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Re: Big Blue Button


From: Jim Garrett
Subject: Re: Big Blue Button
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 12:05:10 -0400
User-agent: K-9 Mail for Android



On April 24, 2020 3:19:06 AM EDT, Ruben Rodriguez <address@hidden> wrote:


On 4/23/20 9:17 PM, Jim Garrett wrote:
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).

Tomorrow at 6pm EST works for me, and others have suggested that time.
For those who can't make it or want to test the system at other times,
feel free to join https://testbbb.fsf.org
Note that it is an unauthenticated, single room, demo mode instance.
You can find me anytime on freenode.net IRC as "quidam" (and at
#fsfsys). While we test it I can provide stats of system load and bandwidth.

Please don't use the record feature, as you can't retrieve the
recordings anyway, and I would have to remove them ;)

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?*

There is no set limit that I know of, but I don't know how the interface
behaves.

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.

I have only tested it with 3-4 webcams and 20 clients, with maybe 5
people speaking at the same time. It is supposed to be good for up to
100-150 people, but in that kind of scenario most people would have
their webcam/audio turned off.

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)

The server is in Somerville, MA.
8 core virtual machine (qemu-kvm) with 8GB ram, running on AMD Opteron
62xx CPU and KGPE-D16 motherboard with a free software BIOS (libreboot)
and running Trisquel 8 on both the server host and the VM guest OS.

BigBlueButton was deployed with this script I wrote:
https://devel.trisquel.info/ruben/communication-install-scripts/blob/master/BigBlueButton.sh

It is meant to be used with a frontend (for user management), we use it
with Canvas LMS, but it can be used with several other platforms.

- 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.



I have a conflict at that time but please carry on without me! I look forward to hearing how it went.

Jim Garrett

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