Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/16/92
CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_
Reported by Jack Drescher/MCNC and Ari Ollikainen/LLNL
Minutes of the Remote Conferencing BOF (REMCONF)
The goals for the November 16th Meeting were:
o Get a status report and perspective from Russ Hobby on proposals
for how REMCONF might be more formally organized within the IETF.
o Review and get consensus on the Draft Multimedia Communication
Architecture Paper by Yee-Hsiang Chang. This paper has been on
rem-conf for sometime now and some good feedback has been received
from a small set of people. A summary report of this feedback will
be presented. Hopefully, this will stimulate additional feedback
and suggestions on how to resolve some of the issues.
o Start the process of putting together a Catalog of Internet
conferencing packages. MCNC has agreed to compile and periodically
update the catalog. We'd like to agree on format, access and other
logistics. We'd also like to identify initial candidates for the
catalog. This can be a departure point for the interoperability
discussions set for the Wednesday, November 18th AVT Working Group
session.
o Address other issues as time permits.
o Provide a few information item handouts.
Results
I. An MCNC organizational recommendation summary was presented and
discussed. (see attached).
Some Key Discussion Points were:
1. Russ Hobby reported that approval has been granted to include
Architectural type work in the scope of IETF activities.
2. There is an urgency to bring Resource Management out of Research
and in to the IETF now. Future conversations with MIT Computer
Science Lab indicate that introduction via BOF could occur at the
next IETF in March, 1993. Personal Opinion: Perhaps this could be
started in REMCONF.
3. An observation was made that Coding may not require a separate
Working Group.
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II. Yee-Hsiang Chang presented an outline of his paper (pre-supplied) on
``An Architectural Approach for Real-Time Multimedia Communications''.
We didn't reach closure on consensus, but several points made were:
1. The layering concept is a good notion, but rigid definitions should
be avoided.
2. The conferencing application may be unique in how session level
functions invoke multiple services.
3. Ways in which the architecture could be expanded were discussed.
These ranged from taking ``sub-application slices'' and driving
them through to see that the functions were there to support them,
to picking a few services and ``connecting user/provider''. It was
noted that some services may not need manager relationships.
At this point, Eve Schooler volunteered to start a spin-off BOF called
Conferencing Control (CONFCTRL). Summary Minutes of that activity can be
found in the Applications Area Report.
III. A starter list of conferencing packages was constructed and Tom
Sandoski's expanded list and other information about a catalog of
offerings is attached. One purpose for doing this was to identify
coding implementations that could be further analyzed for possible
interoperability purposes. Henning Schulzrinne agreed to gather
additional detailed information and a status report from him is included
here:
A first cut at an encodings summary will be part of the suite
of Internet-Drafts (future RFCs) to come out within the next
few days. Oliver Jones and others volunteered to contribute
information on Video Codecs. Discussion will take place
through the normal rem-conf channels. After discussions with
Steve Casner, we decided that this activity was(roughly) within
the AVT Charter and there was no need to create more structure
at this point
IV. Programs for the December Packet Video Workshop at MCNC were handed
out along with the attached starter list of chipset and codec
manufacturers, which will become part of the ``Offerings Catalog''
mentioned earlier in these Minutes.
It was mentioned that we needed to add card/board level product
companies to this list. That will be done.
