Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Windows Netmeeting compatibility

[Craig Southeren <craigs equival com au>]

On Sat, 29 Dec 2001 09:03:13 +1100
Jeff Mills <piggie optushome com au> wrote:

..deleted

> Gnomemeeting works fine for me in KDE, except for the drawbacks of OH323 and 
> PWlib, which are nothing to do with which desktop you use.

As one of authors of OpenH323, I'd be interested in hearing a more
detailed explanation of "the drawbacks of OH323 and PWLib" 

..deleted

> On a side note.... one of GnomeMeetings drawbacks is the fact that it uses 
> alot more bandwidth than NetMeeting due to proprietary codecs.

This problem is not directly related Netmeeting/GnomeMeeting, but is a
matter of what codecs are used. By default, the G.711 audio codec is
used which requires 64kbs. Also, the only video codecs supported are
H.261 and Cu30, both of which work best with lots of bandwidth.

There are a number of ways to solve the bandwidth problems:

For audio:

Enable the MS-GSM codec within Netmeeting (see the FAQ at OpenH323 under
Compatibility, or http://www.openh323.org/fom-serve/cache/74.htm)

    OR

Use a hardware audio codec acclerator under Linux, such as a Quicknet
board, allowing the use of G.723.1 or G.729.

    OR

License a Linux audio codec implementation and add this codec to
GnomeMeeting.

For video:

Join an effort to find and add a H.263 (or similar) codec to OpenH323.
 
> Now that DivX is open source... is it possible for someone to produce a new 
> codec using the compression that DivX can give?
> I might be way off track here, but I thought DivX was a huge leap in the 
> compression of video.
> Will it not work with cameras? Will it not be good enough? Can it not be done?

Yes, it can be done. OpenH323 contains a framework that allows the
addition of any video or audio codec.

    Craig

-------------------------------------------
 Craig Southeren, 
 Managing Director, Equivalence Pty Ltd
 Director, MicroTelco Gateway, Quicknet Technologies, Inc. 
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