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Re: bandwidth (and other support) required for multicast

2001-03-29 16:30:02
I've gotten up at 2 or 3 plenaries and asked just who we were
multicasting to.

It is not as if the tools don't answer this question. You seem to
be implying, but not stating, that it is nobody. Perhaps you could
be more clear here or provide explicit justification?

While I know the folks who do all the camera work and such spend a lot
of effort doing it, I'm not sure that effort is worth it. I was able to
watch the San Diego plenary via RealVideo some time after the event. If
that's the only use, though, we could just have folks taping (in ALL
rooms) and later upload that footage.
...
Bottom line: either reformulate this aspect of the meetings to make it
more usable, or make the video available after the fact only.

So, lack of certainty should not result in killing the effort.

It would be reasonable to request that we look and make sure that
this effort is wisely spent, but it is inappropriate to assert that
we should break something that is working that people are using,
merely because you have not seen (or asked for clearly) a justification.

My understanding is that the folks who volunteer to multicast the IETF
sessions do not represent a financial cost to the secretariat or the
IETF attendees, so I am not too concerned on that count.

--jhawk