| 1. How to schedule a conference meeting and inform attendees about the conference? |
| First, click on the tab above 'Scheduling'. It will ask you for you login user id and password. Type in your user id and password and click on 'Submit'. It will direct you the Schedule Form. Fill in all the necessary details.
If you want to send an invitation to you participants about this schedule then, you can type in their email address in the 'Participants' field. Or you could also make use of the Address Book, by clicking the 'Participants'.
After filling in all the details, if user wants to send the invitation, click on 'Send Invitation'. Or if user does not want to sent the invitation yet, user can click on the 'Save' button to save the schedule first. |
| 2. How to set security to a conference to a conference session?
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| When the moderator creates a conference, he can allow access to all users or set a password to the session. |
| 3. How to join a conference session?
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| After the conference session is started by the moderator, participants can click on the URL that is sent to them via email or other means. Participants will be prompted to download and install client software if they are joining a conference for the first time. When prompted, enter name and password (if required) to enter the conference session. |
| 4. What are the minimum requirements of computer ?
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| Hardware: Pentium III 800 MHz, 128M RAM, sound card, microphone, web camera, broadband connection
Software: Windows 2000 Professional SP4 or Windows XP, Office 2002 or 2003, Windows Media Player 9 and above, Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, DirectX 8 and above |
| 5. How much bandwidth is needed ?
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| The amount of bandwidth required is directly related to the number of participants is the conference, especially the number of participants whose video/audio channel are opened. When a speaker chooses 64 kbps as his video quality, an average of 100 kbps needs to be uploaded. Similarly, receiving one video/audio requires a download of 100 kbps. In a conference session with 4 participants with all video/audio channels opened (everybody speaking), the required bandwidth is 100 kbps upload and 300 kbps download. In the case where participants are in the same LAN, the participants will share the same downloaded data from one of the participants, thus saving WAN bandwidth. |
| 6. Unable to join conference after clicking on URL?
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If Moderator has not started the session, a message ‘Sorry, the conference session that you are attending is not in progress yet. Please wait for the session to start.’ will be displayed. No need to close the browser as when the conference session starts, you will be brought to the login page. |
| 7. The connection to the conference server fails
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| The conference software will try various methods to connect to the conference server. When all methods fail, a message ‘Connection failed’ will be displayed. Check if you need a proxy server to connect to the internet. If required, enter the required information in the pop up dialogue box. The software will make use of the proxy setting in Internet Explorer, if configured. In this case, only the username and password is required. If you still cannot connect, please check if UDP 7350 – 7353, or TCP 443 or TCP 80 ports are opened. We recommend that UDP connection be used for better video/audio experience. |
| 8. The application display does not fit the screen. |
| The conference software requires a screen resolution of 1024 x 768. |
| 9. Other participants cannot hear me.
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| Before entering the conference session, in the ‘AV Setting’ dialogue box, select the desired audio device. Click on the ‘Test’ button and speak into the microphone. If there is a green meter bar, the audio device is working properly. The level of the microphone can also be adjusted here. If there is no meter display, please check if the microphone is properly connected and the audio device is correctly configured. In Windows 2000, check that no other applications are using the audio device |
| 10. I cannot see my own video. |
| Before entering the conference session, in the ‘AV Setting’ dialogue box, select the desired video device. Click on the ‘Test’ button. You should see yourself in the video window. If not, check that no other applications are using the video device (e.g. MSN). Or check that the driver is correctly installed. Also check if the video device supports CIF (352x288) – RGB 24. The conference software makes use of this format to output video. |
| 11. I cannot hear other participants. |
| If you can see the audio meter below the video window of the said participant, please check that the audio playback setting on your computer is correct, for example whether it is ‘Mute’. The software uses the audio playback device that is defined in your computer. If you cannot see the audio meter when the other participant is speaking, please ask him/her to check whether his/her audio input device is properly configured. |
