*VidMid-VC Conference Call*
November 5, 2001
*Attendees*
Egon Verharen (chair) - SURFnet
Karen Krivaa - RADVISION
Tyler Johnson - UNC Chapel Hill
Michael Gettes - Georgetown
Ann West - Internet2
John McNair - Tennessee
Jill Gemmill - ViDe/Alabama at Birmingham
Mary Trauner - Georgia Tech
Steve Olshansky - Internet2
Mary Fran Yafchak - SURA
Samir Chatterjee - Claremont Graduate U.
Art Vandenberg - Georgia State
Renee Frost - Michigan/Internet2
Ben Roy - Washington
Nadim El-Khoury - UNC Chapel Hill
Albert School - OARnet
Ken Klingenstein - Colorado/Internet2
Ben Chinowsky (scribe) - Internet2
*Discussion*
The minutes of the previous meeting were approved without changes. Egon expressed his satisfaction with the list discussion provoked by the minutes, and in particular noted Henning Schulzrinne's opinion on capabilities exchange in SIP, which is considerably more optimistic than Orit's. Samir agreed that SIP "does an OK job", and remarked that it would be interesting to look at how SDP handles vendor-specific issues. Karen noted that SIP lacks a master/slave capability in negotiation between unequal endpoints; she has forwarded Henning's message to the SIP project manager at RADVISION, and is waiting for comments. The RADVISION SIP-H.323 gateway was demonstrated at TeleCon with Windows XP SIP clients; Karen noted that a RADVISION MCU was also used. Tyler suggested that VidMid participate in beta testing the gateway next year; Karen noted that the idea is to allow a SIP-H.323 mix "without knowing who is what".
The group discussed planning for the November 29-30 face-to-face meeting in North Carolina. Karen confirmed that RADVISION will send someone; they have also asked TANDBERG (http://www.tandbergvision.com) to do likewise. [AI] Karen, Jill, and Ken will try their contacts at Microsoft about participating in the NC VidMid-VC meeting; all will cc Steve, who will handle further communication. [AI] Egon will try to contact David Nash at Polycom about the NC VidMid-VC meeting; he will cc Steve.
Egon noted that the next round of NMI proposals is expected to be due March 1; he stressed the importance of VidMid-VC coming up with a detailed workplan, including testbed specifics, by that date. Ken noted that NSF's Alan Blatecky will be at the NC meeting; NMI participants have been talking about doing a Release 1 in April, and identification and authentication for videoconferencing is emerging as a very high priority for NMI. Ken asked if the NC meeting would concentrate on H.323 or broaden its focus to include, e.g., the Access Grid and VRVS. The group expressed strong agreement with Tyler's advice to keep the focus on H.323 for early implementations, as much of what VidMid-VC does with H.323 will apply directly to other technologies.
Jill suggested that VidMid-VC look at schema definitions for the various technologies, to prepare ahead of time for differences with H.323, and Ken observed that resource discovery appears to be fairly consistent across technologies. Ken noted that within Internet2 there is great interest in a common authentication infrastructure across videoconferencing technologies. Tyler noted that there appear to be no rivals to VidMid-VC's proposed H.323 object classes, and asked for information on SIP directories work. Ken noted that he and Steve are exploring this with Doug Sicker, who works closely with Henning Schulzrinne. [AI] Steve will contact Doug Sicker to discuss folding other SIP directories work into his. [AI] Samir will summarize the state of SIP directories work for the NC meeting.
The group agreed that the NC meeting will allow participation via H.323, but only by prior arrangement with Tyler; that there will be no video archive of the meeting; and that Steve will summarize the meeting and archive documents from it.
Much of the call was taken up by review and discussion of action items.
[22-October-2001 - All who have comments on specific successes and
failures of the videoconferencing technologies and procedures used in the
VIMM, will send them to Egon.]
Egon noted that he had received no feedback, and closed this action item.
