It may have a narrower scope than some videoconference platforms, but the free and open source Big Blue Button (bigbluebutton.org) video conferencing platform seems promising. The server can be in-house. With the right programming expertise, it can be adapted to suit wider needs.
-----Original Message----- From: Gurcharan S. Khanna [mailto:gurcharan.kha...@rit.edu] Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2013 8:36 AM To: Tim Salmon; 'Lloyd Pearson'; 'accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net' Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] unicast bridge all, it seems appropriate for me to make just a brief comment here, having used the AG for more than 10 years. and that is, without continued funding, the AG project just has not been able to keep up with the overall technological advances in commercial and competing research projects. even though AG provides some functionality not available in most other systems, few use cases demand these unique features. so the ability for AG to compete as a more general videoconferencing tool is diminished. and it's value as a research project is an increasingly narrow one. having said that, i continue to use vic (but not the rest of the AG package) to encode HD streams for a more kiosk/videowall type of scenario (The RIT Global Collaboration Grid). but i am looking to replace it with something that is under continuing active development (like UltraGrid). so, this is my research use of the AG tools, where ease of use is not the issue but only performance is. but it has an end of life at some point. for more general meeting purposes, i definitely vote for SeeVogh as the most AG-like in terms of functionality--esp. maintaining individual high quality streams that i can render on multiple displays. i run a development seevogh server here at RIT and i know it can replicate the standard AG use case with better performance/features given a similar hardware infrastructure; and it has gone beyond in terms of user friendliness. it still has a ways to go to replicate the unlimited performance possible with AG given enough hardware, but i am hopeful that will change in the future. i would hope there will be a merging of the easy to use meeting interface with the large scale display use a la AG at some point in the future. that would be very nice. also, we are continuing to develop 'grav' here at RIT, the OpenGL replacement viewer for vic type streams, that eventually may integrated with UltraGrid (and SAGE). so the research continues, but the everyday use cases demand a more ready to go solution that doesn't require high maintenance. just my two cents, -gurcharan PS oh regarding multicast bridges: i still like multicast a lot and and we assign each HD stream its own unique multicast address so that we have maximum flexibility in routing streams where we want them to. unlike vic which aggregates all the streams--that virtue became a hindrance with the higher bandwidth now of each stream (our vic streams are 20 Mbps each; our UltraGrid streams will be higher). luckily, i can run my own private bridge to handle unicast connections so i control the bridge and an insure it's working. PPS SeeVogh doesn't use multicast but given the typical meeting requirements, it's not a practical hindrance to just use unicast. On 6/4/13 8:45 PM, Tim Salmon wrote: > Thanks Lloyd, > The perception of AG being labour-intensive is a problem here also. If our > (bridging reliability?) issues can be resolved then that will reduce greatly. > Is there a contact list for admins of various bridges so that we can contact > them directly? > Tim > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Lloyd Pearson [mailto:lloyd.pear...@otago.ac.nz] > Sent: Wednesday, 5 June 2013 9:17 AM > To: 'accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net' > Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] unicast bridge > > Hello team, > > A related comment about unicast is that with the general increase in > background chatter on networks, it is likely that any form of > videoconferencing is likely to suffer from momentary delays and/or packet > loss, depending on network configurations. We've certainly seen that develop > on our own systems. > > A separate VLAN for videoconferencing would seem to be the obvious path. > We've been running AG and ConferenceXP( which we use internally for > interlinking lecture theatres) on our multicast VLAN for a few years, and > have recently moved some H.323 and similar video conferencing to that VLAN. > Prior to that our Lifesize H.323 units had started showing packet loss of a > few thousand in 5 minutes; after moving the Lifesize's to the multicast VLAN > (they are running unicast) the figure was 1-2 per hour. > > We've also had significant packet loss showing on AG running via the bridge > at Auckland uni. Their staff have advised the problem is an overloaded > firewall at Auckland, which at times is running at 800Mb/s but sometimes > causing 20% packet loss. They are in the process of upgrading their capacity > to a 10Gb/s structure I believe. They have made some