Video codec of video conference

[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Dear all

I have some question about BigBlueButton and Flash.

1- Which video codec BigBlueButton use if I have Flash Player 10? I
think it's Sorenson but I check in Flash Player Support website and
they said that: with Flash Player 8 and above, VP6 is the default
codec? But when I check in FLEX3.5 and ActionScript3, there's no
method to change the codec of camera. Please explain to me about that.
It's very important to me
2- How can I change the codec of camera in video conference to VP6 or
H264 to get better quality of video? I look in source code but there's
no method to change the codec. Only SetMode(), SetQuality() and
SetKeyFrameInterval().

Thanks
Hieu Nguyen

[Pablo Sotomayor]

You can ask this in bigbluebutton mailing lists, or check if there an answer in bbb wiki page on google code site.

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[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Sorry but I don't think users can answer my question.
This is the mailing-list of BigBlueButton Developer, isn't it?
i searched many times but I can't find my answer or can not confirm
them.
It's very important to me. Please help me
Thanks

[Pablo Sotomayor]

Ops
I did a mistake, sorry.

[Denis Zgonjanin]

Hi Hien,

That's right, the codec is Sorenson H263.

While Flash Player can play H264 video, I don't think it can actually encode it yet. Even if you could change the codec to H264 on Flash Player, the BigBlueButton server could not stream your video, as the red5 server is configured to stream H263. For the same reason you can't stream VP6, or any other codec.

There was an effort to change the video codec to H264, and we had a working prototype, with very good quality and much lower bandwidth. However we decided to abandon it because of H264 licensing issues. H264 is a closed and proprietary format. Instead we'll be moving the codec to VP8 - which is free and open source. This will probably happen in the next few months.

Until then, your best option is to play around with the setQuality() function.

- Denis

[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Hi Denis
Thanks for the reply
Now I can confirm that video codec of BigBlueButton's video is
Sorenson Spark
As you said, you have made a propotype for H264 codec. So can you give
me some informations about achitechture, method or any thing to create
a version of BigBlueButton for this codec, please? I will be very glad
if you help me to do this. I want to create a version of BigBlueButton
use different codec like VP6 or continue to VP8 as you said, to
provide better quality of video
Once again, Please help me or give me a clue. I really need that.
Thank you very much

Hieu Nguyen

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[Denis Zgonjanin]

I'm not the one who made the prototype so I can't give you much info on it. In any case it's not something that's easy. It took a developer several weeks to do it, and he's somewhat of a video expert. 

Try playing around with the setQuality() method as I suggested. It increases quality, you just need more bandwidth to stream. 

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[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Thanks Denis
As you said, when I use setQuality() to get better video, it will
increase bandwidth. But if we can use another codec, we can have
better quality with less bandwidth. So if someone has Internet
connection with low bandwidth, he still can use BBB.
It's my target.

Thanks

On Jul 27, 8:35 am, Denis Zgonjanin <deniszgonja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not the one who made the prototype so I can't give you much info on it.
> In any case it's not something that's easy. It took a developer several
> weeks to do it, and he's somewhat of a video expert.
> Try playing around with the setQuality() method as I suggested. It increases
> quality, you just need more bandwidth to stream.
>

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[Pablo Sotomayor]

The guys of openH323/H323Plus project choosed x264 codec for open source H.323 videoconference mcu called openmcu.
http://www.h323plus.org

VP8 codec is better than x264?

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[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Dear Pablo

I can say that VP8 is better and better than H264 ( H264 is codec as
Sorenson, VP6, VP8, x264 is library for encoding video stream into
H264)
VP8 could deliver twice H264's quality at half the bandwith, is it
better?
And on the other side, VP8 is free, H264 need license.

Thanks

On Jul 27, 9:38 am, Pablo Sotomayor <pa...@sotomayor.com.br> wrote:
> The guys of openH323/H323Plus project choosed x264 codec for open source H.323 videoconference mcu called openmcu.http://www.h323plus.org

[Pablo Sotomayor]

i thought x264 was free too. http://www.videolan.org/developers/x264.html
i read some articles about H.264 licensing issue, and what i got was: x264 is an opensource implementation of H264, and violate H.264 patents, is countries with patent laws like US.

About the codec choosed for BBB, i think the best choise is one which good support of hardware accelatated encoding. I think apple iChat im software uses H264 compression for video. I made a videocall beteween 2 new macbooks 2010 and noticed a expresive increase in CPU utilization during video call.

I know that most graphics cards supports video decoding at these days, but i dont think it can be used for encoding. I know too there is some hardware accelerated compressors like ElGato Turbo 264 dongles that can be used for encode specific video codecs, but i read in some reviews that they not provides a high quality encode technology.

Maybe when the open video standards are finished, we can have a open-video-video-compressor-dongle with software upgradeble firmware, or maybe built-in on the new GPUs.

[Pablo Sotomayor]

About the audio-conference, what audio codec is used on bbb for asterisk?
It is possible to set it for G.729 or a similar codec?

[Denis Zgonjanin]

Currently no. We're trying to move to Speex for the next release. 

As far as all questions in terms of codecs go, the codecs are not easily changeable. Flash Player supports a limited number of codecs for encoding, so we're limited by those. Currently those codecs are Nellymoser for audio and H263 for video. Adobe says they're working on VP8 support, and Flex 4 now supports Speex, so we'll be moving to those two codecs for video and audio, respectively. 

- Denis

[Hieu Nguyen Huy]

Dear Denis

I'm very glad to hear that next release will be support Speex as audio
codec
Now I think that Flex4 supports Speex with 8kHz sample rate, and
Asterisk now supports Speex with 16kHz sample rate. So can they
interact with each other?
I know that Red5Phone transcode from nellymoser to ulaw, and it make
the delay time of voice conference. So I think if we can change the
codec from nellymoser to Speex and Asterisk also use Speex, they can
interact with each other then we don't need to transcode.So we can
decrease the delay time. Is it true?

Thanks
Hieu Nguyen

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[Denis Zgonjanin]

Hi Hien,

We had a developer implement wideband Speex support for Asterisk 1.8. We'll probably package our own Asterisk package until 1.8 is out.

Currently we're also working on Freeswitch support. Freeswitch already supports narrow and wideband speex out of the box. We're testing FS and the delay problem seems to be gone, even without switching to Speex. So the delay problem doesn't seem related to red5phone, as much as Asterisk itself somehow.

- Denis

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