December 1997

CU-SeeMe 3.0

White Pine
Software, Inc.
542 Amherst Street
Nashua, NH 03063
Ph: 603-886-9050; Fx: 603-886-9051
Web site: www.wpine.com

E-mail: [email protected]

CU-SeeMe, an established videoconferencing product, just got better with its latest release, version 3.0. In fact, with this new release, the product should appeal to a broader audience than ever. That is, CUSeeMe, which is already a hit with Internet hobbyists, should begin drawing more interest from the business market.

As one of the earliest videoconferencing products, CU-SeeMe achieved a certain notoriety for its use by mature audiences. (Talk about heavy clicking.) But now, CU-SeeMe, like much else associated with the Internet, is about as mainstream as you can get. For example, through its support for the TCP/IP protocol, CU-SeeMe suits the purposes of corporations that have high-speed LAN networks. A corporation could use CUSeeMe to enhance interactions among employees. One obvious application, virtual meetings, could save lots of time by allowing all of the participants in a meeting to remain at their desks. Also, cybercasting could improve corporate training as easily as it now provides entertainment.

FEATURE SUMMARY
General Features

• View up to 12 participant windows simultaneously.
• Caller ID for incoming connections.
• Launch pre-configured CU-SeeMe conferences from Web pages.
• Local window controls, including audio, video, status bar, and connection information.
• User-selectable transmission settings, including a control panel for Windows 95 style adjustment. Contacts/Management Options
• Phone book with graphical contact cards (to save, add, and edit participant and public conference sites).
• Directory services (for locating CUSeeMe users online). Option to register electronically during installation.
• CU-SeeMe profiles management (creation of multiple profiles), directory services management, listener management, parental control. User-Selectable Audio Modes
• 2.4 Kbps and 8.5 Kbps codecs to support 28.8+ Kbps modems.
• 16 Kbps and 32 Kbps codecs for higher bandwidth connections.
• Forward error correction for greater audio integrity.
• Choice of Hands Free transmission or Push To Talk. Echo Reduction User-Selectable Video Modes
• 24-bit true color and 4-bit grayscale support.
• Advanced controls for tuning video image transmission.

General Requirements

• TCP/IP (Winsock compliant) / PPP for dial-up connection.
• Windows 95/NT 4.0 (a Macintosh version is also available). Standards
• TCP/IP multicast support for LAN/WAN conferencing.
• Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) video codec for high-quality video over LANs and ISDN or higher connections.
• Supports DirectShow (ActiveMovie) and Video for Windows.
• Whiteboard and Chat for multiuser collaboration during conferences.
• H.323 standards-based video codec (H.263), whiteboard (T.120). Optional Hardware
• Video: camera with serial port digitizer; standard analog video camera (such as a camcorder) with video capture card not using overlay technology; USB camera.
• Audio: speakers or headphones; 16bit sound card and drivers; microphone or headset to send audio.

INSTALLATION/DOCUMENTATION
Installation for CU-SeeMe was very easy. The software was contained on a single CD-ROM, and we had no difficulty installing it. We were able to use our USB-compliant Kodak DVC 300 without any difficulty. The documentation for CUSeeMe was excellent. It included a well-organized table of contents, informative text, and a thorough index, as well as plenty of screenshots. Our only criticism is that the manual lacked a section describing how to optimize particular settings to get the best performance.

OPERATIONAL TESTING
Setup
The setup in our home office coincided with CU-SeeMe’s minimum requirements. Specifically, our PC had 10 MB of hard disk space, 16 MB of RAM, and a 100 MHz Pentium processor. Our modem delivered 28.8 Kbps of bandwidth. Trial Videoconference Two of our CTI engineers participated in a videoconference via the White Pine software. One engineer was at the Networld + Interop show in Atlanta; the other was in our home office in Connecticut.

The engineer from Connecticut knew the IP address of the multicast conference. (This videoconference was being held by White Pine software and CTI magazine at the Hot Spot in the CommUnity section of Networld + Interop.) The engineer pressed the Call button within CU-SeeMe and manually entered the IP address. A list of videoconference forums was then displayed on his screen. He chose the White Pine/CTI forum and entered a password to enter the forum. (This password capability is an optional feature, which can ensure that only invited participants can enter the conference forum.) After entering the forum, the engineer back in Connecticut was able to see his fellow engineer down in Atlanta, as well as four other participants, onscreen.

The engineer back in Connecticut was a bit jealous that he wasn’t at Networld + Interop checking out the latest CTI products. Just to give the engineer in Connecticut a hard time, the engineer in Atlanta picked up the camera, panned the show floor, and provided a running commentary: “Now you are here in Atlanta attending the show. Of course it’s much nicer here — at least 20 degrees warmer outside…”

Optimizing Performance
At first, the quality and throughput were rather poor. Fortunately, we had White Pine technicians on hand to assist us. One of the technicians typed into the chat window some parameter and configuration changes to improve performance. The engineer back in Connecticut changed to MJPEG 1.01 and reduced the quality setting from 90% to 20%, which improved performance greatly. (The MJPEG 1.01 codec includes compression which improved the quality.) After we made these changes, we were able to see some movement. Of course, the movement was a little jerky, but surprisingly good considering our Internet dialup was only 28.8 Kbps.

Capturing Screenshots
We didn’t capture any screenshots during the videoconference between Networld + Interop and Connecticut, so we tested the product again by joining the White Pine Caf�, and joined a videoconference in progress among seven or so conferees. Note that some of the conferees lacked cameras, so not everyone’s picture is displayed. Also, conferees can hide their image if they so desire (an important feature in any videoconferencing product).

Arranging And Joining Conferences
In its latest release, CU-SeeMe offers an improved user-interface, which makes it very easy to set up or join conferences. CU-SeeMe also features an online directory for locating other CUSeeMe users as well as a list of public reflector sites for live group interaction.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We’d like CU-SeeMe to support telephone access via a H.323 gateway, a capability already available from Microsoft’s NetMeeting. Also, although CU-SeeMe supports whiteboarding, it does not allow for the sharing of applications, which is something we hope White Pine adds to the product.

Call history and reporting (call accounting) would be an important and crucial feature in any business application. Businesses need to know how long a videoconference lasted and with whom to prevent abuse, which is why call accounting software is installed in virtually every business.

Finally, we would like to see the ability to record the videoconference, both video and chat dialogues, for future reference or review.

CONCLUSION
CU-SeeMe has an advantage over many other desktop videoconferencing products in that it supports multiple video feeds displayed on-screen to multiple participants using internal multicasting technology. This is a claim which other popular videoconferencing software, including Microsoft’s NetMeeting, cannot make.

CU-SeeMe also has another product called MeetingPoint which is particularly useful in the corporate environment for videoconferencing. It is H.323 compliant, and features multicasting, T.120 support, supports multiple operating systems, and works with CUSeeMe as well as NetMeeting.

MeetingPoint may just help change the way people view CU-SeeMe. CUSeeMe will be viewed not just as a hobbyist’s “toy”, but as a powerful business tool. CU-SeeMe is a fine product, which has matured greatly since its early days. Look for CU-SeeMe to make in-roads in the business arena.