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Financial
Services Operations Bank on Viewpoint VBX for
Versatile Video Sharing
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Today's
financial services industry is built on the fast, effective
transfer of knowledge. Whether it's a trader working
at a PC, executives and analysts videoconferencing in
a board room, security staff monitoring the premises,
clients watching Bloomberg while waiting in the lobby,
or even employees working out in the fitness center,
every area of banking and brokerage operations depends
on the sharing of information.
Because
the financial community relies on video communications
to stay on top of breaking news and market information,
it has been a leader in confronting the problems that
dissimilar video transport systems can present and in
deploying integrated, easy-to-use, multipurpose video
systems.
Viewpoint
VBX addresses these issues by transforming local
and global video networks into a dynamic video communications
platform. VBX allows a financial institution to integrate
all of its video systems into a single video switching
and delivery environment, interacting with a unified
underlying network to offer easy, intuitive and appropriate
user interfaces for the wide variety of video applications
required within financial services organizations.
A
desktop user placing or responding to a video call needs
a very different set of controls than an administrator
who selectively "pushes" video channels to
various distributed TV displays around the facility.
To accommodate the many uses of video within a single
enterprise, ViewCast has incorporated a comprehensive
suite of PC-based user interfaces into its highly flexible
video management and delivery systems.
In
addition to providing control systems designed to meet
the requirements of each "class" of user,
the VBX system also integrates seamlessly with other
control mechanisms, such as touch-panel-controlled automation
systems from AMX and Crestron.
Along
with systems from leading names in the audiovisual,
IP networking, and automation systems industries, ViewCast
technologies deliver video throughout a financial enterprise
in three key areas: personal communications, group communications,
and personal information.
Personal
Communications
Personal communications can include point-to-point,
two-way, scheduled or ad-hoc videoconferencing from
the desktop. The VBX system delivers standard audio
and video to individual securities traders at their
desks via a small transceiver that can be connected
to a limitless variety of display devices. Traders implement
the VBX system to initiate spur-of-the-moment videoconferences
with counterparts and customers located all over the
world.
The
VBX system also provides a convenient set of controls
that allow traders to select and view broadcast channels
such as Bloomberg, Reuters, Moneyline and other financial
news channels; share video and other media during a
conference; or record, index, and archive videoconferences
for subsequent retrieval.
Video
can be displayed in a window on a PC screen or on a
separate TV receiver, a separate LCD monitor on the
desktop, or in video display windows built into the
special trading turrets used by many large trading firms.
Similarly, some ViewCast-equipped trading floors deliver
the audio channel not to the traders' PCs, but instead
to speakers in the ceilings, speakers built into the
display devices, or to the traders' telephone sets.
Video
and video controls must be available at every site where
video can increase the speed and impact of a transaction,
bringing added and measurable value to the workflow.
In the course of their fast-paced day, traders, analysts,
and executives expect to be able to videoconference
at any time, while also having immediate access to any
of the financial media's broadcast channels. VBX provides
them with a simple, intuitive user interface for managing
calls and tapping into critical market updates from
key media sources.
Group
Communications
Group communications enabled by VBX may include multiparty
videoconferencing between any combination of users at
their desks and in video-enabled conference rooms equipped
to handle from five to more than 20 users situated around
a large conference table. Controls to begin, join, end,
or otherwise manage a videoconference are a combination
of the same WorkFone PC client used by the traders and
wireless Crestron touch panels custom-programmed to
manage everything from audio and video devices to room
lighting, draperies, skylights, and HVAC systems.
A
movable camera, which includes pan, tilt and zoom controls,
captures video of participants in the room. Conference
participants from remote locations appear on wall-mounted
plasma displays or in individual quadrants within the
display window of a lenticular glass screen. Additional
video sources in the room - document cameras, additional
room cameras, video outputs from laptop PCs - may be
freely switched in and out of the conference. Crestron
touch panels also enable user-controlled video-on-demand,
PowerPoint sessions, and video playout from participants'
portable PCs.
An audio processing unit automatically detects which
speaker is talking and selects the appropriate microphone,
placed near each participant to ensure the highest quality
audio. Audio equipment including special multi-mic/audio
processor/echo cancellation devices improves sound quality
to further enhance conferencing effectiveness. Audio-only
participants are included via Crestron touch panel control
and telephone line interfaces. Audio calls can originate
from the room or from outside the facility.
Personal
Information
The third major type of video transport facilitated
by ViewCast's VBX system is personal information. This
may include live video from financial news broadcasts
or the latest message from the company president, replayed
from DVD to monitors and wall-mounted plasma displays
scattered around hallways, break rooms, fitness areas,
and cafeterias, as well as to desktop screens and conference
rooms throughout the facility.
VBX
Administrator software enables staff to use any PC on
the LAN to make video channel assignments throughout
the facility, including screens and monitors in conference
rooms and common areas. Within a company's workout facility,
users select the video channel of their choice from
a Crestron touch panel that controls ceiling-mounted
displays. Fixed desktop users requiring uncompressed,
full-motion, full-detail video have access to broadcast
TV channels through a direct connection to the VBX system.
Users with a more casual need for broadcast channel
access can view these channels via an integrated IP-TV
system. The VBX switches and delivers video and audio
to IP-TV servers, which in turn deliver compressed video
via IP multicast to video-enabled clients.
The
financial services marketplace is an extremely demanding
environment, and the implementation of interactive,
TV-quality video communications can clearly offer vastly
improved means of sharing information. VBX not only
simplifies overall video distribution for IT staff,
but also provides interface solutions and functionality
that add value for each individual within the institution.
For
more information about the Viewpoint VBX, click here!
To
request additional information about Viewpoint VBX,
click here!