Ken reported that Internet2 has received more evaluations for the VIMM than
for any other Internet2 meeting ever, and that most of the evaluations were
strongly favorable. [AI] Egon will write a summary of the VidMid-VC session
at the VIMM.
[22-October-2001 - Egon will send the latest versions of the scenarios
to Art and Steve; Art will help write the scenarios and Steve will handle
revision control.]
Art outlined his work on the scenarios; [AI] Egon will review the scenarios
with Art and send them to Ben C. for posting. The latest version of the
scenarios document will live in the Draft Documents section of
http://middleware.internet2.edu/video/. Tyler suggested working with
VidMid-VoD on the videoconference-archiving scenario. [AI] Art will add a
discussion of VC/VoD interaction to the scenarios. Other suggested additions
included pictures and a mobility scenario.
[22-October-2001 - Samir will send the list a short summary of
approaches to coping with NATs and firewalls.]
Still to do. Ken stressed the importance of this information, noting that it
may steer the group toward HTTP-based resource discovery and authentication,
as most companies block all ports but port 80, used for HTTP.
[22-October-2001 - Samir will look into porting his SIP client to a
standard open SIP stack.]
[22-October-2001 - Samir will find out if and under what conditions
dynamicsoft can make its SIP stack available to VidMid.]
Samir clarified the relationship between these two items: [AI] Samir will
find out if and under what conditions dynamicsoft can make its SIP stack
available to VidMid; if that doesn't work out, he will look into porting his
SIP client to a standard open SIP stack. Samir has invited dynamicsoft to
participate in vidmid-vc. Steve and Ken noted that graduate students at
the U. of Colorado are available to help with porting if necessary.
[22-October-2001 - Karen will find out if and under what conditions
RADVISION can make its SIP stack available to VidMid.]
Karen has put Ken in touch with the right people to pursue this with.
[22-October-2001 - Egon will contact Henning Schulzrinne for information
on Columbia's SIP client.]
Done. Egon reported that Columbia has reorganized its licensing, and all its
SIP products are now commercial. However, there have already been requests
for deals for academia, and Henning wants to help make those deals happen.
Tyler noted that the two big issues in the H.323-vs-SIP controversy have
been 1) the telco way of doing things vs. the Internet way of doing things
and 2) frustration with H.323 over-licensing. Tyler agreed that the
champions of SIP have a point with respect to 1), but noted that with
respect to 2), SIP seems to have lost its advantage. Samir agreed,
commenting that while SIP is often compared to HTTP, "I wonder if anyone was
ever charged for HTTP." Ken expressed a wish to make Columbia's SIP widely
available, and acknowledged that this will probably take a substantial
amount of work. [AI] Ken will get Internet2 IPR staff to discuss SIP
licensing with Columbia.
[22-October-2001 - Karen will try to get RADVISION to identify and
contact someone at Microsoft who can participate in VidMid-VC.]
Done.
[22-October-2001 - Ted will keep trying to contact Microsoft and
Polycom/Accord about participating in VidMid-VC.]
Ted was not on the call; [AI] Egon will ask Ted if he has been able
to contact Microsoft and Polycom/Accord about participating
in VidMid-VC.
[22-October-2001 - Jill and Egon will ask colleagues attending TeleCon
to look for contacts for VidMid-VC.]
[AI] Jill will find out if her colleagues who attended TeleCon made any
contacts for VidMid-VC.
[22-October-2001 - Egon will contact OpenH323 about participating in
VidMid-VC.]
Still to do.
[22-October-2001 - Tyler will look into Siemens's involvement in
videoconferencing-related technologies, especially SIP.]
Still to do.
[22-October-2001 - Egon will contact Philippe Galvez to check on the
status of VRVS's participation in VidMid-VC.]
Done; Philippe still wants to work with VidMid-VC, and plans to
attend the NC meeting via H.323.
[22-October-2001 - Egon will review the vidmid-vc list to see who else
should be contacted about participating.]
