Abstract: A method for presenting video on a local monitor and a remote monitor includes encoding an original video signal to produce a first compressed video signal. Using the first compressed video signal, the video signal is also encoded to produce a second compressed video signal. Both the first and second compressed video signals are transmitted to a local terminal at which the first and second compressed video signals are decoded to produce first and second decoded video signals. A first decoded version of the video signal is produced from a combination of the first and second decoded video signals. Only the first compressed video signal is transmitted to a remote terminal at which a second decoded version of the video signal is recovered from only the first compressed video signal.The first compressed video signal may be produced by motion compensation temporally encoding and spatially encoding the original video signal.

Abstract: A camera is provided that can be connected to a processing system via an external connector outside of the housing of the processing system. The camera includes a camera housing. An imaging device is provided inside the camera housing that converts moving pictures to a video signal. A bit rate reduction circuit is also provided inside the camera housing and connected to the imaging device. The bit-rate reduction circuit reduces a bit rate of the moving picture signal so as to produce a bit-rate reduced video signal having a lower bandwidth than the video signal prior to bit rate reduction.