Horizontally supported planar surfaces – Tiltable surfaces – Biased
Patent
1993-04-12
1994-10-25
Brittain, James R.
Horizontally supported planar surfaces
Tiltable surfaces
Biased
108 7, 108 20, A47F 512
Patent
active
053578708
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general terms to the field of audiovisual telecommunications and more particularly to arrangements for increasing use comfort provided on audiovisual communication terminals, e.g. picturephones or videophones. Such an apparatus or terminal enables the speaker to communicate by sound and picture and via a telecommunications network with another remote speaker equipped with an identical apparatus or terminal.
PRIOR ART AND SET PROBLEM
An audiovisual telecommunication terminal conventionally comprises a camera, a display screen, a loudspeaker, a mouthpiece, an electronic encoding/decoding control unit and serving as an interface with a transmission line, together with either manual or automatic checking or inspection means. All these equipments are located in a box or case usually intended to be placed on a table in front of the seated speaker.
In known audiovisual telecommunication terminals, the camera aiming direction is generally fixed. Therefore, to enable the operator to move to a certain extent within the field of the camera without his opposite number losing his picture, the shooting angle must be relatively wide. As a result the remote speaker terminal screen restores an image or picture on which the first speaker occupies a relatively small space. In other words, he is shown on small scale and appears to be a long way away. This disadvantage is not compensated by the fact that audiovisual telecommunication terminals generally have small dimensions.
It has also been found that it would be of great interest for an operator or speaker to be seen in close up by his remote counterpart. Therefore attempts have been made to use a reduced shooting angle and a longer focal length. However, the observed operator has a tendency to pass too rapidly out of the field of the camera.
Attempts have already been made to obviate these disadvantages by proposing several audiovisual telecommunication terminal systems in which part of the apparatus is motorized so that certain of the elements, namely the camera and the screen can be tilted as a function of the position of the operator in front of the same with a view to placing him under better viewing and shooting conditions.
Thus, e.g. French patent 2 642 928 discloses an audiovisual telecommunication terminal, whereof the part carrying the screen and the camera is mounted so as to move with respect to the other part. Motorization means are provided for pivoting said part as a function of the operator position. However, this system suffers from weaknesses because the raising and lowering system for said mobile part is not perfectly reversible. This has the consequence that on exerting an opposing force on the motor mechanism of terminal, or when the movement is forced when the motor is in the inoperative state, the coupling system used for coupling the motor may be damaged. In addition, the coupling system is not very reliable over a period of time, because it is necessary to perfectly meter the frictional forces. Moreover, as the motor is located in the rotation axis of the fixed part, it is subject to irregular stresses and forces, which are dependent on the opening angle of the two parts. Thus, the torque resisting the rotation is in particular created by the weight of the mobile equipments. These forces make it necessary to use a relatively high power motor, whose gears are noisy and also an overdimensioned reduction gear, in order to achieve a sufficiently slow rotation speed. The object of the invention is to obviate these disadvantages in order to make it possible to reversibly and relatively discreetly tilt the mobile part of the terminal comprising the video equipment, so that it can assume the most appropriate spatial position for the user.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To this end, the main object of the invention is an audiovisual telecommunication terminal which is articulated and orientable and which comprises a fixed part, a mobile part, articulated with respect to the fixed part al
REFERENCES:
patent: 3267878 (1966-08-01), Faux et al.
patent: 3359927 (1967-12-01), Janus
patent: 3903812 (1975-09-01), Cowley
patent: 4856045 (1989-08-01), Hoshina
Buchner Georges
Guichard Jacques
Isckia Alain
Anderson Gerald
Brittain James R.
France Telecom
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