On Tuesday 24 February 2009 12:39, Rajeev R. K. wrote:
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:31 AM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
On Tuesday 24 February 2009 02:24, Rajeev R. K. wrote:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 8:24 AM, aditya awasudeo@gmail.com
wrote:
Keeping aside the cost and availability of net bandwidth, is this possible with Linux.
I could be mistaken but I don't think any open source video conferencing software can handle High Def. video streams yet. In addition, you'd need camera units on both sides which can support HD - that, unfortunately, rules out your average webcam or capture device.
Now, all that is needed to turn this into a conference, is a camera and linux box at the other end, and voila, we have a 2 way video conference.
That is one to one. Not a conference in the true sense. One needs a gatekeeper and additional capabilities at the client to view multiple streams in one composite window. Afaik vlc and mplayer do not have this capability.
Again, Tiling multiple streams is simple to add on, just take multiple stream url's. i could put together a simple shell script to tile the video windows in such a fashion, even doing a P-i-P for the local video :) And the icecast server can be used as a gatekeeper, if you tack on a little bit of code/metadata on top (Like have the ability to register a conferenceid along with a source stream, and allow only authorized clients to join a conference etc, changing mostly auth, and none of the core functionality.)
You will need multicast. vls had multicast (proly vlc too), not sure about mplayer. Ofcourse one could use Ekiga. But then the fun of all the scripting is gone ;-)
But if all you need is a Point-To-Point Conference, a simple Zenity based GUI and you're up and running.. Also, here you're looking for HD quality, you are looking to cover a room, not individuals, so it is probably point-to-point(i.e. Room-to-Room usage, not many face-to-face usage, so unless you want to see the latest morning-after stubble, an old fashioned webcam is good enough for that).
Webcams (CMOS) add plenty of noise and hence increases bw, which is not noticed because pics are cif /qcif and frame rate limited to 15fps. the pics are baad compared to a good ccd cam.
The essence is ready, i.e. the ability for multiple parties to receive each others audio/video.
We should try it at the next lug meet.