Fujitsu Corporation

Hitoshi Ishiguro

Hitoshi Sato

Yuji Yoshida

Hiroaki Natori

Youichi Ashida

Masakazu Yamaguchi

Toshihiro Homma

Ryusaku Imai

A television conference system having at least one of the functions of automatically directing a camera toward a speaker, of transmitting video signals of picture images from a plurality of television cameras, and of displaying a document image. The television conference system includes a microphone input judgement unit for judging the existence of any input into microphones provided for the speakers of a television conference; a judgement result holding unit for holding the results of the judgement of existence of the microphone inputs over a first predetermined period, the first predetermined period being longer than the shortest period of continuous speaking; a time totaling unit for obtaining the total time of the microphone inputs during the first predetermined period from the results of judgement held in the judgement result holding unit; a speaker specifying unit for specifying as the current speaker the speaker using a microphone having a total time obtained by the time totaling unit which is over a second predetermined period, the second predetermined period being the standard continuing period of noise; and a camera drive unit for driving a camera within a shooting range of the speaker specified as the current speaker by the speaker specifying unit.

Television conference system

A multi-point conference system for making a video conference includes a center unit having a controller and an image selector, and three or more stations respectively coupled to the center unit, where each station includes at least one camera for picking up an image to output an image data, a display for displaying an image based on an image data and a request part for making a request. The controller initially sets master, sub and participating stations in conformance with a predetermined rule. The image selector automatically supplies the image data from the master station to the sub and participating stations to be displayed on the display thereof and supplies the image data from the sub station to the master station to be displayed on the display thereof. The controller automatically sets a new master station in response to a request from the request part of an arbitrary station requesting the new master station, sets the master station prior to receiving the request as a new sub station and sets all stations other than the new master and sub stations as new participating stations.

Multi-point conference system

Growing community of inventors

Inagi, Japan

Hitoshi Ishiguro