SC22/WG20 N1068
October 12. 2003
Collection of ideas and recommendations regarding teleconferencing in WG20 meetings - Responses to action item A0023-03 [Evaluate software for electronic meetings and select one for the next meeting (possible candidates: UltraVNC, Windows NetMeeting)],
Alain, September 15, 2003:
I must say that I use UltraVNC daily and not only it is a
great free-source freeware but also the VNC family (they are all compatible, I
have tried many flavours) also works on different platforms (UltraVNC has no
Linux version yet, to my knowledge, but others do have such versions [starting
with plain VNC]).
I personally use it daily from my portable PC to have access to my home PC
(single station, with full control of the viewed PC from the viewer PC), but it
can be set in shared mode to view a master PC on multiple listening PCs, with
limited access rights if desired [UltraVNC allows direct and parallel
remote-operated file transfers, others in the VNC family do not directly allow
this -- but of course any "local" third-party piece of software can,
depending on the settings, be operated remotely so it is also possible to do
them indirectly]).
Trials should be made before any meeting (with at least one person
sure to attend the meeting and with all others not sure to attend
the same meeting in person) so that we do not lose time with the shared-mode
(multi-station) settings (with which I am less familiar). Without such trials
it could be a total « flop ». It is predictable, as the different flavours of
VNC and versions of UltraVNC are not without problems either.
Alain
Alain, September 15, 2003:
In addition to what I wrote this morning, I must also say that Netmeeting
does not do the same as VNC.
It allows chatting and Internet phone. VNC does not.
When I said I recommended VNC, I should have said that it should be
operated at the same time with teleconferencing.(by phone, the easiest, but
not necessarily cheap -- inm fact it can cost as much as traveling if one
wants to attend a full meeting).
I tried IP phone with Netmeeting a lot of years ago and got totally
discouraged. It was unreliable, inefficient, walkie-talkie style [one at a
time, cutting with any noise on the listening side]), But I am pretty sure
it changed radically with the high-speed links (not sure everybody has them
though). And it requires extra exuipment (speakers, microphone, a
high-quality sound card [in the meanwhile, sound cards have greatly
decreased in quality in what comes with most vanilla-flavour PCs]).
I think IP phone with Netmeeting is too much demanding in trials to be
effective as of now, sincerely. Even telephone meetings are of relative
efficiency (the non-English-speakers like me lose even more than the others
in not being able to read on lips or interpret body-language).
Chat can be done with the keyboard though (through Netmeeting, ICQ and
others), but I am not sure it would be efficient.
Alain
Marc Küster, September 15, 2003:
Dear Alain,
>
> >Please let me know that status of your action items by Thursday, September
> >18, 2003.
> >
> >See http://wwwold.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg20/docs/W-SD5.htm
>
> [Alain] About A0023-03 [Evaluate software for electronic meetings and
> select one for the next meeting (possible candidates: UltraVNC, Windows
> NetMeeting)],
> I must say that I use UltraVNC daily and not only it is a great free-source
> freeware but also the VNC family (they are all compatible, I have tried
> many flavours) also works on different platforms (UltraVNC has no Linux
> version yet, to my knowledge, but others do have such versions [starting
> with plain VNC]).
I by now regularly use RealVNC which does have Windows, Linux and
Solaris versions (I would assume that you can compile versions for other
Unixes from the sources).
It should easily interoperate with UltraVNC, though I've never tested
that.
>
> I personally use it daily from my portable PC to have access to my home PC
> (single station, with full control of the viewed PC from the viewer PC),
> but it can be set in shared mode to view a master PC on multiple listening
> PCs, with limited access rights if desired [UltraVNC allows direct and
> parallel remote-operated file transfers, others in the VNC family do not
> directly allow this -- but of course any "local" third-party piece of
> software can, depending on the settings, be operated remotely so it is also
> possible to do them indirectly]).
>
> Trials should be made before any meeting (with at least one person sure to
> attend the meeting and with all others not sure to attend the same meeting
> in person) so that we do not lose time with the shared-mode (multi-station)
> settings (with which I am less familiar). Without such trials it could be a
> total « flop ». It is predictable, as the different flavours of VNC and
> versions of UltraVNC are not without problems either.
>
Agreed.
Best regards,
Marc
___________________________________________________________________
Kent Karlsson, September 16, 2003
Hi!
It was some time ago since I last used Netmeeting, and it
was between officies with a dedicated line, not the general internet,
and not for voice but a virtual whiteboard (reading off an actual
whiteboard with special pens; quite nifty; plus voice via local phone).
However, Netmeeting (voice connection) would make it
possible for me to participate during much of the WG20 meeting.
Much more than via phone, which is quite expensive. E-mail
can be quite effective too, if someone at the meeting takes
the time to read/write them... And I may actually prefer e-mail,
though less interactive, since it provides a record, and there are
no hearing or noice problems.
Kind regards
/kent k
Keld Simonsen, September 22, 2003
I have looked at gnomemeeting, but not yet got it to work fully. Will
try some more, and maybe I can experiment with some of the other WG20
people. I have tried VNC and it worked for me.
Keld