The Personal Presence System (PPS) is an experimental prototype platform to support advanced Broadband applications including multimedia conferencing and distance learning. The PPS supports user presentation control of advanced network elements (multimedia bridges). The multimedia bridges are shared network resources which are designed for deployment in proximity to other switching and transcoding resources. The multimedia bridge provides for a single point of contact for each user so that only one combined video stream is received, thereby minimizing access bandwidth. This architecture solves the N squared transmission problem of multipoint video conferencing and allows customer premises terminal equipment to be much simpler and less expensive than high end desktop workstations. A conventional television with a set-top box may also be used as the terminal equipment for a multiparty multimedia teleconference, enabling universal video teleconferencing.

The Personal Presence System (PPS) experimental prototype is being designed to support multiparty multimedia visual services which use advanced video combining techniques. This paper is a companion to another paper in this proceedings: “The Personal Presence System—A Wide Area Network Service Resource for the Real Time Composition of Multipoint Multimedia Communications” which contains a detailed service description.

Three dimensional display of moving images greatly enhances realism and adds a unique sense of "presence". Three dimensional video systems have been kept from widespread application by two technical problems, the need for glasses, viewing hoods, or other cumbersome devices for image steering, and the high bandwidths needed for transmission. Devices that avoid the discomfort of headgear by using autostereoscopic (pseudo-holographic) displays are known, but these methods require even higher bandwidths to be effective. This paper introduces the use of digital predictive coding as a means of data compression for the transmission or storage of a set of spatially related images needed for an autostereoscopic display. (Interframe coding without frame memories.) The algorithms, implementations, and application of a new sort of predictor called Disparity Corrected Prediction are described.