Re: [Ekiga-list] Communication experiment

[Kévin REDON <kevredon gmail com>]

> I stumbled over the Ekiga software when looking for a tool which could
> help us to run these experiments. Do you think we could use Ekiga for a 
> scenario like this?

Yes, ekiga supports audio and video communication.
But it is not intended to be used for direct peer to peer communication.
The contacting is made thanks to a server generally.

> 
> I also wonder about the network traffic. What kind of network hardware 
> do we need in our lab to have 10 people chat at a time?

You can choose the quality of the audio and video, and so the bitrate.
a 10Mbps is enought if you use a switch, with a hub you could have some
problems. As of today, 100Mbps is the most common network speed, and
switches are standard (it's hard to find hubs), so no worries to have
for the network aspect (other then the firewalls).
> 
> We would also like to control who is talking to who. Do you think it
> would be difficult to write a software which would allow us to match
> partners centrally? And can Ekiga be used to record all videos?
> 
Ekiga is a SIP client (audio and video communication). To connect to
other SIP user (SIP being an open standard implemented by other
communication software) you need a server. A free SIP server is Asterisk
(it's not an easy task to set one up).
With Asteriks you can know who communicates to who, but the
communication itself goes not trought the server, but directly between
the users. Ekiga does not enable to record communication, so you'll have
to do it another way : record the sound and video card of each user directly

> Or maybe you know about other software, that would be more appropriate?

I don't know myself, but may be someone else on the mailing list, more
expert in this domain then me.

> 
> Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Timo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> ekiga-list mailing list
> ekiga-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/ekiga-list