8 Differences between Telepresence and Videoconferencing

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Technology has brought people together over the
years. It has provided new avenues
of communication for commercial and private users
alike through telepresence vs video
conferencing. These two technologies, which have
often been interchanged, are two different
options, each with unique features and
capabilities for specific requirements. Before
sighting the differences between these two
technologies, it is important to understand the
similarity between them basically, these are
tools used in meetings through video and audio
links stimulating an actual face-to-face
encounter. Now let's discuss the difference
between telepresence and videoconferencing.

• Video Structure
• The video conferencing tool's video structure is
  quite simple. Two end points attain visual
  communication through a group conference. During
  this conference, a camera is positioned at one
  end of the room focusing on one person at the
  group of people gathered around at a meeting
  table. The camera would only be focused on the
  current speaker, and the rest of the members
  would appear further away from the camera, whilst
  one or two would appear closer usually in
  standard definition. Telepresence, however, is
  quite complex. A telepresence tool would actually
  emulate the appearance of an actual meeting
  room. Picture actually feeling like being with
  the person who is halfway across the world as
  the people would look like there were sitting at
  the conference table themselves. Telepresence
  set up to be a 11 ratio, with the camera focused
  on a single person presented on each designated
  screens which were all in high definition.
• Audio Structure

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• Visual interference of grainy, jerky images is
  for the most part, tolerable. But unstable
• audio is a non-negotiable--- the loss of an
  occasional syllable is acceptable but time lag,
  muffling, and disjoined audio quality takes
  focus, causes irritation and fatigue.
• Telepresence has all of these addressed. As the
  experience is to emulate a meeting with
  participants seemingly in the same room,
  telepresence's audio is clear, echo-free,
  provides sufficient volume and intelligible. It
  has spatial audio which provides directional
  cues as to whom is speaking if multiple people
  are in the meeting. Contrariwise,
  videoconferencing audio is not that commendable.
  The quality of speech transmitted through
  videoconference is interfered as it only
  possesses a single-channel audio, therefore, all
  audio packets are transmitted and compressed
  through one output causing an inevitable
  reduction of audio quality.
• Connectivity
• One of the major telepresence and
  videoconferencing differences is the connections
  that are established. Most of the complaints for
  video conferencing usually revolves around the
  issue of not being able to connect their calls or
  unreliable connects result to a poor quality
  audio/video conference. Telepresence with its HD
  video must equipped the same standard of audio
  to their systems. Service providers have
  conducted network assessments to ensure network
  traffic will compromise the quality of the call.
  The system was properly engineered so much so
  that it almost always successfully avoids
  congestion.
• Operability
• One of the major qualms regarding
  videoconferencing is that it is too complex to
  set up and to operate. This was for the
  traditional set up of videoconferencing which
  usually intimidated its users with all the keys
  and buttons needed before you can even start an
  actual call. ezTalks, however, is a cloud based
  video conferencing service which addressed this
  problem and allows for the simplest operations
  and has customer service on call 24/7. On the
  other hand, telepresence solutions included a
  no-user configurable settings, simply put, there
  were no intimidating hand-held devices or remote
  controls to confuse the end users.
• Environmental Treatment

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• Telepresence systems allows a more in-depth
  experience when it comes to having a
• successful video connection. As it actually
  emulates the look and feel of an actual face-
  to-face interaction, its environmental factors
  come in to play to be identical as well. For
• example, a board room table and chair has to
  match that of the one displayed on the screen to
  create the maximum feel of being in the same
  place as the person you're talking to. The
  lightings, fixtures and overall atmosphere of the
  actual meeting must be duplicated into the
  screen to achieve the telepresence quality of a
  video connection.
• Videoconferencing on the other hand, has no
  complications in this avenue as it takes
  everything as it is---whether you're in the
  kitchen, dining table or bathroom while you're in
• the video call, it doesn't matter.
• Compatibility
• Although superior in almost every aspect of
  operating and video and sound quality,
  compatibility is one of the aspects that
  telepresence failed to exceed over
  videoconferencing. Many telepresence providers do
  not support compatibility between its
  competitors. Basically, if one end point of the
  meeting uses a different telepresence software
  versus the other end point, then the
  functionality is limited if not, won't actually
  work at all. Videoconferencing, on the other
  hand, have taken advantage of this feat and
  developed all their products with enhanced
  compatibility. The simplified interface allowed
  videoconferencing among competitors at full
  functionality--- for this reason, most startup
  businesses opt for videoconferencing.
• End User Usage Opinion
• Based on a number of interviews many prefer
  telepresence vs videoconferencing. People use
  videoconferencing infrequently due to
  intimidation of the system. Managers usually
  have had to experience being delayed in highly
  urgent and important meetings as connections
  were simply difficult to establish. Another user
  has quipped that when more than two to three
  people were in the conference call, it was quite
  difficult to perceive who was talking as the
  picture grew smaller and the capacity to check
  body language was almost a moot point.
  Telepresence users however, had a different usage
  opinion. Most say that even they had several
  meetings deployed all at the same time, the
  connections remained up to par. It was also
  fairly easy to use as it only required a single
  button on both end points if you were using the
  same system. Additionally, the quality of the
  video and audio impacted meetings positively.

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8. Costs Telepresence tools and systems are
expensive both in purchasing and operating. The
initial acquisition cost for telepresence is
300,000USD while videoconferencing costs only
40,000USD. Telepresence and videoconferencing
difference when it comes to monthly network
services is 1000USD for videoconferencing and
8000USD for telepresence. Over a thirty-six month
operation, videoconferencing will cost a business
an estimated 36000USD while 588000USD is
computed for telepresence. Nevertheless, an
ezTalks video conferencing plan will cost you the
cheapest for only 12.99USD/month on a pro
plan. https//www.eztalks.com/video-conference/8-
differences-between-telepresence-and-videoconferen
cing.html