[AG-TECH] Microsoft Research Access Grid node up on one box

[Jay Beavers]

I'm holding out for optimizations before stretching this to more capture
devices.  Both Pentium IV optimized compression codecs and optimized
video decoding software should improve CPU utilization.

I'm currently seeing ~70% CPU utilization with one CIF capture, four CIF
render, and ~20 QCIF render (as varies in the AG Lobby, I've seen up to
35) with almost all the CPU utilization attributed to VIC (not DDVIC).
I don't have enough CPU free to add 2-4 capture cameras.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hereld [mailto:hereld at mcs.anl.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 3:12 PM
To: Jay Beavers; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Cc: Todd Needham
Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Microsoft Research Access Grid node up on one box


any cycles left for 4 camera captures in this config?  looks cool. --
mark

At 02:33 PM 3/15/2001 -0800, Jay Beavers wrote:
>Just thought I'd let you know that I'm now running an Access Grid node
>on a single ~$4500 computer (not counting displays, microphones,
>cameras) successfully.  I've seen 35 QCIF & 3 CIF video streams work
>great spread across multiple monitors.  Some details:
>
>* Hardware
>
>         Dell Precision 330 Workstation (Pentium IV/1.4 GHz @ ~70% CPU
>utilization, 512 MB RAM w/ 155 MB in use)
>         Primary display adapter NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
>         Secondary display adapter Matrox G200 MMS Quad (four analog
>video outs)
>         2x Dell LCD panels @ 1600x1200
>         3x Compaq MP2800 Projectors @ 1024x768
>         Integrated full duplex audio on motherboard
>         Integrated 100BaseT Ethernet on motherboard
>         Osprey-200 Audio/Video capture card
>         3x free PCI slots (2x PCI, 1x AGP in use)
>         El-cheapo microphone
>         Sony S-Video camera
>
>* Software
>
>         Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 1 & Windows Updates
>applied
>         Osprey-200 drivers v1.52
>         Access Grid Virtual Venue 2000-1219 software
>         Stock VIC v2.8ucl-1.1.3-win32 (necessary to enable send &
>receive on one machine, AG VIC has send disabled)
>         Stock RAT v4.2.13
>         Multicast Beacon v0.63
>
>* Changes from standard Access Grid 2000-1219 installation
>
>         Added stock VIC & RAT to add video send & audio send/receive
to
>one box
>         Moved all services to one Windows 2000 computer
>         Applied Internet Explorer MIME associations for AG components
>(previously sent to this list)
>         Modified start-beacon.bat to use "jview ..." instead of "java
>..." to work with MS VM native to Windows 2000
>
>* Issues uncovered during testing
>
>         Pre-Beta 2 Windows XP (next release of Windows 2000)
>incompatible with RAT send (RAT receives just fine)
>
>* Work moving forward
>
>         Investigating interoperable, more efficient Windows client
>applications based on DirectShow and TAPI functionality included in
>Windows 2000 & Windows XP
>         Investigating improving video quality & system efficiency
using
>different codecs like MPEG-4, MSVideo, & MSAudio
>         Investigating improved CPU efficiency with new Pentium-IV
>optimized codecs
>         Investigating software echo cancellation (part of upcoming
>Windows XP release)
>         Investigating fault tolerant multicast RTP video transport
>         Future integration work pending discussions with AG team @ ANL
>
>
>FYI, I'll be out of office next week and not very responsive to
>questions about this setup while offsite.
>
>  - jcb