Enabling 'Togetherness' in High-Quality Domestic Video Conferencing

Low-cost video conferencing systems have provided an existence proof for the value of video communication in a home setting. At the same time, current systems have a number of fundamental limitations that inhibit more general social interactions among multiple groups of participants. In our work, we describe the development, implementation and evaluation of a domestic video conferencing system that is geared to providing true 'togetherness' among conference participants. We show that such interactions require sophisticated support for high-quality audiovisual presentation, and processing support for person identification and localisation. In this paper, we describe user requirements for effective interpersonal interaction. We then report on a system that implements these requirements. We conclude with a systems and user evaluation of this work. We present results that show that participants in a video conference can be made feel as 'together' as collocated players of a board game.