And it starts badly for TokBox

I've set up my account to start testing TokBox, but my immediate impressions aren't good. The site and product looks good. Lots of good ideas on there and it was easy to sign up. My complaint is that I can't seem to record sound. The webcam works, and the settings are pointed at the right mic, but no sound on the recorded videos. I know the mic is set up properly as it works fine on both Skype and the video recording program that came with it.

Guess I'll have to have a play and see what happens, but not a very impressive start.

Kit

I think everything is pretty much sorted with the TOR and schedule. A little tweaking left, but not much.

The client has provided me with the equipment that I've asked for - 2 webcams and a computer to use as a test server. I should be able to get the computer driven back to my house from the uni this week, so I can start testing the various 'self-hosted' solutions that I've been looking at. I've already started looking at hosted services (things like Skype and Tokbox) that won't be any part of my final solution, but are relevant to my research.

Finally I feel like things are moving...

Tor and Scheduling

OK, I've re-done my TOR and my scheduling, as per the instructions from the module lecturer, so hopefully that's that more or less done with. I still need to go into the next project surgury for my group to run it all by him again.

Now that that's out of the way I should hopefully be able to press on with my research and testing and make up some of the delay that I've incurred in the last couple of weeks. I've arranged with my client to collect a test server machine and a couple of webcams later on this week. I should also (hopefully) be picking up the sponsorship letter that the uni is asking for.

Behind Schedule

It's been a rather hectic couple of weeks in my non-computing life (yes, it does happen...) so the project is running a little behind schedule.

The review did not go desperately well. Despite having done what I was told to do with my TOR and scheduling the marking lecturer felt that there was some gaps, so I need to review both of these pieces of work and then start putting some serious time into my research and testing.

References and Reasearch Materials

A link to this has been created on the project web page.

As I have stated there, if any of the authors/owners of the papers being hosted have a problem with this they should contact me and the content will immediately be removed. All of the material that I'm hosting was freely available to me so I'm assuming there should be no problem with me gathering it together into one convenient place.

Research and Scheduling

The project is starting off slowly, as these things always seem to. I've just about got the terms of reference finished, although I need to find a few more references to include. I also need to finish off the scheduling. I'm starting to get the hang of MS Project, I just need a little more practice. I also started looking at the research papers that I've collected, starting with a paper called Video Conferencing Best Practices. I'll put this and any other papers I include in my research in a directory on the main website, probably later today.

First review is tomorrow, so fingers crossed that'll go well, although I'm not entirely sure how much I'm supposed to have produced for it. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Greetings and salutations...

For my final year project at university I've been asked to research and build a video conferencing server. The requirements are that it be low cost (If the uni wanted to just throw money at the problem there are several commercial solutions, which I'll talk about in due course), low bandwidth (my reasons will be explained in a moment), and be able to use a web browser as a client.

The reason they want this server is so that they can communicate with distance learning students in other countries. Here's where the low bandwidth specification comes in. A lot of the universities distance learning students (referred to as DLSs from here out) reside in less technically developed countries where the internet infrastructure is even more primitive than it is in this country.

The web browser specification is for a few of reasons. First, everyone has a web browser on their machine. No one needs to mess around installing one, which removes one of the hurdles of this working. If someone who is totally non-technical can just navigate to a page (the link for which could be emailed to them or whatever) then they will be able to make use of this tool and participate in a conference. A second reason is to circumvent any firewalling that may be in place. If the conferences can be streamed straight into a browser via port 80 using http then there will be no need for any party participating in a conference to start putting holes in their firewall. This leads into another reason for using a web browser. Access privileges. This method will potentially allow a DLS to go into any webcam equipped web cafe, or whatever, and without any need to install software or adjust security settings they can just get on with the conference.

As I've mentioned already, there are several solutions to this out there at the moment. There are hosted solutions like TokBox, and there are self-host solutions such as Adobe Acrobat Connect. The problems with these is that the former allows the uni (hereafter referred to as the client) no control of the server itself and no opportunity to make configuration changes and optimise the system for their own use, and the latter, and its ilk, are prohibitively expensive for a service which would probably not see enough use to be worth the large investment.

The reasons for this blog are mostly selfish. It's an attempt to document the project as I go along, thereby making the writing of the final dissertation a little less stressful. A less selfish knock on of this is that my progress will be documented here for anyone attempting a similar project to refer to and hopefully avoid running into the same issues that I inevitably will.