Design and Implementation of Multi-participant Video Conferencing Module for a Home Server

A MVCM (multi-participant video conferencing module) with visitor identification function is working as a PCI slave device in home server. The module enables a video conference with some participants including a dweller and supports a function to identify a visitor´s video and audio data interworking with HAS (home automation system) in the home server. In this paper, we propose an implementation of a multi-channel, up to 4 channel, video conferencing module with the visitor identification function. The proposed MVCM uses a MPEG-4 based hardware codec (coding and decoding) for encoding and decoding participants video and audio data. The scheme is different from that in the conventional video conferencing system using software codec technology. Consequently, it has the advantage of real-time data processing.