Sidebar 2.

Description of Codec interactive video.

• A class is broadcast to distance sites over telephone lines from a studio set up as a classroom at San Francisco State University.
• Images are seen on monitors at each distance site and in the studio at San Francisco State University.
• Images seen on the monitors can be varied by a technician operating camera controls in the studio.
• There are a number of cameras. One is focused on the instructor, one on the students in the studio, one on the students at each reception site, and one on any materials to be projected from the studio. The instructor and the technician determine which camera shots are viewed on the monitors for students in the studio and at the distance sites. Materials that can be projected include writing or pictures on plain paper, overhead transparencies, slides, videotapes, material from the Internet, and real objects.
• Students in the studio and at the reception sites can ask questions using a microphone, and their questions will be heard at all sites. When students speak from a particular site, they can also be seen at all the other sites.
• There is a delay of a few seconds in the reception of the sound compared to the video.

Example

Students at all sites view and hear an instructor giving a lecture. Students in the broadcast studio can see the instructor in person, as well as the image of the instructor on a monitor. The technician in the studio shifts the monitor images at all sites from the instructor to written information on overhead transparencies when requested by the instructor. When a student at a distance site asks a question, the entire group can hear the question. At this point, the technician quickly shifts to the image coming from the camera focused on the distance student asking the question. Now students at all the sites can see, as well as hear, that distance student on their monitors. When the instructor responds, those at all sites can hear the instructor. The technician then quickly shifts the image broadcast on all the monitors back to the instructor so that students at all the sites can see, as well as hear, the instructor.

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