Video conferencing is method by which people in different locations can conduct a meeting and both see and hear each other. This ability to see the remote participants as well being able to hear them has many benefits over audio-conferencing.
Video conferencing is now widely used by all industry sectors. Multinational companies use it to communicate with international branch offices, whilst smaller companies use videoconferencing to enable them to work with clients and suppliers in different countries. Video conferencing is not only used internationally, many legal firms and consultants use video conference systems to avoid billing clients travel time and to be able to carry out more client meetings in any given time period. Schools and universities also use video conferencing to carry out distance learning and to be able resource or include lecturers from other locations.
Modern video conference systems enable users to share documents and computer images with the remote (far end) party. When videoconferencing is used in this manner it becomes part of a collaboration or distance learning system.