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F/OSS Multi-Point Video-Conferencing
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun May 18, 2008 11:19 AM
from the and-what-about-those-flying-cars dept.
from the and-what-about-those-flying-cars dept.
DarkSarin writes "Given that solutions like iChat can seamlessly video-conference for multiple parties on the Mac, and that others are semi-commercial, like Oovoo (which recently left beta and is no longer free for more than 3-way calls), what do you recommend in terms of a F/OSS solution to a need for moderate-sized video-conferencing? Ideally, it would be something which does not use a web-page and does not require hours of configuration. iChat is insanely easy to use. Mebeam.com is also quite simple to operate, but requires so much screen real estate that it can't easily be used in conjunction with any other software. Referring to other documents while in the middle of the conference is nice, but it's important to have the reactions of the other participants — and not everyone has multiple monitors. I am aware of projects like vmukti and services like ustream.tv, but I am thinking more in terms of a stand-alone application that is F/OSS (Ekiga/GnomeMeeting comes to mind, but it does not do multi-point video chat unless one also has access to an H.323 gateway, which is apparently non-trivial to implement). With the prevalence of broadband connections, I am surprised that a solid effort is missing for making easy, painless multi-point video-conferencing for more than 3 or 4 connections (which seems to be the most that a lot of 'free' solutions offer, or even the low-cost ones). So, my question is two-fold: First, why isn't there a better effort at medium to large video-conferencing that pretty much anyone can set up? Second, do you know of any F/OSS applications which work well and support a minimum of 6 to 8 connected parties?"
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FreeSWITCH can do Video Conf. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
VLVC might solve your problem (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.vlvc.net/en-home.html
Skype? (Score:4, Informative)
I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it last week from my linux platform.
It also does n-way calls. And runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. Something to follow up on?
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Luckily, using Skype isn't something that is likely to create vendor lock-in. So when a viable OSS alternative becomes available in the future, switching to it will involve about the same amount of effort as it would if that software had existed today.
So if the options are using Skype now and switching in 2 years (say), or using nothing for 2 years and waiting for something to come along, the former option seems more agreeable.
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That makes no sense. Once something becomes a defacto standard it is nearly impossible to get everyone to switch to something else. Market share is everything. This is exactly how Microsoft maintains their monopoly. It is the reason the vast majority of
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The reason Microsoft maintains a monopoly with Office is because its grip on the market perpetuates and expands due to proprietary formats. Skype deals with transient data, so the analogy to Office, or MP3, or GIF (or any other kind of file format) doesn't work.
I also don't quite understand your point about networking externalities. In fact, as I see it, because Skype sort of Just Works through firewalls and doesn't typically require any explicit configuration, any OSS product which also Just Works for
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You gotta be kidding me. Seriously. Have you ever tried to get Skype working through a firewall that does access control ? You have pretty much give the computer unlimited access to get Skype to work. (Unrestricted https = full access, since you can use to tunnel an
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Well, you'd be hard pressed to find a firewall whose purpose was not "access control."
Perhaps you mean a firewall with a restrictive default outbound policy. In this case, of course Skype, like another other software of its ilk, will require special configuration. But the common case (for Skype's target audience) is restrictive inbound and permissive outbound.
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Re:Skype? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the network effect doesn't invariably result in lock-in.
My point is that with something like Skype, you're dealing with transient data, the software itself requires very little configuration (and no configuration generally needed outside of the software [e.g. networking]), and usage of the software doesn't require a lot of training. The barrier to replacement is, compared to other examples, really fairly low.
All that's really required is that you agree with those you want to conference with to use a given piece of software, and then install it. This is an obstacle, but it's not a substantial one. Because this effort is roughly equivalent to the original effort of agreeing to use and installing Skype, the I disagree with the lock-in argument.
Nobody disagrees that the ideal situation is to use OSS if some viable candidate exists. If it doesn't, all I'm arguing is that using something like Skype -- if it provided the necessary capabilities (which apparently it doesn't, but that's moot for this discussion) -- is a sensible stop-gap. In this particular case, I don't accept that the implied alternative (use nothing while you wait for an OSS solution) is the best option. (Sometimes it might be.)
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Re:Skype? (Score:4, Informative)
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I know Skype isn't FOSS, but the latest Linux beta for skype does video chat with windows.
I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it last week from my linux platform.
It also does n-way calls. And runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. Something to follow up on?
The last time I checked (about 2 days ago, admittedly, so maybe something has changed) a three way video conference did not work in skype. Maybe there is a way to make it happen that I'm missing, but I sure couldn't figure it out. If you have a link, I'd love to see it.
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Simple!
Works best with LCD screens.
VIC and RAT (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:VIC and RAT (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.mebeam.com/ [mebeam.com] has a plug-in for GTalk that allows for multi-way video conferencing.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5qdp38 [tinyurl.com] (Link to the plug-in)
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h323 (Score:5, Informative)
re: evo (Score:3, Insightful)
which is from the people who went on to do evo.
It can be non-trivial to make it work but it fits the rest of your requirements pretty well. It's gotten more user friendly in the last few years goo.
If your network supports multicast, AG will use it, which means you don't need a central server. This mostly means R&E networks, there is very little multicast availability on the commercial internet.
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It's pretty easy to setup these days, although if you're planning on using h264 you're going to need a whole lot of CPU.
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Also, for those in the science community, evo.caltech.edu is a nice Java-based collaboration tool.
