Abstract: The integration of data and video conference data allows presentations to be given more effectively and people to write down things which are hard to deliver using speech alone, for example mathematical formulae. Often when giving a presentation though it can be advantageous to be able to interact not only with a person verbally but also on a written level, for example a user may wish to draw on slides being used in a presentation to illustrate a point. At present only one user can transmit this type of data to the participants at any one time and only to participants having an H.239 compatible endpoint. The presentation invention enables multiple users to interact using written rather than spoken means without having to pass permission to transmit written data from one participant to another.

Abstract: A Video Conference Recorder (VCR) provided with integral input transcoders which convert received video call data into an intermediate format. Once the input transcoder has processed the data it passes it to a memory in the VCR where it is stored until a user requires it to be played back. If required the data can be converted into more than one output format using multiple input transcoders. On receiving a request to play back a recording the VCR locates the data in its memory and sends it to an output transcoder, integral to the VCR. If the stored data format is one that the endpoint can receive then the output transcoder transmits the data across the network to the endpoint. If, however, the endpoint cannot receive the stored data format then the output transcoder converts the data into a format which the endpoint can receive before onward transmission.