Project Number: 1007 ( RE) Project Title: Multimedia European Research Conferencing Integration (MERCI) Deliverable Type: (PU/LI/RP)* RP

Deliverable Number: D1 Contractual Date of Delivery: 31 August 1996 Actual Date of Delivery: 31 August 1996 Title of Deliverable: MERCI Software Deliverable I Work-Packages contributing to the Deliverable: 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 Nature of the Deliverable: (PR/RE/SP/TO/OT)** TO Author(s): SDR : Mark Handley (University College London) Rendez-Vous : Frank.Lyonnet (INRIA, Sophia Antipolis) FreePhone : Andrés Vega-Garcia (INRIA, Sophia Antipolis) RAT : Vicky Hardman, Colin Perkins, Isidor Kouvelas, Orion Hodson (University College London) VIC : Steve McCanne, Van Jacobson (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) VAT : Van Jacobson, Steve McCanne (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory)

Abstract: This is an Internal deliverable which we have chosen to document and make available. All the tools described in this document are freely available on World-Wide Web and ftp sites around the world. We have documented each of the tools under the headings Release Description, Systems Requirements List, Installation Guidelines, and the Web source for the software. SDR, FreePhone and Rendez-Vous are new tools made available since our Initial software deliverable (D0). The other tools - RAT, VAT and VIC are released as versions with in-built encryption which has been added by the MERCI project so that, in the case of the tools developed in the USA, they are not covered by US export restrictions on the export of cryptography. Keyword list: multimedia conferencing, video, audio, shared workspace, RTP/2, MBONE, multicast, cryptography

This document is available in RTF at URL: http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk /merci/deliverables/d1/d1.rtf

SDR

Release Description

Sdr is a Session Directory designed for announcing and scheduling multimedia conferences on the Mbone - the multicast backbone of the Internet. Sdr is loosely modelled on sd - LBL's Mbone Session Directory. Sdr extends the sd model in a number of ways, particularly in the degree of detail about the timing and resources required by a conference, and in the provision of a much more flexible interface for querying the existence of sessions or of any sessions that may potentially clash with a new session.

Systems Requirements List

Versions are available for the following platforms:

Sun Sparc Solaris machines

SGI Irix 5.x machines

Sun Sparc SunOS machines

x86 Linux machines

Dec OSF1 machines

HP

FreeBSD

NetBSD

Linux

NeXT

RS6000/AIX

Windows 95

Windows/NT

Installation Guidelines

Unix: gunzip the binary

Windows95: unzip the binary.

Acknowledgements

The BSDI version was built by Alan Batie <batie@aahz.jf.intel.com>. The FreeBSD and AIX versions were built by Denis DeLaRoca <CSP1DWD@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>. The NeXT version of sdr was ported and built by Yves Lepage <yves@CC.McGill.CA> . None of these ports have been tested at UCL. The Windows 95 release in winsdr22.zip was ported and built by Van Jacobson at LBNL, and includes Windows95 binaries for vic, vat and cal (which is required by sdr).

Several people have made significant contributions to sdr, and in particular Bill Fenner and Van Jacobson have both contributed large numbers of fixes and extensions to the current sdr source.

Web source

ftp://cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice/sdr/

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Rendezvous

Release Description

Main features:

• RTP version 2 protocol support over multicast or unicast IP.
• Low bandwidth H261, H263, NV, JPEG video standards.
• High quality PCMU, ADPCM, VADPCM (with HiFi support) and very low bandwidth GSM and LPC audio coding.
• Coder throughput dynamic adaptation to match the available bandwidth.
• A scheduling mechanism of video and audio sub flow processing leading to an overall better use of machine resources in order to maximise the suggestive quality rendered to the user.
• A great flexibility for support of new kind of protocol or new video coding methods.

• Support for layered multicast management of video and audio flows.
  • Experimental multiresolution wavelet codec.
  • Experimental multiresolution DCT codec.
  • Experimental very low bit rate fractal codec.
  • A highly flexible user interface design thanks to the adoption of the PAC Amadeus interactive system model with a custom C++ implementation.
  • A great code portability with the use of single process design, ANSI standard, target system derivation of classes and the use of the PAC model.
  • Multi level audio redundancy for bad network links.

Systems Requirements List

Versions are available for the following platforms:

Sun Sparc Solaris machines

Sgi Irix 5.x machines

Sun Sparc SunOS machines

x86 Linux machines

Dec OSF1 machines

Windows 95 machines

Installation Guidelines

Unzip the binary (eg rendez-vous-0.9alpha2-sparc-solaris.zip)

Edit the ivstng.sh file in order to match the place where you want to put the lib/ library.

