[Asterisk-video] vdo conf

[John Martin]

Hi Guys,
  Video conferencing systems have long since allowed for lots of
different ways of splicing and dicing the video being sent to the
endpoints:
 - de-centralised MCUs (where the function is distributed audio video is
sent to all participants) 
 - centralised MCUs (where the MCU mixes the audio and video)

In the centralised scenario, the MCU would typically (at least these
days) allow each participant to select the video layout they would see.
So you might have 1/4 of the screen with the person speaking and 12
other participants each 16th of the screen. Or any combination of 1/2,
1/3, etc proportions of the video laid out in front of you.

Voice switching of the video has been around for a while but can make
you feel ill if there's a heated debate going on (lots of switching of
video sources) :-)

The likes of Polycom, Tandberg, VCON, RadVision etc have been offering
all of these solutions for many years. The trick is to supply
flexibility in the thing that is doing the mixing so that the
administrator and/or the user can chose for themselves. Then you need a
fancy IVR system, like Codian's, to allow a user to switch between their
favourite layouts.
  Also, don't forget that if you're sending lots of streams to one
endpoint then:
a) the bandwidth is n times bigger
b) you've gotta decode n lots of video.

John

John Martin
John.Martin at AuPix.com
http://www.AuPix.com


-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-video-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-video-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Andrey
Kouprianov
Sent: 03 July 2006 13:08
To: Development discussion of video media support in Asterisk
Subject: Re: Re: [Asterisk-video] vdo conf

Hi everyone,

See inline...

> By the way, I wonder now!
> If people are videoconferancing, is it better to have
> 1- a softphone capable of showing everybody, which means one window
for each
> one that is talking. (what would happen with current hardphone that
have
> only one screen)

Old and even new softphones dont have multiple screens, so, i guess
your second option looks attractive.

> 2- a softphone that has a single window but the pbx that sends a gride
with
> the video of everybody in it ? (Since the video resolution is not that
> great, is it really worth it or after 4 people it would just look like
1
> pixel for each head we see)

This one is a really nice idea :). I like it very much! However,
pixel-head syndrome is a problem. Maybe it's possible to assign keys
to 2 or 4 vdo streams, so, when you press #1 (or smth like that), the
vdo of the first 2-4 participants is shown, if there are more people
in the conference, then #2 would switch to the next 2-4 participants,
and etc.

> 3- everybody see the one that talks. So if you want people to see you,
you
> have to be louder that the otherone!

I dont know about others, but to me it sounds a little messy. :)

> 4- any other idea ?
>

What about something like push-to-talk? A person that wishes to speak,
has to press some button and then his/her vdo will be automatically
selected...

  Bests,

    Andrey.
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