Part I

AV Fundamentals

This part covers the following topics:

• Chapter 1, Introduction to Collaboration: This chapter will provide a history of voice and video communication, and illustrate the evolutionary path communication has followed leading to the collaboration architecture that exists today.

• Chapter 2, Audio Basics: This chapter will provide a broad introduction to audio behavior, discuss the differences between analog and digital audio communication, and explain how the audio codecs we use today came into existence.

• Chapter 3, Video Basics: This chapter will provide a broad introduction to light behavior, discuss how light can be used to capture video, and explain how the video codecs we use today came into existence.

• Chapter 4, Collaboration Endpoint Components and Environment: This chapter will first examine how audio acoustics behave in an environment where audio communication is set up, and take a close look at the audio components needed for communication. Then this chapter will examine light conditions within an environment where video communication is set up, and take a close look at the video components needed for communication.

• Chapter 5, Communications Protocols: This chapter will examine two forms of communication, circuit-switched and packet switched. Circuit-switched communication uses various forms of ISDN, all of which are controlled by the ITU-T standard H.320. Packet-switched communication uses packets over the Internet instead of circuits over a telephony network. Two packet-switching protocols will be discussed in this chapter.

• Chapter 6, Cisco Solution for Converged Collaboration: This chapter will introduce the Cisco Collaboration product line, including endpoints, call control infrastructure and applications, all of which will be discussed throughout this book in more detail. This chapter will also discuss the designing aspects that must be considered before deploying a Cisco Collaboration solution.