Low Cost Videoconferencing and GNOMEmeeting?

aht asks: "OK!, here is my problem: I'm about to install a LAN of about 20 computers. Each computer must have a soundcard and a videocamera to videoconference with each other and to the outside (Internet). As Netmeeting compatibility is required, we're trying GNOMEmeeting with a USB Logitech QuickCam, but results have not been satisfactory at all. We're not sure if that bad results come from Logitech's USB driver, GNOMEmeeting or both."

"If we're not able to get videoconferencing working with GNOMEmeeting, we will be forced to install Windows 2000. :-(

We're considering moving from the USB videocamera to a BT8{4,7}8+videocamera, but we have economic restrictions: computer and videocamera and everything should stay close to or under $1000. If we do choose to abandon the USB setup, what combination of hardware, videocamera and software would we need to satisfy our requirements?

We're using Debian Linux and we'd like to stick with AMD processors, if possible. Any help will be welcome!"

Similar Situation

[phpAbUser]

I've been using this exact same setup for some time, w/o great success. The problem is most likely rooted in the Quickcam driver, if you are using kernel 2.4. Hopefully this article will draw the attention of the qce's author.
The data which the Logitech cam spits out seems to encode poorly or not at all.
Well, I'll send more specific info to him :).

Everyone: What does work?

[atyr]

thats not a very good thing to hear on my part, I was planning on getting that cam as well. I personaly like logitech, has anyone tried other webcams from them? Or what other brand has good drivers for linux. Perhaps people should list more choices for the guy saying what cameras weve all used, what works what doesnt you know? Not just for him but anyone using linux that might want to get a cam.

More Developer Info

[phpAbUser]

The Quickcam Express's Driver's Homepage:
http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

The Driver's Sourceforge Page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/qce-ga/ [sourceforge.net]

Works great

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using GnomeMeeting at work with great success. It works perfectly with Netmeeting provided that you install the GSM codec for Netmeeting. However, all our webcams are Philips webcams, they work very well with GnomeMeeting and the quality is good. Personnaly, I think that there is a lack of such great quality software, like GnomeMeeting. If you have problems, you could contact their mailing list, they are very kind.

Andreas

Its the driver

[Beowulf_Boy]

I have tried that driver on several distros, and when I install it and start up Xawtv, I just get wierd colors, but I can make out my movement, so I know its kinda working.

Dual boot might be the way forward

[Anton Anatopopov]

We're not sure if that bad results come from Logitech's USB driver, GNOMEmeeting or both.

If this sentence does not sound loud warning bells about the applicability of the Linux OS for this kind of task, then you have a serious problem.

Netmeeting is free, works out of the box with most cams, and is the application that 98% of the world uses for video conferencing.

Perhaps you ought to consider whether OS partisanship should come in the way of actually getting some real work done :-)

Re:Dual boot might be the way forward

[Sankt_Nelson]

i would just like to point out that Netmeeting is not free (in whichever sense you want to use the word), it happens to come only with an OS that you still have to pay quite a lot of money for.
Only because most people buy the right to use it together with their new PC doesn't mean it's free.

I've had good luck using Gnomemeeting

[BroadbandBradley]

but haven't tried the USB camera. in my conferencers with windows users, they crash out more than I did. (old pc to old pc)

Re:I've had good luck using Gnomemeeting

[millsie]

I have been using Gnomemeeting without any major issues for a while now. My cam is based on ov511 driver, and after I updated the ov511 driver to the latest version, the picture quality is fine. Bear in mind, GnomeMeeting is relatively new and is still under development. Provided you have a decent connection, I recommend GnomeMeeting. If some of you want to use netmeeting, then go ahead and use it. I'm sure this thread was started with the knowledge that Netmeeting is available and works. Comments like those above are not a benefit to anyone. If you need help with GnomeMeeting, try the mailing list or the irc channel. Both places have friendly helpful people willing to help out with your problems.

GnomeMeeting is fine.

[millsie]

I have been using Gnomemeeting without any major issues for a while now. My cam is based on ov511 driver, and after I updated the ov511 driver to the latest version, the picture quality is fine. Bear in mind, GnomeMeeting is relatively new and is still under development. Provided you have a decent connection, I recommend GnomeMeeting. If some of you want to use netmeeting, then go ahead and use it. I'm sure this thread was started with the knowledge that Netmeeting is available and works. Comments like those above are not a benefit to anyone. If you need help with GnomeMeeting, try the mailing list or the irc channel. Both places have friendly helpful people willing to help out with your problems.

Re:Easy solution!

[cworley]

>Put Windows 2000 on the machine and run netmeeting.

You may not want to limit yourself so dramatically...

Note that MS netmeeting has explicitly stopped support for all open standard codec protocols. This is another attempt to lock out compatibility with Open Source software. MS has done their best to hide that they ever supported any open standard protocols, but you can still get support for an open standard netmeeting codec [strath.ac.uk] (if you need to interoperate with folks using netmeeting).

The project mentioned in this article sounds like it's trying to solve a specific videoconferencing problem, and not be a generic desktop solution. In that case, you definitely don't want the excess MS baggage: you're getting the whole elephant when all you need is the tail; linux is much easier to tailor to suit a specific need. Compound that with the high pricetag of W2K and the limited budget, and Windows becomes very unattractive.

WebBriefing is a closed source project for Linux. I have found that it complements GnomeMeeting very well in that each has functionality missing in the other. WebBriefing seems to have dropped off the face of the earth [kisdn.de] , but I could still find the RPM [ru.ac.za] .