| 12. Can I use DV devices ? |
| Yes. The conference software supports most DV devices as video/audio sources. Check that the DV device (connected via firewire or USB) outputs uncompressed video (Some DV devices outputs compressed Mpeg2 –DVD video). Also ensure that it supports CIF (352x288) RGB 24 format. (Some earlier Sony DV cams supports only up to 320x240). If the DV device cannot satisfy the above, consider using a video capture card or USB to analog converter to connect the DV device. |
| 13. I cannot see the video of other participants. |
| If you also cannot see your own video, please check that you have installed MS DirectX8 or higher. (You can check the version by: Start – Run, type ‘dxdiag.exe’ and click ‘OK’) Or try to lower the ‘Hardware Acceleration’ of your display card. (Control Panel – Display – Settings – Advanced – Troubleshoot) If you cannot see other participant’s video, check that his status is ‘Speaking’. Also check the video status of the participant in the ‘Participant List’. If it is ‘Off’, he might have chosen not to send his video or he does not have a video device. Or you may not have enough download bandwidth. The software gives priority to audio data. |
| 14. I can see my own video, but others cannot see me. |
| Check that you have ‘Speaking’ rights in the conference. Only participants who have been granted ‘Speaking’ rights can be seen or heard by others. Also check that you have not disabled sending of your video. When you are doing ‘Document Share’, your video will be temporarily disabled. This is to conserve upload bandwidth. You can manually enable your video sending. Or you can wait until the upload of your document is complete and the software will automatically enable your video. |
| 15. How do I get 'Speaking' rights? |
| If you wish to speak in the conference session, you have to ‘raise hand’. Click on the fourth icon on the top right hand corner of your screen. Whether you will be able to speak after ‘raise hand’ will depend on whether you are a co-moderator or a participant. The moderator needs to grant permission to a participant to speak. A co-moderator automatically becomes a speaker after he ‘raise hand’ The moderator can also invite anyone to speak. That person just has to accept the invitation and he immediately becomes a speaker. After you finish speaking and wants stop sending your video/audio, click on ‘raise hand’ again. |
| 16. There is a big delay in audio transmission |
| Normally, audio delay is due to network conditions, participants are connected to the system via different networks with different conditions. UDP transmission for video/audio is more efficient than TCP. The response time from some networks to the server may be long. The conference server receives video/audio data from all speakers and sends them to all other participants. The bandwidth requirement of the server is thus high. For example assume there are 10 people in a conference with 4 people speaking. (128 kbps video quality) The speakers require a download bandwidth of 160 x 3 = 480 kbps. Non speakers require 160 x 4 = 640 kbps. For the server, the download bandwidth required is 160 x 4 = 640 kbps and the upload bandwidth required is 160 x 3 x 4 plus 160 x 4 x (10 – 4) = 5.76 Mbps. |
| 17. There are audio jitters. |
| Audio jitters are cause by network instability of either the speaker or receiver. Audio transmission requires a bandwidth of 40 kbps. If the network is not able to sustain a constant bandwidth of 40 kbps, then jitters will occur. |
| 18. Ways Of improving audio quality. |
| The system uses audio buffer to minimize jitters. Big audio buffer greatly reduces jitters but delay becomes longer. The buffer size was determined based on a conference with four speakers.
When the number of speakers increase, and bandwidth is not enough, audio jitters may be encountered. The moderator can control the number of people speaking at the same time or disable video to correct the situation. Participants can also help by disabling ‘raise hand’ when they have finished speaking. If bandwidth is not sufficient, you can also disable receiving the video of the speakers. |
| 19. What is the maximum number of participants? |
| There is no limit to the number of people that can join a conference session. However due to limitation of hardware and bandwidth, it is limited to 200 participants per server. |
| 20. Difference between Moderator, co-moderator, participant and presenter |
| Moderator: The one who creates and start the conference session. He has complete control over the conference. He can also transfer the moderator control to anybody.
Co-moderator and participant: Both are people who participate in the conference. The only difference is that the co-moderator will have speaking rights immediately when he ‘raise hand’. Participants need the moderator to grant them permission to speak when they ‘raise hand’.
Presenter: When a presenter changes slides, go full screen, screen share, capture snap shots, browse the web, use white board etc, everybody will follow suit. Everybody will see the same data/document on their screen as the presenter. If you are not a presenter, your actions will only affect yourself, others will not be affected, except annotations. |
