Panoramic video in a live meeting client

A computer-implemented process for streaming video from a client to other clients in a network comprising:

• initializing a web meeting at a first client capable of interfacing with a meeting server entity that is either a meeting service or a meeting server;
• at the first client determining whether the meeting server entity is a meeting service or a meeting server without action by a user;
• the first client connecting to a meeting server entity without reconfiguration or action by the user via a network;
• receiving at the first client after connection to the network a conference state document that defines the state of the meeting from the meeting server entity;
• establishing a dialog between the first client and meeting server entity to negotiate attributes of a meeting with one or more other clients;
• capturing video and audio data at said first client and sending it to the meeting server entity that mixes and transmits the video and audio data to the one or more other clients over the network;
• receiving video and audio data associated with said meeting at said first client from the one or more other clients via the meeting server entity;
• and
• displaying said video captured at said first client and the video received from the one or more other clients at said first client, while playing the audio captured at said first client and the audio received from the one or more clients.

A system for streaming video from a client to other clients in a network comprising:

• a server entity that controls a meeting over a network, wherein the server entity is either in the configuration of a meeting service or a stand-alone client-server;
• one or more client computers that determine the configuration of a server entity without reconfiguration or action by a user and that receive and transmit video over the network via the server entity in the determined configuration of a meeting service or a stand-alone client-server without reconfiguration;
• and
• a stand-alone audio video media control unit hosted on a second server which interfaces with the server entity and mixes and transmits audio video data received from any client computer interfacing with the server entity to the other clients.