System and Method for Face-To-Face Video Communication

1. A system for video communication comprising a display having a reflective surface facing to a local user and a video camera mounted on a supporting structure and aimed toward the display; wherein said display displays dark screen images periodically; said camera captures the local user's image reflected off from the surface during the dark screen image period.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display is a laptop PC monitor, desktop computer monitor, a display on a mobile device, touch pad computer, and smart phone, a television display, and a video game display.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the camera is mounted on the outer margin of the key panel of the laptop computer.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display is a flat panel display with a reflective surface.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display is a projective display with a reflective surface covering the projection image screen.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the reflective surface is a smooth glossy surface.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the reflective surface is formed from a reflective coating or a reflective sheet laminated on the display surface.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the display having a reflective surface comprises a transparent-reflector mounted parallel to and in front of the display.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the dark screen images are achieved by periodically turning off the backlight of a liquid crystal display.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the dark screen images are achieved by software or hardware graphic control of the computer associated with the display.

11. The system of claim 1 , further comprises a synchronization unit to control the timing of the video camera trigger and exposure time and the dark screen images on the display so that the video camera captures local user's image only during the dark screen image period.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the camera position and orientation is correlated with the reflection path of the image of the local user via the eye gazing spot on the display screen.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the camera position and orientation is correlated with the reflection path of the image of the local user as if the local user's eye gazing spot is fixed on the image of a remote user shown on the display screen.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the video images from the video camera include normally intended displayed images and local user images; the normally intended displayed images are filtered out and replaced by local user images with real time video image processing.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein the normally intended displayed images are filtered out according to a video tracing mark on the display.

16. A method of constructing a system for video communication to track eye contact comprising: providing a display having a reflective surface facing to a local user; placing a video camera on a supporting structure and aiming the camera toward the display; Constructing said display to display dark screen images periodically with each period less than 1 second; arranging the camera to capture local user's image reflected off from the display surface during the dark screen image period.