Microsoft Research and the ConferenceXP Project Team hosted a two-day workshop for researchers, educators, developers, users, and administrators on Thursday, November 2 and Friday, November 3, 2006 in Bellevue, Washington.
The ConferenceXP workshop brought together researchers and collaborators to discuss the current status of and future directions for ConferenceXP. It also enabled ConferenceXP RFP award winners and other invitees to learn more about the ConferenceXP research platform, showcase their work, exchange ideas, and introduce new developers and researchers to the ConferenceXP development environment.
Below are highlighted bullet points I gathered from each of the presentations.
Day 1 - Presenters and Notes
Kevin Schofield, General Manager, Microsoft Research
ConferenceXP is now going for 5 years.
4th annual workshop
Three things that are growing: Bandwidth, Computation, Storage
Todd Needham, Sr. Program Manager, Microsoft Research
Senior Program Manager for Microsoft Research
Liason to the Internet2 community
ConferenceXP is not competing with Access Grid but recognises that it overlaps in areas.
Wanting to specialise in archiving and higher quality video, High Def.
720p stream down to 5mbps using Windows Media Encoder which makes it more available.
One to One: Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype etc. But it’s only two way.
Netcasting: Windows Media Server services to stream one to many scenarios.
One to Many with powerpoint and audio: Live Meeting
Many to Many: ConferenceXP, Access Grid, Halo
Managed code means that ConferenceXP is very easy to embed into other applications.
15 simultaneous connections at 320x240 but you need fast computers.
Travel is getting harder and visas more difficult and providing high quality video and audio will be a key.
$30K Encoding board and $10K sony HD cam using ConferenceXP HD will enable high definition.
Doing a tour to Australia and New Zealand next year.
ConferenceXP will be wanting to work with Universities to help create security
Jason Van Eaton, Software Development Engineer, Microsoft Research
Ports used are 5004 and 5005
Uncompressed audio is 1 channel, 16bit, 11025 Hz
Mike Wellings, Director of Engineering, ResearchChannel
High Definition Components needed to stream over IP
SDTI Data format
AJA Xena –HD capture cards
Inlet Corporation – VC1
Recommendation is to spend more money on a high quality camera than to spend the money on lighting etc.
International Support Discussion
The key component discussed was the need to establish and increase the reflector services throughout the world. This will enable more users the ability to connect and allow for greater redundancy if a bridge server is down.
DAY 2 - Presenters and Notes
Jonathan Tyman, Internet2
Universities cannot fund all the great minds of the world to come work for them. The best minds are spread out all through the world. So how do we get these great minds together?
Astronomy – linking the equipment which is far away in the mountains, separating the equipment around the world to spread them out but still keep them connected, and connect the scientists at the universities to these equipment. Gigabit networks.
H323 services available through Internet2 commons. Polycom, Tandberg, Lifesize.
Factors in choosing a proper videoconferencing are cost, latency, bandwidth.
What is the truly high definition? Commercial companies are coming out saying that their products are high definition but in reality aren’t! They are lower quality eg 480i 720i etc with streams of about 4mbps.
Tom Uram, Access Grid, Argonne National Lab
Created in 1998
Insistance was on collaboration, not just video conferencing
Key priorities for Access Grid 3 are reliability, performance, security, interoperability.
Subscription to RSS based meeting schedules
Updated bridging
Software Downloads Oct 2006-11-03
Version 2 = 27,000
Version 3 = 6,600 (4 months old, mainly windows)
User certificates (Oct 2006) = 26,000 from 56 countries
Servers being run by third parties = 20+
Centralized international information for Access Grid. AG Central will merge with Access Grid website.
Hierarchical data storage in venues (folders in data section etc)
Shared keys for encryption works
Future Addins
Richer more seamless collaboration
Investigate integration of other devices (PDAs cellphones)
Lower bandwidth media for home and small institution users
Higher quality media
Integration with computer and data (Grid) servers
Stella Chan, Sr. Program Manager, Microsoft
Microsoft RoundTable Webcam
Microsoft Office Round Table is a recording webcam that switches automatically between speakers and can handle a 360 degree view. If you are talking to four people seated around a table, you get a videoconferencing view with them side by side. The product has been in development for the past year and is due to be release in mid 2007. It was originally called RingCam. Key features are:
360 degree video camera
Automatically tracks via audio
$2,000 - $3,000 USD per device
Software with standards based video-conferencing interoperability
Below is a demonstration video of voice recognition through Roundtable and annotation features included in the software.
Conclusion
From left to right: Tom Uram, Nathan Gardiner, Jason Van Eaton
For New Zealand researchers and users of video conferencing software solutions, ConferenceXP needs to be looked at further to see how best this tool can be integrated as a collaboration tool. ConferenceXP offers similar features to Access Grid and may be more primarily focused towards desktop users. With the push to increase the bridging servers internationally, this will hopefully see more use overall of this software.
Discussions with Todd Needham at this conferencing, he is very keen to look at sponsoring a bridging server here in New Zealand. Myself and REANNZ will be following up with Microsoft Research on this.
The development community for the open source software in small and I think there is a push by Microsoft Research to establish more relationships with international Universities to become involved and possibly continue on the development and future improvements of ConferenceXP with Microsoft Research.