modifications to the > system so the AG packet loss on unicast has dropped from 10-30% to 1-2% which > usually causes little problem. Those venues on multicast have 0% showing. > > Within New Zealand, all the universities are running AG on Windows XP > or Windows 7, but all are running on the basic low resolution. The HD > version would be hugely preferable but with 8 uni's running 1-2 cams > each, the decoding for 720p is beyond most PC's running Windows. (I'd > love to hear there is a way around that!) > > AG is still seen as being labour-intensive, and there are currently > discussions in NZ that AG should be dropped due to this. > > There have been rumours of multi-camera versions Seevogh, Scopia (which is > used heavily in NZ) and others, but we're still waiting....... > > Regards, > > Lloyd Pearson > eConferencing Specialist > Teaching & Learning Facilities, ITS > University of Otago > Dunedin > New Zealand > > Ph +64 3 479 8997 > lloyd.pear...@otago.ac.nz > > > -----Original Message----- > From: John I Quebedeaux Jr [mailto:jo...@lsu.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, 5 June 2013 12:48 a.m. > To: Christoph Willing; Tim Salmon > Cc: 'accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net' > Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] unicast bridge > > I'd like to echo Chris' comment about letting admins know if there is an > issue with a bridge (for me this list is fine for that). In my case, we have > reliable multicast in across our statewide fiber network that just a few of > our sites need to use our unicast bridge - which is there mostly for > emergency problems and sometimes i won't notice if there is an issue with it > right awayŠ. > > -John Q. > > -- > John I. Quebedeaux, Jr. > Louisiana State University; Biological Sciences Computer Manager LBRN; 437 > Life Sciences Bldg. > Baton Rouge, LA 70803; 225-578-0062; http://lbrn.lsu.edu > > > > > On 6/4/13 3:07 AM, "Christoph Willing" <c.will...@uq.edu.au> wrote: > >> On 04/06/2013, at 5:01 PM, Tim Salmon <t...@unsw.edu.au> wrote: >> >>> Is it appropriate for us at UNSW with our unicast-only network to >>> set up a unicast bridge or is this more appropriately set up in a >>> multicast environment to assist those that are stranded, like us, in >>> a unicast world? >>> >>> P.S. anyone else in the Australia/AP area noticed general problems >>> with reliability of bridges lately? >> Very broadly, the second option (bridge set up in multicast >> environment) is the most useful and intended scenario. >> >> However its a free world and there is at least one use case where a >> bridge setting up a bridge in a unicast environment could be appropriate. >> In that case, all participants in your meetings would/should connect >> via that same bridge. Connections via other bridges or via multicast >> wouldn't work or, at best, would work only by chance. This is similar >> to traditional multipoint VC meetings where participants connect to a >> common MCU. This technique wouldn't be useful as a day to day >> mechanism to connect to meetings though. >> >> About bridge reliability in general, if you experience problems its >> better to tell its admins about it - either directly or via the >> appropriate list (this list for APAG & AccessGrid.org bridges) - >> straight away so the problem can be fixed. We'd rather have these >> services running smoothly rather than have people stewing about things not >> working. >> >> chris >> >> >> Christoph Willing +61 7 3365 8316 >> Research Computing Centre >> University of Queensland >> >> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -- >> --- >> ---- >> How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: >> 1. A cloud service to automate IT design, transition and operations 2. >> Dashboards that offer high-level views of enterprise services 3. A >> single system of record for all IT processes >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/servicenow-d2d-j >> _______________________________________________ >> accessgrid-tech mailing list >> accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/accessgrid-tech >> > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: > 1. A cloud service to automate IT design, transition and operations 2. > Dashboards that offer high-level views of enterprise services 3. A > single system of record for all IT processes > http://p.sf.net/sfu/servicenow-d2d-j > _______________________________________________ > accessgrid-tech mailing list > accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/accessgrid-tech > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: > 1. A cloud service to automate IT design, transition and operations 2. > Dashboards that offer high-level views of enterprise services 3. A > single system of record for all IT processes > http://p.sf.net/sfu/servicenow-d2d-j > _______________________________________________ > accessgrid-tech mailing list > accessgrid-tech@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/accessgrid-tech > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: > 1. 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