Conference Rooms

Participating in a MICE conference is possible from either a single workstation or a conference room (CR). While workstations allow desktop conferencing by a single person, conference rooms seat a group of people and offer more specialized, mostly higher quality technical equipment. "Conference Rooms" and workstations are interoperable.

The Basic Technology

The CR offers a set of cameras (for remoting people, documents, flipcharts and so on), video monitors (to monitor all the video signals, for example for previewing different video inputs), and the necessary audio equipment and controls. For MICE multimedia conferencing, a Shared Workspace has been added (by means of a workstation in the CR), which allows the participants to write, draw, and point on a common electronic workspace ("wb" from LBL) and at the same time hear and see each other.

The MICE CR is usually equipped with

The CMMC software is used to control the codec and to set up complex connections, such as ISDN.

The codec digitizes and compresses the video and feeds the resulting datastream via a high speed serial interface into the workstation for packetisation and transmission over packet switching networks or via an adapter into ISDN.. Similarly in the opposite direction.

The software tools used in the CR workstation are essentially the same as those in a standalone workstation, which guarantees compatibility between the two.

Video transmission may be done by software or hardware codec. Compatibility between different types is achieved via the H.261 standard. The preferred methods for the CR are hardware codec and an unicast connection to the Conference Multiplexing and Management Center (CMMC software) developed by UCL.

Audio may be sent and received along with the video via the codec but on packet switching, it is usually routed on an Internet multicast route separate from video. Then indeed picture and sound are no longer synchronous, but experience has shown that in most cases it improves the audio quality; and audio is the most essential medium in CR's, by which users judge the quality of a conference.

Reference Conference Room

The project MICE has developed a Reference Conference Room (RCR). Its purpose is to serve as a test installation for gaining experience and insight, to be able to report a reference and model installation, and to eventually offer a service to certain potential users. The RCR is meant to exhibit a common base of equipment: components which one needs in any case and one will also find as part of more specific or more sophisticated CRs.

The RCR was established at GMD and based on experiences of UCL and NTR. As opposed to specific application areas at other places such as distance teaching, the RCR is a general purpose facility. It is also connected to an inhouse broadband system and the German 140 Mbit/s public broadband network. It is possible to switch back and forth between MICE and broadband technologies.

Provision of the RCR was the task of workpackage 4 of Phase I of MICE. Participating partners were:

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