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GnomeMeeting 1.0 Videoconferencing/VoIP Released
Howard Vanbel writes "Apparently the developers of GnomeMeeting have released the final v1.0 version of the videoconferencing/VoIP software. GnomeMeeting started as a final studies work at the Department of Computing Science and Engineering of the Universite Catholique de Louvain and after 3 years of development, GnomeMeeting 1.00 is ready!
GnomeMeeting is the most advanced Open Source VoIP and videoconferencing software available - there's more info in the project FAQ."
And h323 is a dying dinosaur (basically ISDN over IP). SIP (& other more modern and lightweight *internet* (as opposed to telephony) protocols) is the way to go.
I would very much like to see encryption of the voice stream added to its list of features! This would really set it aside from the competition...
Cheers,
Chris.
Just when Microsoft start phasing out Netmeeting, we get something compatible :)
I guess we should put a bounty up for someone to reverse engineer the MSN Messenger 6.1 webcam protocol. (And yes, I know what GnomeMeeting is - and is supposed to do - and also know that an IM is not the same, but still, people just want to communicate with their friends and family.)
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
A fine product. Great for personal or even corporate use. I've been following (and updating) this application since early 0.9x days. Best of luck, and hope you don't have any problems with M$ for the similarity in name between the project name and a M$ app.
You ever taken a look at the business end of a Cisco Callmanager system, or their PC based SoftPhone for their VoIP solution?
I can tell you that GnomeMeeting looks a LOT easier to setup!
Videoconferencing was all the rage 3 years ago, which is probably why this got started in the first place. In 2001, all you could hear was 'Travel is over because of terrorism, it's time for videoconferencing!'
Except this trend never really took off. GnomeMeeting would have had an impact with businesses considering Linux 3 years ago, but now it's merely a 'catchup' product to a market that has already moved on.
Any change to get this compatible with Apple iChat?
iChat AV is standards based, using the industry-standard H.263 video codec, the telephone-quality QuickTime audio codec (PureVoice QCELP), and SIP--the nextgeneration protocol for signaling.
Just curious, isn't Louvain in the Flemish part of Belgium? If so, wouldn't it be called "Katholieke Universiteit Leuven"?
;-)
Just nit picking
Yeah. It kinda skipped by me too.
But now I see how easy and cheap USB webcams are and the quality of them it absolutely amazes me. That and the fact all my friends have DSL connections so we can have decent video conversations. However, I have had perfectly usable videoconferencing over 56K dialup but that was only one way.
This is the reason that Skype seems to be succeeding where others have failed, despite using a closed and proprietary protocol.
NAT2NAT (establishing a direct connection between two firewalled nodes) really isn't that hard to do (just get both peers to fire some UDP packets at each-other for a few seconds to fool the NATs), so why are there no free and open protocols for low-configuration VoIP? (and if I have missed one *PLEASE* let me know)
That's not true, actually when you start GnomeMeeting 1.0 the configuration druid will do everything for you. Eventually you might configure things for yourself, but even the configuration window is very easy to understand, moreover there's a beautiful manual that explains everything.
For your comment I bet you haven't even tried to install and use GnomeMeeting, give it a try before posting comments!!!!
Zero-configuration NAT circumvention is much easier than people think. You just get both NATed peers which want to send UDP packets to each-other to send a few packets to the other's NATs on the ports you want to use. Most NATs will then start to forward those UDP packets and hey presto! You have established a direct UDP link between the two peers and your user hasn't had to lift a finger.
All someone has to do is to combine this technique with somethink like Speex, make sure you have both Linux and Windows versions, and we have a free competitor to Skype using an open protocol. I would do it myself if I had the time.
I haven't done much (OK, anything) with GnomeMeeting or Video4Linux. A bit of googleing (googling?) doesn't turn up what I'm looking for so I thought I'd post here while people are still reading comments because I think I have a common question/desire.
Ebay has tons of my favorite computer, Compaq Deskpro SFFs, with USB and PII/350-PIII/500 CPUs for <$100 every day of the week. I'd love to be able to buy one (or a lot of 10) and add a cheap USB webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messengers are $50 at Circuit City this week, with $20 in rebates, for just one example) and make, basically, a videophone appliance. Hell, I don't even care if it does sound (I'm happy to use a landline for that) but I'd love to have cheap, consistant, decent-quality, OSS, easy-to-use-with-a-firewall* videoconferencing solution. Just something that I can do a basic install of $DISTRO, add GnomeMeeting, an el-cheapo webcam, and have it work. Kinda like buying an eMac and an iSight but $800 cheaper.
So, I guess my question is, does anyone know of a cheap, readily-available USB webcam that works with GnomeMeeting? Following that, is there a distro that works well with the above, out-of-the-box or close to? And can all this be done with only a handful of open TCP ports? My #1 concern is getting video back and forth.
* as in, no "open ports 1024-65,535" like NetMeeting wants.
(And please don't reply talking about how great iChat is. I know it's great but I can't to spend $1,000 on every member of my family just yet.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
How will GNOMEMeeting fit into the GStreamer framework?
--
make install -not war
... would be if a "meeting" could be initiated by a program (that I'd like to write, of course), and the program could participate as one of the parties.
... (plays Patient's comment).
Now I know you're thinking of games. In this case, the app is a program on a hospital's computer that wants to contact one or more people, send them messages, and collect their replies. One-on-one would be useful, but even more useful would be with N parties that could all talk.
Scenario:
Patient: Hello?
Computer: Hello, Mr Jones. Your surgery is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday at 9 am. Is this OK with you?
Patient: Um, no; I have another appointment at that time.
Computer: OK; I'll check with Dr Smith to see if we can reschedule. While I call him, what would be some other good times for you? (Starts dialing Dr Smith)
Patient: Any time that afternoon would be fine.
DrSmith: Hello?
Computer: Mr. Jones says he has a conflict with his 9am appointment tomorrow. Here's his comment
DrSmith: I'd have to reschedule my golf game, but I could do it at 4pm tomorrow.
Patient: That would be OK with me, too.
Computer: Mr Jones' surgery is rescheduled for 4pm tomorrow. Can you both verify this?
Patient: Yes, 4pm is a good time.
DrSmith: 4pm tomorrow is OK here.
Computer: Rescheduled. Good-bye.
So could GnomeMeeting support a "meeting" like this? If so, how might I find the docs and/or some sample code?
Yeah, I know there's some voice recognition in there that is non-trivial. The first tests would probably be somewhat simpler, involving a basic computer message and recording all the replies of the other parties.
The Open Source nature is fairly important. In the US and other countries, we're seeing some fairly extensive medical privacy laws passed. This emphasizes that we really must avoid closed-source, binary software, because you can't know what's hidden inside it. In the long term, such software must be completely open to examination and auditing. Any Open-Source tools that can do the job will be very interesting to a lot of people that I work with.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
So does anyone know offhand if there are drivers for Apple's iSight camera that will work with Linux and Gnomemeeting? I've got one gathering dust (it was the freebie at WWDC last year) and a Powerbook running Debian that might be able to use it.
--saint