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F/OSS Multi-Point Video-Conferencing

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-what-about-those-flying-cars dept.

DarkSarin writes "Given that solutions like iChat can seamlessly video-conference for multiple parties on the Mac, and that others are semi-commercial, like Oovoo (which recently left beta and is no longer free for more than 3-way calls), what do you recommend in terms of a F/OSS solution to a need for moderate-sized video-conferencing? Ideally, it would be something which does not use a web-page and does not require hours of configuration. iChat is insanely easy to use. Mebeam.com is also quite simple to operate, but requires so much screen real estate that it can't easily be used in conjunction with any other software. Referring to other documents while in the middle of the conference is nice, but it's important to have the reactions of the other participants — and not everyone has multiple monitors. I am aware of projects like vmukti and services like ustream.tv, but I am thinking more in terms of a stand-alone application that is F/OSS (Ekiga/GnomeMeeting comes to mind, but it does not do multi-point video chat unless one also has access to an H.323 gateway, which is apparently non-trivial to implement). With the prevalence of broadband connections, I am surprised that a solid effort is missing for making easy, painless multi-point video-conferencing for more than 3 or 4 connections (which seems to be the most that a lot of 'free' solutions offer, or even the low-cost ones). So, my question is two-fold: First, why isn't there a better effort at medium to large video-conferencing that pretty much anyone can set up? Second, do you know of any F/OSS applications which work well and support a minimum of 6 to 8 connected parties?"

5 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. IRC by johannesg · · Score: 4, Funny

    You kids these days with your graphical user interfaces! Just go with the One True Unix Way: command line! It is quick, it is easy, and it works on VT100 terminals over a 14k4 modem. Why would you need anything more?

    All you need to do is set up an IRC-server in multi-pointcast mode using the -nrl option, and then connect to it with reverse protocol multiplication using the -t option. You can add new users by typing :nusername:ip;port:macaddress;. Trivial.

    1. Re:IRC by flyingfsck · · Score: 3, Funny

      ...and the ASCII Art codec...

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    2. Re:IRC by asCii88 · · Score: 1, Funny

      Why do you even need that when you can have two plastic glasses and a cord?

    3. Re:IRC by ryszard99 · · Score: 2, Funny

      damn you kids with your fancy acoustic coupler. back in my day we used fire and blankets, now get off my lawn!

      --
      -- $_='ab-bc ratvarre';tr"'a-z'"'n-za-m'";print
  2. Re:software echo cancellation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    More on the same point. Everyone but you has been doing 40+ person voice conferencing for the past 3 years.

    And I killed an ancient demon while doing it. So nyeh.