Check NetMeeting will work in your Networking Situation

Check in advance that NetMeeting is a suitable H.323 client for you to use depending on your Fiirewall/NAT route to the Internet. An easy way to do this is as follows:

1. Check what IP address your system appears to be from the outside internet. A check of this can be done via the URL: http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/mcu/ip.shtml if you are not using a proxy server.
2. Check what IP address your NetMeeting appears to use. This can be done by using Help -> About Windows NetMeeting. The IP address it will use will be the first one (or only one) listed at the bottom left.
3. Check the external and internal IP addresses are identical. If not, then NetMeeting may not able to connect via the MCU in your context.
4. If the IP numbers are not the same then NetMeeting is unlikely to work with the MCU as some call backs to you will be blocked or not directed to your system. You may have to use an H.323 client that allows for configuration of the IP addresses to cope with Firewalls and NAT. Examples of such systems are the Polyspan ViaVideo or the VCON ViGO.

Audio Setup - This is Important

Enter NetMeeting, ensure you are not in a call, and use "Tools" -> "Audio Tuning Wizard" to set your levels. Ensure your micrtophone sound level just puts the signal level into one of the red bars - higher and you get distorted sound, lower and you are too quiet to listeners and you will frequently drop out with silence supression - resulting in choppy sound.

You can adjust this and get it right locally without going via the MCU, as the MCU does not affect sound levels. Ask for help from others if you cannot get your microphone to generate a sufficient signal level, as there are ways to boost this using software and hardware settings or changing between line in and more sensitive microphone in inputs on your computer sound card.

Setup NetMeeting Options

1. Tick "Use a gatekeeper to place calls"
2. Set the gatekeeper IP address to mcu.aiai.ed.ac.uk
3. Tick "Log on using my account name"
4. For the "Account name" type in some string for your real name or location
5. Untick "Log on using my account name"
6. Tick "Log on using my phone number" (note that this is your E.164 number)
7. Fill in your assigned E.164 number (this is not strict at the moment)
8. Click "OK" for the "Advanced Calling Options" dialogue box
9. Click "OK" for the "Options" dialogue box

Procedure to Start NetMeeting with MCU

1. Close all applications that are playing/recording sound or video signals.
2. Check that the MCU unit is running: using a web-browser, access web-page http://129.215.219.10. If the unit is running, you should see a RADVision page prompting you to enter the conference meeting number. If you do not see this, check your local internet connection (access a different remote web-page and click refresh), and, if this connection is okay, contact the Edinburgh MCU people.
3. After starting NetMeeting, check under "Call" menu item that you are logged on (it should say "Log Off from mcu.aiai.ed.ac.uk" if you are already logged on). If it says Log On then your system cannot connect to the MCU.
4. To make management of incoming data sharing calls easier and less error prone, set the Call -> Automatically Accept Calls option on (ticked). Unfortunately NetMeeting will not keep this setting between runs of the program.
5. Check your sound levels using "Tools" -> "Audio Tuning Wizard". Ensure your microphpne generates a signal that is showing just one bar of red.
6. You can now join a meeting via the MCU by using "Call" -> "New Call" and in the "To:" box type a meeting number as the address to link to. The MCU automatically establishes the meeting if necessary when the first caller connects.
7. If you have successfully connected, in the NetMeeting participant's list shown in the bottom panel of the main NetMeeting window you should see your own login name along with the MCU name. (If the bottom panel shows audio in/out levels, clicking on 'head' icon just above this will cause the participant list to be displayed.)
8. If you have a camera connected, select "Tools" -> "Video" -> "Send" to begin transmitting.
9. You can see the status of a conference and who is connected via a status web page at http://129.215.219.10. Note to use the IP number rather than the DNS name (mcu.aiai.ed.ac.uk) as some web browsers have script problems with the DNS name. Type in the meeting number to view the current participants.
10. During the conference, occasionally check the audio levels from your microphone - keep it so that when you speak it just goes into the red. When not active in or just listening to the conference you might consider muting the microphone (unticking a check-box on the main NetMeeting panel will do this).

Meeting Numbers

The meeting number is made up of 2 parts:

• A service prefix (e.g. 60)
• An unique conference id number (e.g. 123).

For example 60123 would select a meeting using service 60 with id 123 which gives 4 way continuous presence with the first 3 connections taking up locations for the duration of the conference and the last position being switched to the last speaker not already on screen.

Multiple meetings can be sgarted at the same time, and sevelal meetings can have the same service prefix so long as the conference if number appended is differenty. But the MCU reserves capacity at the start of a meeting, and this may take all available capacity even if nota lot of poeple are connected. The capacity taken for a meeting for each type of service depends on the MCU setup chosen.

MCU Status

Video Screen has Black Edge or is Low Quality

You can set video size and quality in "Tools" -> "Options" -> "Video".

The large option in Send Image Size may not be available or there may be a black frame around the video window. This can occur even if the video capture adapter is capable of sending large video images. This is usually caused when the video capture adapter is not registered with NetMeeting.

When your computer is configured to use the video capture adapter and it is not registered with NetMeeting, NetMeeting queries the video capture adapter for its default capture frame size. The default capture frame size is usually 160 x 120 or 320 x 240. NetMeeting uses the default capture frame size to generate all frame sizes. They are:

• Small 128 x 96
• Medium 176 x 144
• Large 352 x 288

If the default capture frame size is 320 x 240 (or close to it), NetMeeting enables all the image size options because a 160 x 120 image can be created by down-sampling a 320 x 240 image. NetMeeting uses the same techniques with the 160 x 120 default frame size to generate the remaining frame sizes. Video performance can be slow because of the CPU overhead of capturing video in 320 x 240 mode.