A media gateway (MG) that services a plurality of client devices, may be handled at least a portion of video conferencing (VC) processing during a VC call between at least one of said plurality of client devices and at least one other VC client. The portion of the VC processing handled by the media gateway may be offloaded from a centralized VC multipoint control unit (MCU). The MG may handle one or more VC MCU functions, which may comprise video conferencing call control and/or management and/or audio/video (AV) transcoding. The MG may perform localized quality of service (QoS) management, to select, and adaptively control and/or configure resources and/or local links used in the MG and/or in VC clients or neighboring MGs connected to the MG, during VC operations, such as in generating, handling, and/or communicating data or content exchanged during VC calls.