Enabling Composition-Based Video-Conferencing for the Home

This paper describes a videoconferencing system that meets performance constraints and functional requirements for use in consumer homes. Our system improves existing home technologies (such as video chat) by providing high-quality audiovisual communication, efficient encoding mechanisms, and low end-to-end delay. Moreover, the system includes a control interface that is capable of dynamically manipulating and compositing audiovisual content streams. This innovative architectural component is required for a domestic setting, where the television acts as the main screen and multiple people gather around it. Apart from the requirements and architecture, this paper analyses the performance of our system. The results validate our architectural decisions and provide a valuable input for further research in domestic videoconferencing.