Egon said that he doesn't know of anyone else we're missing, and asked
all who have suggestions to send them to him.
[22-October-2001 - Steve will poll the list about using
videoconferencing for future VidMid-VC calls.]
Tyler noted that only 8 responses had been received so far; [AI] Steve will
re-poll the list about using videoconferencing for future VidMid-VC calls.
[AI] VidMid-VC will hold its next regularly-scheduled call (Nov. 19) over
H.323; Tyler will provide dial-in information and operate the MCU. A phone
bridge will be available.
[24-September-2001 - Ken will send Philippe information on possible
funding for integrating H.323 and SIP into VRVS.]
Ken is gathering this information; [AI] Ken will ask Philippe approximately
how much money would be required to integrate H.323 and SIP into VRVS.
[6-August-2001 - Samir will look into the availability and qualities of
public SIP servers.]
Samir pointed the group to two messages in which he has already conveyed
his findings, and re-sent the information to the list.
Finally, Ken asked the group for thoughts on videoconferencing contention-resolution tools, such as a web-based hand-raising mechanism. Ken observed that the long pauses and other awkwardnesses often experienced in videoconferences seem to spring more from social than from technical causes; Jill agreed, but suggested that "turning the meeting into a classroom may not be the best solution." Tyler noted that many applets, like an authenticated participant list, need to be built to address the set of problems Ken is pointing to. Michael added that the participant list should be authorized as well, e.g. to enforce rules on who is allowed to speak when. Mary noted that Polycom/Accord provides virtual office tools, and that she is starting to see videoconferencing buttons on data-collaboration tools; she also noted the need for voting tools for videoconferencing. It was agreed that contention-resolution tools are out of scope for the NC meeting, but that how to do authentication is very much in scope; once the authentication infrastructure is in place, the group will be better able to discuss what tools should be built on top of it.
*Action Items*
[AI] 5-November - Karen, Jill, and Ken will try their contacts at Microsoft
about participating in the NC VidMid-VC meeting; all will cc Steve, who will
handle further communication.
[AI] 5-November - Egon will try to contact David Nash at Polycom about the
NC VidMid-VC meeting; he will cc Steve.
[AI] 5-November - Steve will contact Doug Sicker to discuss folding other
SIP directories work into his.
[AI] 5-November - Samir will summarize the state of SIP directories work
for the NC meeting.
[AI] 5-November - Egon will write a summary of the VidMid-VC session at
the VIMM.
[AI] 5-November - Egon will review the scenarios with Art and send them
to Ben C. for posting.
[AI] 5-November - Art will add a discussion of VC/VoD interaction to
the scenarios.
[AI] 5-November - Samir will find out if and under what conditions
dynamicsoft can make its SIP stack available to VidMid; if that doesn't
work out, he will look into porting his SIP client to a standard open
SIP stack.
[AI] 5-November - Ken will get Internet2 IPR staff to discuss SIP licensing
with Columbia.
[AI] 5-November - Egon will ask Ted if he has been able to contact Microsoft
and Polycom/Accord about participating in VidMid-VC.
[AI] 5-November - Jill will find out if her colleagues who attended TeleCon
made any contacts for VidMid-VC.
[AI] 5-November - Steve will re-poll the list about using
videoconferencing for future VidMid-VC calls.
[AI] 5-November - VidMid-VC will hold its next regularly-scheduled call
(Nov. 19) over H.323; Tyler will provide dial-in information and operate
the MCU.
[AI] 5-November - Ken will ask Philippe approximately how much money would
be required to integrate H.323 and SIP into VRVS.
[AI] 22-October - Samir will send the list a short summary of
approaches to coping with NATs and firewalls.
[AI] 22-October - Egon will contact OpenH323 about participating in
VidMid-VC.
[AI] 22-October - Tyler will look into Siemens's involvement in
videoconferencing-related technologies, especially SIP.
[AI] 24-September - Ken will send Philippe information on possible
funding for integrating H.323 and SIP into VRVS.