Also, realize that GnomeMeeting relies on PWLib. It's V4L compatibility stems from this. I remember going through the source once and seeing the limited compatibility... you might want to do the same. I don't know what project is in control of this library, but that might be a good place to ask about compatibility. The V4L mailing list [redhat.com] is also a good resource.

Re:Easy solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

GnomeMeeting is compatible with every videodevice that is compatible with the Video4linux API.
It will not work out of the box if the driver doesn't support QCIF as size. But it doesn't depend on GnomeMeeting, but on the driver.
GnomeMeeting is a really good project. That's all I can say. It is the first opensource H.323 GUI for Linux and the author made a great job, for free, for the community. Many people seem to forget that.

GnomeMeeting 0.12

[christooley]

Damien Sandras, the lead for the GnomeMeeting project, has snapshots rolled of the forthcoming 0.12 release of GnomeMeeting.

Ripped from Mailing List
There are a lot of new features :
* ILS rewrite (you can browse several ILS servers at the same time)
* full ILS support
* videograbber support (you can now make changes on the fly)
* gatekeeper support
* docklet support (Miguel Rodriguez)
* image zoom support
* jitter buffer delay support and other advanced codecs settings
* devices auto-detection
* bandwidth control support
* preferences reorganisation

The drivers are the problem. There will hopefully be a user added section for Camera ratings on the site soon.

On the V4L mailing list there have been a lot of discussions about which cameras are best and how to take advantage of a bttv based card to use a camera for video input. The mail list is here [redhat.com]. And you have to be a list member to see the list archives. You might also check out which cameras are supported at http://www.linux-usb.org [linux-usb.org] and match that up with something on the V4L list and/or GnomeMeeting list [gnome.org] and archives [gnome.org].

Probably the camera driver.

[cmoss]

First thing to do is isolate whether it is the camera driver or the application. Try the camera with different video applications. (xawtv etc)
Check out different camera models with gnomemeeting. I didn't think many logitech cams were well supported. Last I heard they refused to release the programming specs.
Check out
http://www.linux-usb.org/
for more info.

Follow the links to this url to get cameras that work well.
http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdevices.php3? id =9

Probably the cam...

[ameoba]

In my experience it's hard to get anything that could be described as "acceptable" from a Logitech Quickcam.

USB webcams vs. PCI...

[Spoing]

I use both a Kensington USB and two different PCI web cams with GnomeMeeting -- there is no comparison.

For raw frames per second, the PCI cameras in full screen mode rarely drop a frame -- let alone in the small GnomeMeeting view port. Jump around alot while it is in fullscreen mode and it will skip, but otherwise it looks like a regular video feed. USB cameras are often rated at ~30fps at the _lowest_ video mode. That said, the Kensington USB I have looks crappy in it's lowest mode, and still can't keep up to the PCI in any mode. Note that this is after applying a patch to the se401 USB camera driver to increase the buffer size.

For quality, the camera itself matters most. The USR/3COM Big Picture camera I have has adjustment buttons on it, and even a reverse video mode (a perk...but not practical). The USB cams tend to have light sensitive CCDs, and even if they don't the quality (fps and color) can be an issue.

Keep in mind that I'm not being picky here...there is a drastic and dead obvious difference between the two. USB 2 or Firewire cameras might also be an option though I can't offer advice on those.

Bottom line: Use PCI video, not USB, if at all possible regaurdless if the OS or conferencing tool used.

The camera is the pricy part; ex. $15 for a good card, http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VID-01 1 . While any composite or S-video video feed can be hooked up to this card -- including a regular consumer electronics video camera or even a VCR -- the small composite/S-video web cams are hard to find these days.

Caution: While many PCI and USB cameras are supported, verify it before purchase. I bought an oddball Genoa PCI card, and it works well for RCA/Composite cameras but not with the bundled QuartzSight camera.

As for your specific issue -- use GnomeMeeting or not -- that's up to you. Unit cost is lower since there's no Windows licence, so you might be able to put that money towards better hardware.

GnomeMeeting is a nice program. Through no fault of it's own, you have a USB device to examine how well GnomeMeeting itself works. If this is the only test you do, you can't make a good decision.

go with bt848 to beat the driver problem

[Sankt_Nelson]

I use an old bt848 tv-card together with a little PAL surveillance camera from the local electronics store, and it works just great. and I doubt that it costs much more than a halfway decent webcam.

Maybe your soundcard?

[loony]

We've had some problems that were caused by the soundcard. Gnomemeeting wouldn't connect reliably and even if, it would crash pretty quickly. We then deactivated the onboard sound card on the HP Kayak we were using (P4 and sound integrated into the intel 850 chipset) and put in a soundblaster live - after that we could connect and use gnomemeeting with netmeeting (the version that comes with NT4SP6) without any other issues.

Bullet cameras

[Graymalkin]

One option you might look into rather than USB cameras would be to use video capture boards and bullet cameras as your capture device. Most small cameras will get you from 360 to 380 lines of resolution in colour and usually 420 lines in B/W. They're fairly cheap and really rugged. In fact almost any CCTV camera ought to work fine as most output a composite video signal. Most run on a 12v DC power supply so you can even run them off batteries if you really wanted or needed to. You can bet small CCTV cameras will give you a bit better of a video signal than USB cameras and most capture boards allow for uncompressed video that you can pipe into whatever streaming codec you are hip to use. A board and camera combo might cost you from 150 to 200$. Here's a link to compatible capture boards [linuxdoc.org].