A Federated Approach to Distributed, Video-Enabled Meetings

Ted Hanss, Internet2

5 June 2002

See http://apps.internet2.edu/talks

Agenda

Virtual Internet2 Member Meeting (VIMM)

Internet2 Commons

Monthly Virtual Briefings

Virtual Internet2 Member Meeting

Virtual Member Meeting

In-person meeting planned for September 30-October 4 in Austin, TX

Concerns about travel safety following September 11 tragedies

Decision was made to replace in-person meeting with a virtual meeting

Planning

Once the decision to go with a Virtual Meeting was made, we had 10 days to make it happen

Initial VIMM program included a one-day plenary session on October 2

Quality of the production – MPEG-2 baseline – was driven by the opportunity to broadcast on the ResearchChannel satellite feed <www.researchchannel.com>

Plenary Technology

Real at 128K, 256K, 512K using Akamai

H.323 - Multipoint Control Units (MCUs)

VRVS

IP/TV (MPEG-1), Amnis (MPEG-2), Ncast (MPEG-2), RTPtv (MJPEG)

Access Grid

ResearchChannel – Source and destination

Audio-only conference call

VIMM Web page

Plenary Sessions Web page

A Growing Agenda

H.323 videoconferences started being scheduled for the same week

Decision was made to include a “limited” number of track sessions

Result: three days of concurrent track sessions, including Megaconference, October 3-5

VIMM Statistics

Over 90 individuals presented during the VIMM

Out of 36 planned track sessions for Austin, 22 were presented virtually

Some VIMM sessions had higher attendance than similar sessions at our in-person meetings

We received 7,494 unique visitors to the VIMM website

What’s Next?

Use the VIMM as a model for other Internet2 events

Seek out other content

Internet2 Monthly Virtual Briefings

• “Powered by the Commons”

• 90 minute sessions with speakers and audience (across up to five time zones)

What’s Next, Cont.

Developing “director’s studio” for managing events, with plans for scheduled hands-off access

• Features will include “protocol-agnostic MCU”, titling, gateways, archiving, transcoding, …

Internet2 Commons

The Internet2 Commons

An effort to encourage and support large-scale, distributed collaboration for the research and education community

• Enabling one-to-one, one-to-group, and group-to-group collaboration

• Supporting personal communications, meetings, conferences, and teaching and learning

• For Internet2 members and their international partners

Commons Vision

The Internet2 CommonsH

.323

Other Collaborative Technologies

VR

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Videoconferencing Technologies

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Status

H.323 service in initial deployment phase

• MCU capacity donated by Accord and Radvision located at OSU/OARnet and available for scheduled/unscheduled use

• Streaming available via Starbak servers

• Approximately 45 Commons Site Coordinators confirmed or being confirmed

Status, cont.

R&D efforts continue

• DVTS over IPv6 (demo at Spring Internet2 meeting)

• MJPEG within Access Grid

• Measurement and monitoring tools

• Planning evaluations of SIP VC technologies

• …

Next Steps

Seeking content sources

Phase II Requirements Gathering

• Move beyond H.323 in production core

• Expand technology explorations

• Include other collaboration tools

• Define “value add” in services offering

• Will share initial report at Internet2 MM, final report due in June

Monthly Briefings

Monthly Briefings: Goals

Share progress of Internet2 initiatives

Find the optimal mix of quality, audience reach, and interactivity

Provide production service while experimenting with new technologies

Monthly Briefings: Technology

Real, Windows, and/or QuickTime streams (typically 384-512 kbps)

IP/TV (1.5 mbps)

VRVS (varies)

H.323 (384-768 kbps)

MPEG-2 (7-15 mbps)

MJPEG/RTPtv (10-15 mbps)

Access Grid (varies)

Monthly Briefings: Issues

Integrating technologies without resorting to lowest common denominator

Authentication and authorization aren’t addressed

End-to-end performance

Production values

Floor control

More Info ...

www.internet2.educommons.internet2.eduapps.internet2.edu/talks/ (this talk)internet2.edu/activities/html/vimm.htmlted@internet2.eduTed Hanss Internet2 3025 Boardwalk Suite 100 Ann Arbor, MI 48108 +1.734.913.4256

www.internet2.edu