Abstract
We describe a system for synchronized video-file viewing and the results of a field experiment with the system. With the recent increase in the number of broadband network users, the commercial prospects for video teleconferencing have greatly improved. Today's broadband network service is best effort and doesn't provide guarantees of bandwidth, so the available bandwidth is constantly changing. Therefore, in the video-teleconferencing system, we give voice communication priority and change the frame rate of the images to suit the available bandwidth. The system has a file-sharing function (e. g. Power Point and Excel). For the system to be useful to sports medicine, the shareable file types will have to include video types (e. g. of operation and rehabilitation). However, the impossibility of maintaining a constant frame rate the real-time sharing of moving pictures difficult. We thus propose a synchronized-viewing system for the collaborative use of moving pictures. In this system, video files to be shared are distributed by FTP before the collaboration, along with the command sequences to control playback, etc., of the files. This allows synchronized play back of the files on a best-effort network.
