This paper addresses the development of Global Studio, a remote collaboration environment that allows users to communicate and work together even when they are separated by great distances. Global Studio was inspired by the difficulties encountered when installing media equipment, the instability of video streaming, and the resultant low-resolution video. To establish an effective video meeting environment between two points, improvements need to be made in the areas of physical, management, user, and network restrictions.

The paper is quite instructive with regard to the various media equipment and video collaboration tools that are widely available via the Internet, some of which are very familiar to many users (for example, Skype). However, based on my experience, Skype is oftentimes unstable during a video chat because of network conditions (you get what you pay for). The Cisco TelePresence system and Polycom, which use high-resolution video streaming, are both successful video conferencing systems for remote collaborative communications. However, the installation of such systems is expensive and requires a high level of technical skill--engineers are needed to manage and operate them. Such management and operational issues are usually associated with high-end products.

To overcome these difficulties, the authors propose “the methodology of interface abstraction for [the] easy establishment and management of [a] video collaboration environment.” Using many figures and graphs (some of which are missing, such as figure 5.2.2), the authors design an effective remote collaboration environment using media cabling operations, media equipment management, and a manipulation interface for video streaming.

The authors state that Global Studio can effectively manage media equipment. It performs well with regard to the delivery of presentation applications--response time is important when dealing with equipment. This environment relies on gigabit Ethernet and a digital video transmission system (DVTS) for video streaming, which has been found to be stable.

The authors acknowledge that a lot of work still needs to be done to make their Global Studio environment more collaborative and effective even when multiple video streaming functions are added. More importantly, however, the authors need to work on their grammar, which can be distracting--for example, the constant use of “and etc” and sentences that include “looking over the each data” and “the stuffs.”