Your definition of nice seems to differ from mine. Its of course much better than vrvs but it seems to have issues and doubly so for video. Its not reliable yet and sometimes if CMS and/or ATLAS are having a large meeting, grinds to a halt. Although to be fair it is rapidly improving. I have observed that (pulling number out of ...) it has only a 60% success rate. Additionally it is more designed for large prearranged meetings and is not as immediate as say ichat when you want an adhoc meeting to discuss s
H323 not multipoint, EVO not functional (Score:4, Interesting)
EVO is horrible. It's JAVA+vic/rat. Quality is terrible, it is really slow to connect each time and you can't always connect. It is supposed to be the VC tool of choice for the LHC experiments. However it is so bad that almost every meeting I attend uses the CERN telephone conferencing in preference or the ESNET H.323 MCU which the Tevatron experiment (D0 and CDF) use.
Parent
..uhm..can't find an answer. (Score:2, Informative)
MOD UP! (Score:2)
Oh wait, that's the article, isn't it. I'VE BEEN ASKING THIS FOR YEARS!!!
Hopefully the new voice and video for pidgin thing won't suck, and we can finally supplant a corporation BEFORE it becomes a hegemony (though Skype is pretty much there already. BLAST!).
IRC (Score:5, Funny)
All you need to do is set up an IRC-server in multi-pointcast mode using the -nrl option, and then connect to it with reverse protocol multiplication using the -t option. You can add new users by typing
Re:IRC (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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Bah.
Just use talk(1). Use it to talk to yourself, even. Tell a few jokes, share ideas, brainstorm, engage in role playing (a bit of added configuration will allow you to 'su badgirl16' or 'su leatherman' for quickie session), or just check in and see how things are going.
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Re:IRC (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
audience? (Score:3, Insightful)
AccessGrid? VRVS? (Score:3, Informative)
Works fine, even supports multipoint *HD* video conferencing, open source though the "hours to set up" depends on your tech competence. It doesn't *need* working multicast, but works a lot better with it.
Not really AG-specific: Also note that multipoint video conferencing requires either echo cancellation (and ALL software echo cancellation sucks, you need still need hardware DSP units even in 2008) or headsets for everyone - one bad node can ruin they meeting - if you think an echoey 2-way conversation is bad, you should experience a 15-way conference some time (though that might need academic/military bandwidth
http://accessgrid.org/ [accessgrid.org]
EVO? (Successor to VRVS).
Kind of new, but descendant of VRVS. Kind of a cut-down accessgrid. Easy to use, though is web-page based.
AFAIK, like VRVS, interoperates with AccessGrid, though participants in a conference tend to be "second class citizens".
http://evo.caltech.edu/evoGate/FAQ/index.jsp#Basics01 [caltech.edu]
software echo cancellation (Score:5, Interesting)
Just curious - why should "software" echo cancellation suck? The DSP-based cancellation *is* software, just on a DSP. Modern CPUs ought to have enough horsepower to perform the same function reasonably quickly, yes? No?
Parent
Re:software echo cancellation (Score:4, Informative)
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OpenMCU (Score:2)
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But it shouldn't be that complicated, and ad-hoc networks should be possible, I think.
VLC Http Interface? (Score:5, Interesting)
Open Meeting? (Score:5, Informative)
No experience with it, I just happened to be looking at the freshmeat announcement a couple of days ago.
Features:
* Video/Audio
* See Desktop of any participant
* Multi-Language and Customizable
* Whiteboard with drawing, write & edit, dragNDrop, Resizeing, Images (DragNDrop from Library), Symbol(s)
* Conference while drawing (4x4 or 1xn modus)
* Safe Drawings / whiteboard and load it next time, edit and resave
* Import Documents (.tga,
* Send invitation and direct Links into a meeting
* Moderating System
* User-/Organisation-/Moderating- System
* Backup and Language Module (LanguageEditor, BackupPanel)
* Private and Public (Organisation only) Conference-Rooms
* Technologies used, see TechnologyPortfolio
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Try wengomeeting (Score:2)
It's not open source, but the company (wengo) does offer an open source client for their other services.
This concept shouldn't be too hard to re-implement with an open source flash media server, like red5. but sadly, red5's documentation is severely lacking.
You can look but you won't find (Score:2)
I settled on using OpenMeetings (www.openmeetings.net). It's FOSS, based on Java, Flash and Red5 and it works really well.
Cart-before-horse-department (Score:2)
Given that the support in Linux for video and webcams is so disastrously broken as it stands (largely the vendors fault for not providing APIs and driver details), what's needed first is to fix it so that all the common webcams (cheapo and expensive) "just work" -- both in standalones like Ekiga, aMSN, Pidgin, etc as well as in Flash-based browser applets -- and specifically work without slowing the system to a crawl or running at 4fps.
Once that's done, pe
Farsight 2 is on the way (Score:2)
priorities (Score:2)
Your #1 priority is that the stuff works. No hassle, no fiddling around, none of the "just edit line #192 in
Anything that can't guarantee this is unsuited. Maybe you can get it to work with a little messing around in a minute or two, but you can be sure that at least one remote partner can't. If i
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Why hasn't this been finished. people have been asking for video chat in things like gaim/icq/MSN for years and no one has done anything about it. yes it is hard, but shouldn't be that hard. This is a point where F/OSS can shine. since everyone else is proprietary as well as not directed at home users, F/OSS can step in and create a true standard to start with.
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Now if the community wants openMCU to be useful, then document it. I'd even be willing to work with the developers to write the documentation (that I can do, I'm not much of a programmer, but I can write).