Bridging a Polycom into the AG

[Terry Disz]

Ti,

I believe this is what Tom Coffin at Access has been doing for a while now.
You might want to check with him.

Terry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-dev at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-dev at mcs.anl.gov]On
> Behalf Of Ti Leggett
> Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2002 12:49 AM
> To: Ivan R. Judson
> Cc: 'AG Dev'
> Subject: RE: Bridging a Polycom into the AG
>
>
> On Sat, 2002-10-19 at 14:09, Ivan R. Judson wrote:
> > > While lying down resting, I was thinking that it probably
> > > wouldn't be too hard to bridge a polycom unit into the AG so
> > > that a) Remote polycom users could participate in an AG
> > > meeting without an AG and b) AG users could participate in a
> > > h323 meeting.
> >
> > It depends on the strategy you employ, but before I poison you with my
> > theories, what'd you come up with? If there's an idea we've missed; I'd
> > sure like to hear it :-)
>
> It was some daydreaming and the ideas aren't solid yet. I know
> the Polycom can accept video inputs from other cameras and can
> output to say a video capture card. I'm not sure if it can handle
> audio inputs from other sources or not which is where we might
> run into some trouble. I'll look at the box briefly on Monday and
> see what looks like a good plan of approach.
>
> > > On a related note, after wiring the uM2 up to be AG-ified and
> > > getting the linux PIG nodes working smoother, I've found out
> > > several things:
> > >
> > > - MatchMakers aren't needed. In order to use unbalanced audio
> > > with the Genter, wire tip or left channel to positive on the
> > > phoenix connector and tie ground to negative and ground on
> > > the pheonix connector. Viola!
> >
> > Excellent. One less piece to have confusion about.
> >
> > > - It looks like the alsa sound drivers are a valid free
> > > alternative to the 4Front drivers, at least on PIG nodes. I
> > > just installed the alsa drivers on personal-ag which has an
> > > i810 chipset and it's full duplex and seems to work quite
> > > nicely. We need to find an alternative to the 4Front drivers
> > > because a) Their should be an open source alternative re:
> > > latest discussion on Groove and b) the es1370 chipset is no
> > > longer being made and c) most computers are coming with
> > > onboard sound which by and far is the i810 or Via chipsets
> >
> > This was mildly confusing to me, but I think the gist of it is: standard
> > onboard audio is now sufficient for AG requirements and works with free
> > drivers (alsa).
> >
> > Caveat: Are those the default drivers with any (hopefully most) linux
> > distributions?
> >
>
> You're right. It now means that onboard audio might be viable under
> linux. I say might as I haven't tested it out on a full blown node that
> uses a gentner.
>
> > > - The linux PIG drm doesn't by default transmit video. The
> > > effect this has is that you can't get your own video feed
> > > locally until you check the transmit from the menu. Oddly
> > > though your video is being fed because remote users see it
> > > fine. I guess that's becuase the vrm is transmitting.
> >
> > This sounds very bizarre, is this with OM vic or ucl vic? It feels like
> > a familiar problem I saw with OM vic once.
>
> ucl vic. Not sure why.
>
> > > - A linux port of the genter software would come in *very*
> > > handy on the uM2 AG node.
> >
> > Yes, although I don't know how much day to day fiddling with the gentner
> > is required. If you have a gain on rat for each site, you can do mixing
> > there -- you don't have to fix your audio. In fact, theoretically once
> > the gentner is set up we shouldn't have to fiddle with it at all (this
> > assumes our mics are not moving and people are basically in the same
> > position and orientation every time, which happens to be the case 75-80%
> > of the time thanks to furniture).
>
> I say it'd be nice because with the uM2 there'd probably be more
> fiddling since it can move around and the environment will change. I can
> probably come up with a setting that sounds decent in most settings but
> it'd be nice if I could tweak under linux.
>
> > Good work!
> >
> > --Ivan
> --
> Ti Leggett <leggett at mcs.anl.gov>
>