Web source

http://www.inria.fr/rodeo/rendez_vous/

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FreePhone

Release Description

Main features:

• manages multiple unicast and multicast sessions. Thus, there is no need to have several instances of the tool running simultaneously.
• implements version 2 of the Real-time Transport Protocol RTP .
• includes a signaling protocol to contact remote parties.
• includes support for sampling rates ranging from 8 to 48 kHz. High sampling rates such as 44 kHz and 48 kHz correspond to CD and DAT quality audio, respectively.
• includes a redundancy mechanism for packet reconstruction. The level of redundancy can be chosen in a manual, semi-automatic, or automatic fashion.
• supports the redundancy mechanism and the different sampling rates using special RTP payload types .
• includes the usual assortment of codecs, including PCMU, VADPCM (ADPCM-DVI), ADPCM at 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 bits, GSM, and LPC.
• is compatible with RAT . Free Phone and RAT both use the special RTP payload types developed within the MERCI project.
• is compatible with vat when not using the redundancy or the high quality audio features.

• uses Tcl 7.5 and Tk 4.1.

Systems Requirements List

Version 2.0 Beta 4 is available for the following platforms:

Solaris 2.4 & 2.5

SunOS 4.1.3

SGI IRIX 5.3

Linux 2.0

Installation Guidelines

Uncompress fphone-1.1b2-yourOS[-static].gz where you usually store your

binaries (i.e. ~/bin) and untar the libtcl.tar.gz in your root directory

(i.e. ~/libtcl). Go to your bin directory:

$ cd bin

$ mv fphone-1.1b2-yourOS[-static] fphone

$ chmod 755 fphone

$ rehash

Set the environment variables as follow:

$ setenv TCL_LIBRARY ~/libtcl

$ setenv TK_LIBRARY $TCL_LIBRARY

Web source

http://zenon.inria.fr/rodeo/fphone/

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RAT

Release Description

RAT is similar to existing audio tools (such as vat), is RTP v2 compliant, and offers extra functionality to try and improve the performance over the Mbone:

• Redundancy (packet loss protection)
• Adaptive Scheduling protection

• Improved Statistics
  • Lip synchronisation option
• Improved hands-free performance option

The packet format used by RAT v2.6a2 and later to transmit redundant encodings has changed. The new packet format is a result of a collaboration between UCL and INRIA. A specification of this format can be found in the Internet draft draft-perkins-rtp-redundancy-01.{txt|ps}. Because of this change, versions of RAT prior to v2.6 will not be able to interoperate with new versions when using redundancy.

Systems Requirements List

RAT binaries are currently available for version 2.6a11:

SunOS 4.x

SunOS 5.4

SunOS 5.5

SGI

Windows/95

Windows/NT

A trial Release Version is available for:

HP-UX 9.0x

Installation Guidelines

Unix: gunzip the binary

Windows95: unzip the binary, set HOME environment variable.

Web source

http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice/rat/

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VIC

Release Description

Vic is based on version 2 of the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), which provides basic real-time media communication support. Although vic can be run point-to-point using standard unicast IP addresses, it is primarily intended as a multiparty conferencing application.

Systems Requirements List

Version 2.8, except where stated otherwise, is available for the following platforms:

SunOS 4.x

SunOS 5.4

SunOS 5.5

SGI

DEC Ultrix

DEC OSF/1

HP

FreeBSD

NetBSD

Linux (2.7a32)

NeXT (2.7b1)

Windows/95 (2.7b3)

Windows/NT (2.7b3)

Installation Guidelines

gunzip the distribution file and refer to the MICE-NSC User documentation at

http://www-mice-nsc.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice-nsc/tools/

Web source

ftp://cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice/videoconference/

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VAT

Release Description

VAT is an audio conferencing tool which allows users to conduct host-to-host or multihost audio teleconferences over an internet (multihost conferences require that the kernel support IP multicast ). On most architectures, no hardware other than a microphone is required - sound I/O is via the built-in audio hardware. On DEC systems, an AudioFile server must be running.

Systems Requirements List

Version 4.0 is available for the following platforms:

SunOS 4.x (4.0b2)

SunOS 5.4 (4.0b2)

SunOS 5.5 (4.0b2)

SGI (4.0b1)

DEC OSF/1 (4.0b1)

HP (4.0b1)

FreeBSD (4.0b1)

NetBSD (4.0b1)

Linux (4.0a2)

Windows/95 (4.0b2)

Windows/NT (4.0b2)

Installation Guidelines

gunzip the distribution file and refer to the MICE-NSC User documentation at:

http://www-mice-nsc.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice-nsc/tools/

Web source

ftp://cs.ucl.ac.uk/mice/videoconference/

Return to Abstract