A Federated Approach to Distributed, Video-Enabled Meetings Ted Hanss, Internet2 5 June 2002 See

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

Plenary Technology Real at 128K, 256K, 512K using Akamai H 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

Set-up: Studio A conference room at the Internet2 office in Ann Arbor was transformed into a TV studio

Set-up: Codecs

Set-up: Production Truck We brought in a video production truck to produce the plenary

Set-up: Satellite Feed A satellite truck fed output to the ResearchChannel for their cable and satellite viewers

Set-up: Power Just in case … and it was needed

Testing All outgoing streams were tested VIMM audience members were encouraged to download players in advance

Were Live

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

Track Sessions Technology Ran four concurrent track sessions H.323 with MCUs from Ohio State, North Carolina, and Indiana Real stream of each session Voice conference call for each session for Q&A

Track Sessions Web page

VIMM Interactions Participants could send questions to speakers via Chat rooms and video lounges (for H.323 participants) were available for informal interactions Chat rooms also provided a vehicle for trouble-shooting during the VIMM

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

Lessons Learned Isolate feeds for TV, netcast, and archives Its easier to distribute video than audio Its difficult to manage production values across multiple remote sites Did not replace the need for face-to-face meeting This was a community production

Whats 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)

Whats Next, Cont. Developing directors 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 Commons H.323 Other Collaborative Technologies VRVS Videoconferencing Technologies AGMPEG2Others Data SharingInstant MessagingVoice/IP Electronic Notebooks Peer to PeerCollaboratories

A Problem to Solve We use several, mostly incompatible, video conferencing technologies H.323 stand-alone mbone tools Access Grid VRVS RTPtv (MJPEG Delco Box) MPEG-2 DVTS (Packetized DV via Firewire) …

Approach Share information about recommended uses Decision tree: room-based vs. desktop- based, video quality levels, multicast vs. unicast, … Point people to current implementations Facilitate development and deployment projects

Commons H.323 Service An H.323 service built on ViDeNet architecture ( Member contributions of support and multipoint control units Initial gateway architecture based on VRVS ( Your participation is invited.

Management Team International: Egon Verharen (SURFnet) Outreach: Mary Trauner (Gatech) DV-VC Chair: Larry Amiot (NWU) R&D: Tyler Johnson (UNC) Operations: Bob Dixon (OSU)

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

Phase II Discussions Expanded training Archiving of meeting sessions Wideband voice conferencing Data sharing More sharing of evaluations Continue pushing the technology (e.g. MPEG-2 MCUs)

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 kbps) IP/TV (1.5 mbps) VRVS (varies) H.323 ( 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 arent addressed End-to-end performance Production values Floor control

How to Balance Features? Casual TV Interactive Broadcast Single Tech Multiple Tech Single speaker location Multiple speaker location Low quality encoding High quality encoding

Are We Broadcast TV? Casual TV Interactive Broadcast Single Tech Multiple Tech Single speaker location Multiple speaker location Low quality encoding High quality encoding Area within the colored box is related to resource commitment and complexity

Are We Public Access TV? Casual TV Interactive Broadcast Single Tech Multiple Tech Single speaker location Multiple speaker location Low quality encoding High quality encoding Area within the colored box is related to resource commitment and complexity

Decide Event-by-Event? Casual TV Interactive Broadcast Single Tech Multiple Tech Single speaker location Multiple speaker location Low quality encoding High quality encoding Area within the colored boxes is related to resource commitment and complexity

More Info... commons.internet2.edu apps.internet2.edu/talks/ (this talk) internet2.edu/activities/html/vimm.html Ted Hanss Internet Boardwalk Suite 100 Ann Arbor, MI