by CCF
Collaborative Computing Frameworks
Emory University
Atlanta, GA, USA
October 2 1998
We have a new version (981002) of ccfaudio available at the usual
locations:
http://ccf.mathcs.emory.edu/ccf/software.html
ftp:/cssun.mathcs.emory.edu/pub/ccf/CCFaudio
There are two big improvement of this version:
1) The ability to get out through a particular port (enabling
ccfaudio, in some setups, to work even through a firewall).
2) A fix for a major problem with sound
quality on some models from Sun (especially Ultras).
There are also numerous little UI fixes especially for people who need
to use it in half duplex (mostly affect Linux users).
Read about it and get some screenshots at:
http://ccf.mathcs.emory.edu/ccf/Readmes/ccfaudio.html
Download it in source or binary from:
http://ccf.mathcs.emory.edu/ccf/software.html
What make CCFaudio any different from any other internet phone?
1) Multiparty -- CCFaudio support more than two users. Any number can
join a conference (though we haven't tested with more than 10).
2) Mixing -- when two or more people speak CCFaudio mixes the voices
intelligibly. The number that can be mixes depends only on the
speed of your CPU. A 486-50 has no trouble mixing two voices. Any
Pentium should have no trouble with three simultaneous speakers.
3) Threading -- The gui runs in a separate thread, so fiddling with
the controls does not interrupt the sound stream.
4) No MBONE needed -- Every other conferencing tool we've seen uses
the MBONE for it's multicast, which is bad news if you aren't on
the mbone. CCFaudio does its own networking in a very efficient
way. One udp broadcast per LAN in a session followed by multicast
on each LAN.
5) Ease of use -- All you need to know to join a conference is the
name of the session and the name (or address) of the machine 1
person is on. If someone on your LAN is in the conference you only
need the name of the session.
6) CCFringer-- For even greater ease of use we provide CCFringer, a
small address book, conference creator, inviter and receiver
program to automatically invite people into a conference.
6) High fidelity -- CCFaudio has many user adjustable settings to
control sound quality. Compression, redundancy, silence detection,
input/output volume and more are easily controlled with a point and
click gui interface. (There is even a -nogui switch for those
without X windows.) We find that even under bad network conditions
CCFaudio is intelligible with up to 30% packet loss if you turn on
redundancy.
7) Source availability -- Teach yourself how to build an internet
phone :)
--
Michael D, Hirsch Work: (404) 727-7940
Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 FAX: (404) 727-5611
Public key for encrypted mail available upon request (or finger