[Asterisk-Users] Re: MeetMe Video option

Fri Jan 30 22:40:45 MST 2004

Few pieces of info that might help us from re-inventing the wheel. What we are
all taking about has a name in video conferencing circles. It is called an MCU,
Multi Conferencing Unit. The OpenH323 project has an MCU called OpenMCU. Since
the H323 support in * is based on OpenH323 perhaps it would be possible to tie
in the OpenMCU into the MeetMe code. There is probably some lower level stuff
int he h323 channel stuff as well that details what codecs are supported. My
guess is that the * wrapper only advertises support for audio codecs which is
part of why the video drops out when transfering to a MeetMe conference.

The general mode of operation for an MCU is to key off of the audio signal. 2 x
2 grid is common with the video signals being sent from the currently active
audio channels, or most recently active. Or a single larger video of the
currently speaking source. This is the mode of OpenMCU. Some of the more
sophisticated MCU servers allow individual users to select which views they get.

I think this would be an extremely cool feature for * to support. I can think of
several potential clients I could snag with such a setup.
-- 
Jonathan Moore
Director of Technology
Winfield Public Schools
Office 620.221.5100
Fax 620.221.0508

Quoting John Todd <jtodd at loligo.com>:

> Tim -
>    I'm actually quite fond of the 2b solution in the video conference 
> tools I've used (notably, Polycomm) where the video switches or 
> camera pans depending on audio energy.  This could work quite well 
> with the existing features of "m" and "t".
> 
>    A combination of blending an audio-energy and 2x2 matrix would also 
> be pretty slick, where maybe some callers would be "nailed-up" and 
> never would leave the matrix, but the remaining panels would 
> fluctuate based on last audio energy input.  It would lead to 
> interesting shouting matches in circumstances outside of "corporate" 
> use of videophone technology.  :-)
> 
>    It's a shame that * doesn't have Solaris as a well-supported (at 
> all? anyone?) platform; there are the Sparc routines for fast video 
> transforms built into the Sparc processor chipset that could do 
> really cool and fast stuff for videoconferencing routines.
> 
>    So, I'm waiting for the iChat video client software to be supported 
> via *; then I'll actually invest in the slick Apple firewire camera.
> 
> JT
> 
> 
> At 4:02 PM -0500 1/30/04, Regovich, Timothy wrote:
> >
> >So you are actually getting the video to come out though?
> >I am not getting any outbound video RTP traffic at all.  What settings do
> >you have?
> >
> >If I get a chance this weekend I will take a look at the implementation and
> >see what I can see.
> >The mosaic thing should be pretty easy actually (really, just a scaling of
> >each incoming stream and tiling them), but that won't work well for
> anything
> >bigger than a 2x2 matrix, considering the bandwidth limitations of most
> >users.
> >
> >Tim
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com
> >[mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lawson
> >Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 3:13 PM
> >To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> >Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Re: MeetMe Video option
> >
> >
> >That's one of the things that's been on our (1control, I have nothing to
> >do with Digium) wishlist/"to do" list that just hasn't gotten done yet.
> >
> >Currently, video in meetme is not supported.  What we experience is the
> >audio will conference with the other audio streams but the video just
> >freezes.  I was hoping to look into someday but I'm swamped with 1000
> >other things of higher priority.  I have been thinking though, of some
> >ways it could be supported, starting with the simplest and easiest:
> >
> >1.  First, if only 2 of the phones in the conference are video phones,
> >allow them to exchange their video with each other, while having all of
> >the audio streams conferenced as usual.
> >
> >2a.  The next step could be having each videophone "rotate" which stream
> >it was showing for a few seconds (20 seconds maybe?).  i.e. you could
> >have 3 video calls mixed with several audio-only calls.  Initially video
> >call #1 would show #2's image, #2 would show #3's image, #3 would show
> >#1's image for a few seconds, then rotate them by 1.  Of course you
> >don't need to show your own!  :)  Actually, ours has a
> >picture-in-picutre in the corner so you can see yourself all the time
> >anyway.
> >
> >2b.  The other option instead of time-rotating the images would be to
> >try to show the image of whoever was talking.  That kind of sounds like
> >a pain to me, but maybe it's doable.
> >
> >3.  The really fancy thing would be to have Asterisk decode all of the
> >video frames and create a 2x2 or 2x3 or 3x3 etc. mosaic, re-encode them
> >and send them to each client.  That REALLY sounds like a pain to me, but
> >again, maybe it's doable.
> >
> >Right now I'd be pretty happy with 2a though.
> >
> >- Matt
> >
> >
> >
> >>Message: 3
> >>From: "Regovich, Timothy" <timothy_regovich at merck.com>
> >>To: "'asterisk-users at lists.digium.com'" <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> >>Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:07:46 -0500
> >>Subject: [Asterisk-Users] MeetMe Video option
> >>Reply-To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> >>
> >>Hello All:
> >>
> >>Has anyone configured a meetme conference to use video?
> >  >I have successfully used video phones to talk through *, but I cannot
> seem
> >  >to get video when those phones dial into a meetme conference.
> >  >
> >  >Is there something else that I need to be doing other than set the "v"
> flag
> >>on my extension for the meetme app?
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>
> >  >Tim
> >  >
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