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General Educational Technology Video Conferencing over a Network - d-Link i2Eye

d-Lnks DVC-1000 i2Eye video conferencing system is the simplest way to connect two remote sites through a network. All that is needed is a network connection, a TV with line-in, and power, and you're good to go! Full motion, full duplex, and completely scalable data throughput settings. The video is not as good as the Polycoms used for the Video-Linked Classrooms, but then, at $280 a pop (as of 11/1/03), it's 1/20th the cost! 

Here's how it works:

Hardware	One d-L:ink i2Eye camera per site, hooked to a TV with RCA line-in capability (will not work with ordinary coax connections  - see the discussion of cables on my Pinnacle Studio - Getting Started page for what these look like). The i2Eye also plugs into an IP network drop.
Set-up	Simply plug it in and turn it on! It will tell you if you have a good network connection.
Configuration	blah blah blah
Connect	blah blah blah
The Conference	blah
Things affecting quality of the video and sound	Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth! If you don't know what bandwidth is by now, you'll be an expert after this! Here's the possible restrictions: Your school connection speed: If you have a 128 kbps line (many elementary schools do), you'll struggle. If you can get permission, have your STC shut down your proxy server (effectively ending all Internet traffic) for the duration of the session, so you can have the pipe to yourself! The remote site connection speed: Same story there - you could have all the bandwidth in the world, and if the remote site is slow, the session will not go well. The KDE Backbone: All IP traffic (including your iVisit session) that leaves the cozy Fayette County environment must go through a gateway to the KDE Internet backbone. That gateway is typically maxed out (running at 100% of capacity) from 9:30 to 2:30 every day. It does not mean that your session won't work, it just might encounter problems. If you can schedule around this bottleneck (early morning or later afternoon), you're in better shape. This does not effect conferences inside of FCPS.