First feedback from our users
Mustansar Mehmood
This is the first feedback we have from a faculty for a meeting conducted last night over BBB.
Regards,
Mustansar
-- Mustansar Mehmood Educational System Developer& Integrator Information Technology 6100 Main St. MS 119 Houston Texas 77005 Phone:(713)348-2523 Fax :(713)348 6099 email:must...@rice.edu I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when,you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -- Poul Anderson
Fred Dixon
I've given comments to each of your issues and, were possible,
provided links to our documentation for more in-depth answers.
> 1. A considerable delay in between the image and the sound of voices.
You will hear a 2-4 second delay in the current version of
BigBlueButton 0.71a. See
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Why_is_there_a_delay_in_the_audio_when_I_use_VoIP?
We've made improvements to the audio in the upcoming BigBlueButton
0.8. When we release a beta (soon). Hopefully, you can try it when
it's released and let us know if we've lowered the latency of audio
for your needs.
> 2. An echo when I spoke every time, and also I could hear an echo from each
> student when they spoke. The students said that they had the same effect.
There is no echo cancellation in BigBlueButton.
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#Why_is_there_an_echo_in_the_voice_conference?
> 3. Interruptions to each other did not help to better communicate... hard to
> understand the others. In order to understand something, only one person
> could speak, and the others had to listen carefully.
That will happen a lot of with the audio delay. The pause of 2-4
seconds between audio makes it hard for a listener to know if the user
has actually stopped talking.
If the audio was very low, you can have users increase the sensitivity
of their microphone. See
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#How_can't_others_hear_me_in_the_voice_conference?
> 4. During the session, there was a slightly noise at the background, a kind
> of annoying but still anyone could bear it for a while.
When a user is in a noisy environment, it's best for the moderator to
mute the user, or have them turn down the sensitivity of their
microphone (see above link).
> 5. I tried to share the screen, but it took a while to show up the image,
> then, the sharing-screen froze.
Desktop sharing is probably the weakest part of BigBlueButton.
Because it uses a Java applet, it's not going to be as fast as a
native DLL that gets downloaded and run on the user's computer (which
is how all commercial implementations work).
At the risk of sending you off to another FAQ entry, there is a more
in-depth discussion of the speed of desktop sharing here
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_make_desktop_sharing_faster?
> An finally, BBB may work one-on-one, but hard to believe that it will with
> four or five attendees in the videoconference.
We won't have any improvements to desktop sharing in the upcoming
BigBlueButton 0.8, but we hope you'll take another look at it when we
release the beta and see if the improvements to audio are sufficient.
> I would love to see this Owlspace videoconference tool working better
I quickly checkout out Owlspace and it looks like it's using Sakai.
The Sakai community has a native tool for BigBlueButton at
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/BBB/Home
If we can get BigBlueButton working to where it's meeting your needs,
then integration with Owlspace should be fairly straightforward using
the above tool.
Thanks Mustansar for all your feedback.
Regards,... Fred
--
http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/FAQ#BigBlueButton_Committer
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HostBBB.com
in educational classroom and business settings few dozen times since
early 2010.
The teacher typically is lecturing with <25 students attending. The
mics are all muted, and a student raises their hand to ask a question,
the professor unmutes and lets them talk.
It takes a little practice and expectation setting with students to
run an efficient meeting or class.
To comment on your points.
1) Video and audio are not synced seperate streams, there will always
out of sync... But a non issue for learning as long as you have clear
audio. A lot of my customers just use audio, chat, presentation and
don't enable cams for students as it is a distraction.
2) ECHO = open mics... students need to have headsets, any audio
coming over the pc will loop thru mic. the core developers are
working on echo cancelation but not now. You should here no echo if
everyone has headset... Also the practice of an instructor muting
everyone while they lecture ensures no distractions or echos during
lecture.
3) This applys to a normal classroom. everyone needs to shutup and
listen.... One person talks at a time. The current 2 second delay is
acceptable once exepactations and ground rules are set on how to ask a
question.
4) You shouldnt hear any background noise, probably was an open mic on
one of the students pcs.
5) When you share desktop... (and video, presentation, audio) as the
moderator, you need to push (upload quite a bit of data). Most
residential internet connections have 3-5mb down, but upload can be
limited anywhere from 384kp-1mb. Moderators need good
connections....
As for on off campus, we have active customers in brazil, argentina,
mexico using US based BBB servers currently for their classes and it
not a problem.
If you are running a BBB server behind your school firewall, you want
to make sure port 1935 RTMP is open so all the bbb traffic doesnt have
to be tunneled thru port 80.. that might be one of the problems you
are having with performance.
Would be glad to help you troubleshout any performance issues, just
post then in the setup group.
regards,
Stephen
hostbbb.com
On Aug 30, 2:11 pm, Mustansar Mehmood <m...@rice.edu> wrote:
> Dear BBB Community,
> This is the first feedback we
> have from a faculty for a meeting conducted last night over BBB.
> /The images are more or less acceptable, despite the slow movement of
> /1. A considerable delay in between the image and the sound of voices./
> /2. An echo when I spoke every time, and also I could hear an echo from
> /3. Interruptions to each other did not help to better communicate...
> /4. During the session, there was a slightly noise at the background, a
> kind of annoying but still anyone could bear it for a while./
> /5. I tried to share the screen, but it took a while to show up the
> connection, maybe mine at home is not as powerful as the one at
> /
> /
> /Therefore, since this test has been done, firstly, I am not confident
> campus. Then, thirdly, how about using it with the other university in
> /An finally, BBB may work one-on-one, but hard to believe that it will
> with four or five attendees in the videoconference. /
> /
> /
> /Since the first real videoconference will take place in two weeks, to
> /I would love to see this Owlspace videoconference tool working better,
> but ... /
> /
> /
> /Any suggestions???/"
> Mustansar
>
> --
> Mustansar Mehmood
> Educational System Developer& Integrator
>
> Information Technology
> 6100 Main St. MS 119
> Houston Texas 77005
>
> Phone:(713)348-2523
> Fax :(713)348 6099