Dear all,
as a representative of the Meetecho team, let me jump into this discussion.
First, about the quality of the audio stream. Our system provides two
different real-time (and when I say "real-time" I mean "real-time")
streams: the former is a standard VoIP (Asterisk-based) GSM stream; the
latter is an RTSP G.711 alaw stream. Both of them are not meant for
high-quality transmission (which, as far as I know, is the objective of
the classical IETF mp3 streaming based on icecast); they are rather
meant to provide the participants with a good-enough audio experience.
With respect to this, I defy anyone who tested Meetecho to demonstrate
the contrary. The same holds for video, which is a standard H.263
encoded (and mixed, if needed) stream with either a QCIF or a CIF
resolution. We do not aim to do HD video or telepresence, or the like.
The point is that Meetecho has been conceived at the outset as a
real-time collaboration framework; if you ever participated in a virtual
meeting here at the IETF, you'll have noticed that we provide seamless,
integrated access to the standard IETF jabber room, to live slide
presentations (with automated trigger of slide changes on the chat), as
well as (if needed) to both live video and audio. For this last part
(access to the audio and video streams) we require people to execute a
very simple and lightweight applet based on Java Media Framework which
enables multimedia support. Those who don't want to use the applet can
just open they're favourite RTSP player and listen to the available
audio stream; not to say that those who want to rely on the PSTN, can
just dial-in through the PSTN bridge. As to the login credentials, the
only thing we require is that participants insert they're preferred
username, together with an e-mail address. We create on-the-fly a
temporary account on our system, which is valid just for the duration of
the conference and is immediately thereafter destroyed. We do not store
any information about the users who logged into the system and we are
not interested at all in using the information they provided for any
other purpose.
We do believe that the experience we provide (especially to remote
participants) is an advanced one and does not conflict at all with the
services that the IETF normally offers to its participants. To have an
idea of what I'm saying, please have a look at the recordings of the
sessions we supported, with special regard to today's plenary, available
at the following site: http://www.meetecho.com/ietf81/recordings. If you
play it out, you'll also easily acknowledge the fact that the service we
provide is useful both "during" the sessions and "after" the sessions
(e.g. for the minutes, or as a reference for those who could not make it
when the event was scheduled). You'll also recognize that the quality of
the audio is definitely good. Correct me if I'm wrong.
We are anyhow open to criticisms, especially when they are made with a
constructive aim.
Best regards,
Simon
From: Gonzalo Camarillo <Gonzalo(_dot_)Camarillo(_at_)ericsson(_dot_)com>
To: Brian E Carpenter <brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
Reply-to: Gonzalo(_dot_)Camarillo(_at_)ericsson(_dot_)com
Subject: Re: Reminder: Remote Participation Support for Admin Plenary
Tonight
X-RSN: 1/0/933/10396/57949
Hi,
> I don't know about the codecs, but there is a wireless hop. I'm getting
> frequent very short drops as well as slightly buzzy sound and less
fidelity
> than the parallel session streaming. The voices of people I know
well are
> harder to recognise.
one aspect to consider is that long play-out buffers increase the audio
quality but also increase the delay. Many people have complained about
not being able to effectively participate in the meetings remotely using
the traditional audio streams because of the long delay. On the other
hand, short play-out buffers reduce the delay but can also reduce the
quality under bad network conditions.
As you said, different situations require different services and having
both services available makes sense.
Cheers,
Gonzalo
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o00~~(_)~~00o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simon Pietro Romano
Universita' di Napoli Federico II
Computer Science Department
Phone: +39 081 7683823 -- Fax: +39 081 7684219
e-mail: spromano(_at_)unina(_dot_)it
http://www.comics.unina.it/simonpietro.romano
<<Molti mi dicono che lo scoraggiamento è l'alibi degli
idioti. Ci rifletto un istante; e mi scoraggio>>. Magritte.
oooO
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