[Asterisk-video] H.264 video calling, conferencing and video playback within Asterisk

[Nigel Dallard]

Emmanuel BUU wrote :

> > - the ability to have multi-way video conferences

> This is tricky. We use app_conference here but its only for
> "switched" video conferences where people can see only one
> video and select it with DTMFs. If you need video mixing in
> H.264, you need to be aware that it is very demanding in
> terms of CPU. Sergio has a videomixer but working in H.263 not
> H.264.
> We are testing the MCU from Orange Labs that has this and for
> the moment, the results in H.264 are disapointing. There is a
> great deal of tuning to be done before any solution would work
> smoothly. Sergio mentionned (and I agree with him) that any
> serious and scalable solution for H.264 video conferencing
> should be based on dedicated hardware.

I'm not looking for anything very sophisticated. Each participant only
needs to see video from one source at any one time, but that source
should ideally either be selected by the moderator of the conference, or
automatically depending on who is talking.

> > - the ability for callers to be connected to a menu-driven "video
> >   on demand" system, with at least basic pause/play/fast-forward/
> >   rewind control of the video playback

> That could be done with some coding.

Hmm. This is not looking so good. Neither myself nor anyone else working
on this project has anything more than very basic programming skills.

> > The client devices use H.264 video encoding and G.711/Speex audio 
> > coding.
   
> Which devices?

A varient of http://www.redembedded.com/design/products/vptv400/

Cheers,

Nigel

 
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Nigel Dallard
Principal Technologist
Advanced Digital Institute
The Waterfront
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+44 (0) 1274 535 220 (office)
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