Mittuniversitetet

This report deals with the possibilities of creating a system for a point-to-point audio- and video communication link, using cheap and simple hardware. The system will be using a local area network based on Ethernet and IP. This work was focused around the Raspberry Pi and its possibilities and limitations, regarding this type of application. The usage of a Raspberry Pi was also compared to using a conventional mini-PC for the same purpose. The overall goal was to achieve a system for point to point audio- and video communication of a very high quality, preferrably HD quality. The users of the system are supposed to get a feeling of live communication. To achieve this a very large monitor was used at each node. The monitor, microphone, camera and speaker are to be integrated into a frame that is hung on a wall in order to resemble a window. When you want to talk to somebody at the other node, you just walk up to this window and call upon the person you want to speak to, since the communications link is always active. This system could be used for distance meetings, distance lectures and in other similar situations. The results indicated that the Raspberry Pi was very capable of handling either transmission or reception of HD quality signals, but for full duplex communication a setup using two separate Raspberry Pis per node is recommended – one for transmission and one for reception. Another solution would be to choose a more powerful hardware platform,for instance a mini-PC, instead of the Raspberry Pi.