Re: Big Blue Button

[Jim Garrett]

On Thu, 23 Apr 2020 12:12:17 -0400
Ruben Rodriguez <address@hidden> wrote:

> On 4/23/20 11:49 AM, msunet wrote:
> > Can you meet sometime tomorrow? I am on PST time, can "leave work"
> > early in the afternoon.  
> 
> I can join tomorrow too, just not noon to 1pm eastern.
> 

Wow, I'm amazed by all this enthusiasm!  I don't have time to respond
as quickly as people are proposing, so if anyone would like to go ahead
and schedule something, please go ahead, broadcast it here, and I'll
attend if I can (and others will too I'm sure).

Let's summarize the results on the wiki page.  Which implies:  we
should think beforehand of some specific things to test out.

One specific question I have is:  can BBB put all participant images on
a screen at the same time?  Or is there a maximum?*  And when that
maximum is approached, does the system show signs of stress?  It sounds
like multiple people have had positive experience with BBB, but in
truth we haven't yet stressed it for the large meeting use case.

Some additional information I think it would be worthwile to record:
- Number of people
- Approximate location of server and participants (ballpark, not trying
  to invade privacy, just trying to get approximate distance from
  server)
- OS and browser each participant is using
- Quality of audio: is it scratchy?  Does it stutter periodically?  How
  often?
- Video:  how often does it freeze?  How is resolution?  Does it align
  with audio (i.e., do lips move without relation to audio)?
- Someone could purposefully go somewhere with a weak WiFi connection
  and see if the system makes reasonable trade-offs.  (My ideal system
  would automatically downgrade video resolution, then maybe turn off
  video altogether, and at all times preserve audio quality.)
- Also, someone could purposefully use a laptop's speakers and built-in
  mic to test how well algorithms deal with potential feedback
- And add some background noise while at it.  This could be fun.

Other characteristics?  Maybe we could fill out an etherpad
collectively while we meet.

-Jim

*Having a maximum number of videos on screen is an admissible design
decision even if Zoom does otherwise.  The huge corporation at which I
work uses Microsoft Teams, and it puts at most 4 large images on the
screen at once.  A few additional participants are given thumbnails
along the bottom, and people beyond that go off the screen
altogether.  When someone speaks, their image gets promoted to the
large screen. This is probably a clever way to limit computations and
bandwidth for even large meetings.  No one has complained about it yet.