Video Conferencing

[Kenneth E. Lussier]

On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 14:43, Thomas Charron wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 10:25, Kevin D. Clark wrote:
> >> I'd recommend checking out the stuff at http://www.openh323.org/ .
> > A-HA! Thanks, Kevin. I was looking at their site, trying to figure out
> > what was what. I'm going to download all of this stuff and see if I can
> > get some of it to work.
> 

>   Set up an H.323 Gatekeeper.  This software serves as kind of the
> directory service for things like address books, etc.  When 'signing
> in', you'd sign in to the gatekeeper.  When you wanted to make a call,
> the client would send a message to the gatekeeper saying 'I wanna call
> Ken', and the gatekeeper would 'set up' the call and provide the data to
> both client so they could connect.

So the gatekeeper is what does all of the connection handling, so to
speak. Is the MCU part of the gatekeeper? This is where the
documentation is lacking. There seem to be quite a few componants, no
real explaination for what they are and what they do. They assume that
if you're reading the doc, then you already know what you're doing. Bad
assumption in my case ;-)
 
>   Mess around with any H.323 compliant clients.  ANY client that is H.323
> compliant, including netmeeting, will be able to use the above installed
> gatekeeper.
> 
>   Now, TECHNICALLY the gatekeeper isnt REQUIRED, however.  I would STONGLY
> advise to use one.  It makes administration and use MUCH easier, and
> would allow controls to be put in place..
> 
>   A REALLY good 'What is H.323' can be found here: 
> http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/h323/index.html

Thanks for the linkage. I'll start reading....

>   Note that H.323 isnt the only game out there.  SIP provides virtually
> the same.  H.323 is much better in a smaller environment, while SIP is
> more, hrm..  'Large User Base' driven.  However, the differences between
> H.323 and SIP are more in how they figure out who to call, request
> calls, setup things, etc..  In the end, call quality and the such is
> much more dependant on the codec and protocol used to carry the call..

I thought that SIP was more used in the VoIP world. H.323 seems to be
more standard in that most of the commercial equipment uses it, and most
of the software packages (netmeeting, gnomemeeting, etc.) use it as
well, allowing one to connect a small web cam up to a larger
teleconferencing system.

Thanks,
Kenny

 
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Kenneth E. Lussier
Sr. Systems Administrator
Zuken, USA
PGP KeyID CB254DD0 
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xCB254DD0