Video conferencing mashups can be a very distracting thing. When you have multiple video conferences going on at the same time from the same server, there can be points in time where the video and audio signals get crossed. When this happens, it can lead to problems in keeping streams safe, not to mention security. In order to avoid mashups in your video and audio streams, you need to have a video conferencing solution like that offered by Blue Jeans Video Conferencing to create a dedicated stream for each incoming data thread. Keeping streams separate is one of the best ways to deal with mashups. When looking at mashups, you need to look at the possible causes of a mashup and deal with each one separately.
Too Many Endpoints
A multi endpoint solution is slated for a certain maximum number of participants. Depending on what you plan to use the video conferencing solution for, you prepare a particular amount of endpoint connections to suffice with your demand. However, if your demand is too high or for some reason you have far more than the amount of endpoints your connection is entitled to, there arises the problem of stream bleeding or mashups. When you have a number of streams in excess of the number of connections your account is allowed, the extra streams try to utilize the already existing streams leading to a conglomeration of video and audio that can be both distracting and counterproductive. When you’re only seeing half of the participants or the audio image is obscured, you are losing the benefit of having a multi-point video conferencing solution. In order to get around this, you could always upgrade your account with your video conferencing system provider to deal with a larger number of connections.
Poor Infrastructure
Streaming audio and video at high speed requires a minimum requirement from the connection that the devices are located on. The better the speed and lower the latency of the connection, the higher the quality of the audio and image data. Streaming requires rapid transmission of data in real-time. The fact that data is translated in real time is where the problem of connection bottlenecks come up. If you have too many open threads coming into a machine and the speed of the connection is unable to handle the incoming information they will bleed together and create a mashup of the incoming threads. In order to get over this bottleneck, the speed of the connection may need to be increased. A simple matter of calling the ISP and checking to see what sort of packages they have to deal with high speed connections (especially ADSL solutions) can help this problem. Alternatively, if your video conferencing solution provider has their own network, you can petition them for an upgrade in speed or a speed diagnosis to see if maintenance may be necessary.
Software
Software is another issue for companies that have to deal with a large volume of mashups in their video conferencing. If a provider of video conferencing solutions has a bug in their proprietary software, this can lead to a large prevalence of mashups. Usually, a video conferencing provider is able to figure out that they have this problem and patch the software in time. However, some bugs are hardware configuration specific and because of this, each hardware configuration that displays this problem should be checked when the bug is reported to ensure that it exists over similar configurations. This makes it easier to find a solution for it and send out a patch to deal with the issue. Many times, these problems are not due to poor software or app construction, but rather due to poor architecture on the device. Companies that use Blue Jeans Video Conferencing utilize the versatility of web content to aid their subscribers and this tends to bypass most of the issues that could occur with software. Patches to fix these kinds of problems take time, however, and the users may have to revert to using another device temporarily until it is fixed.
There are a large number of ways that mashups can happen but these are among the most common. Mashups can be detrimental to a company’s overall productivity, not to mention that it can lead to serious problems if left unattended. With endpoint-based solutions, increasing the amount of viable endpoints can drastically improve connection quality and ensure that there are no mashups occurring. In the case of poor infrastructure, there is very little alternative to upgrading the incoming network connections. This may be expensive but the benefits to the company in the long run are definitely worth it. Software based problems are the hardest to find because they don’t happen all the time. When it does happen, however, in order to determine what caused it, the technicians usually have to recreate the scenario. This can take a large amount of time and so a temporary device shift is required. As video conferencing solutions become more diversified, there will be more options for incorporating video conferencing into a business and much less instances of mashups occurring across multiple providers.
