A home network integrates a television to enable a user to use the
television to conduct an Internet video conference by leveraging the
Internet video conferencing functionality provided by a home computer
connected to the Internet. The television is connected to the home
network via a TV client module, and a video camera co-located with the
television is also connected to the TV client. The TV client presents on
the television an Internet conferencing option selectable by a user to
invoke the video conferencing functionality of the personal computer.
During the video conference, video and audio data captured by the video
camera are transmitted by the TV client over the home network to the
personal computer fro forwarding onto the conferencing parties on the
Internet, and user interface data representing video/audio streams
received from the Internet are transmitted by the personal computer to
the TV client for display on the television.