Mediasite recorders concentrated in Cairns and Townsville.

Centrally Bookable JCU Rooms (Supported by VAVS)

Small conference rooms with board room style set ups, are ideal for groups of 8 to 14 persons, where a large degree of interaction is required between the participants at both ends.

Facilities such as the Sir George Kneipp auditorium (492 seats), Crowther 1 (300), the New Medical School theatre (295), Nursing Science theatres (200+) and the Science Place lecture theatre (150) are fitted with sizeable projector screens and microphone reinforcement, suitable for presentations and lectures to the larger groups.

Videoconference enabled rooms at Cairns, Cairns CBD, Townsville and Townsville CBD are fitted with the following equipment as standard:

* Single or dual flat panel displays or projector screens
* Document cameras/visualizer
* In house PC (suitable for playing DVDs)
* Microphones (Wireless microphones in the larger rooms)
* Cables with adapters to connect laptop computers

Experienced technicians are available to assist with customized training if required.

Desktop Videoconference Solutions

Zoom

On March the 17th 2018, the Pexip Virtual Meeting Room (VMR) service was replaced by Zoom, a video conferencing system designed to enhance your collaboration and communication and provide Virtual Meeting Rooms (VMR). Zoom is available to all staff and students at JCU. For assistance in getting Zoom up and running, contact InfoHelp on 15500 or 21777.

Skype for Business (SfB)

Skype for Business (SfB) is available to all JCU Staff as in internal video call, instant messaging and email solution. SfB does not interconnect with traditional videoconference equipped rooms however external SfB clients can connect to the JCU Zoom virtual meeting room service.

ITU Standard

JCU videoconference hardware use internationally recognized standards as laid down by ITU, the International Telecommunications Union. Hence, we do not use nor support Skype, as this uses proprietary protocols which are incompatible with commercial videoconferencing systems. If you opt for Skype, this can be used on a PC/laptop with a decent broadband connection. Skype for Business (SfB) is available to all staff at JCU - see Desktop Videoconference Solutions for more information about SfB.

Videoconferencing