2
Attendees
Lou Berger lberger@bbn.com
Dean Blackketter deanb@apple.com
Scott Brim Scott_Brim@cornell.edu
Stephen Casner casner@isi.edu
Kay Chang chang@chang.austin.ibm.com
Wo Chang wchang@nist.gov
Richard Cogger rhx@cornell.cit.bitnet
Kurt Dobbins dobbins@ctron.com
Jack Drescher drescher@concert.net
Tom Easterday tom@cic.net
Hans Eriksson hans@sics.se
William Fink bill@wizard.gsfc.nasa.gov
Jerry Friesen jafries@sandia.llnl.gov
Robert Gilligan Bob.Gilligan@eng.sun.com
Russ Hobby rdhobby@ucdavis.edu
Don Hoffman don.hoffman@eng.sun.com
Christian Huitema christian.huitema@sophia.inria.fr
Oliver Jones oj@pictel.com
Jim Knowles jknowles@binky.arc.nasa.gov
Christopher Kolb kolb@psi.com
Paul Lambert paul_lambert@email.mot.com
Allison Mankin mankin@gateway.mitre.org
Matt Mathis mathis@a.psc.edu
Greg Minshall minshall@wc.novell.com
Michael Newell mnewell@nsipo.nasa.gov
Ari Ollikainen ari@es.net
Jim Perchik perchik@athena.mit.edu
Mike Petry petry@ni.umd.edu
Allan Rubens acr@merit.edu
Tom Sandoski tom@concert.net
Eve Schooler schooler@isi.edu
Henning Schulzrinne hgs@research.att.com
Scott Stein scotts@apple.com
Terrance Sullivan terrys@newbridge.com
Claudio Topolcic topolcic@cnri.reston.va.us
Thierry Turletti turletti@sophia.inria.fr
Janet Vratny janet@apple.com
Abel Weinrib abel@bellcore.com
Jeff Young young@alw.nih.gov
Paul Zawada Zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu
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ATTACHMENTS:
An MCNC REMCONF Architecture Structure
And
Associated Working Group Recommendation
October 7, 1992
TO: Phill Gross
Russ Hobby
Reference Documents:
1) Chart:Remote Conferencing Multimedia Architecture Yee-Hsiang Chang
Proposed Structure
2) Draft Paper:Realtime Multimedia Conferencing Yee-Hsiang Chang
Architecture
3) Draft Paper: Coding/Compression Requirements from Yee-Hsiang Chang
the Network Protocol's Viewpoint
4) Statement of Desired Function (Developed at the Cambridge IETF)
Summary Recommendation:
In order to bring the Remote Conferencing Application to the Internet,
we are recommending the formation of 2 new working groups and 2 new
MCNC Packet Video Consortium Task Groups in addition to the existing
Audio/Video Transport Working Group. A new Architectural Steering
Committee is recommended to oversee and coordinate all of the Working
and Task Groups in volved in the Remote Conferencing endeavor.
The new entities are:
1) Resource Management (Future IETF Working Group)
2) Coding (MCNC Packet Video Consortium Task Group)
3) Connection/Configuration (IETF Working Group)
4) Application (MCNC Packet Video Consortium Task Group)
The overall architecture development and "see that the pieces
are all glued together" functions can be performed by an
IETF Architectural Steering Committee that reports to an IETF
Area Director. This Committee will oversee both the IETF Working
Groups and Packet Video Consortium Task Groups. All Working
Group and Task Group Leaders would be on the Steering Committee.
Note: This assumes that extensions to IP Multicast can be handled
in an existing Working Group such as Multicast Extensions to
OSPF.
Note: There is a decision to be made as to how much Resource Management
should be added to the current level of IP and how much should be
designed in to a future level of IP.
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AUDIO/VIDEO CHIPSET MAKERS
AT&T Microelectronics
Arnold Englander - Mgr. Microelectronic Development
908/771-4578 Phone
Ted Fagenson AT&T Product Marketing
908/771-3040 Phone
9O8/771-2873 Fax.
Cecil Martin - Local Agent(Prime Components, Inc)Raleigh, N.C.
919/850-9866 Phone
Product: AVP series chips
C-Cube Microsystems
Clint Chao - Sales Engineer(Western U.S.)
408/944-6300 Phone
408/944-6314 Fax
Peter Zabollos-Sales Engineer(Eastern U.S.)
617/536-8480 Phone
617/536-8486 Fax
Product: JPEG & other chips
Used in most PC/MAC/Unix boards available today for JPEG (de)compression
Integrated Information Technology
Tim Williams - Product Mgr
408/727-1885 Phone
408/980-0432 Fax
Mike Noonen - Product Marketing
617/270-0678 Phone
617/238-6706 Fax
Intel Corporation
Charlie Tai, Architecture Development Lab
503/696-2803 Phone
503/693-9348 Fax
ctai@ashland.intel.com Email
Motorola
Obie Hasty - Product Manager
512/322-2300 Phone
512/322-2312 Fax
Product: MM Communications Chipset
Joint development with British Telecom for conferencing products
SGS-Thomson
D. Hockaday - Local Acct. Rep Raleigh, N.C.
919-787-6555
Product: MPEG/H.216 chips
Texas Instruments
Walt Bonneau - 340i Program Manager
713-274-2951
Product: 340i
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CODEC VENDORS
Bolter Communications
Glenn Norem -President & CEO
Stuart McLeod
214/484-6456 Phone
214/484-1919 Fax
Product: Vision 7 (Formerly Concept Image 30)
Compression Labs, Inc
John E. Tyson -President & CEO
408/435-3000 Phone
408/922-5429 Fax
Tom Lookabaugh -Director of Research
408/922-5587 Phone
408/922-4608 Fax
toml@cygnusx1.portal.com Email
Steve Parrish -Sales, Atlanta
404/980-6671 Phone
404/980-6683 Fax
Product: Rembrandt, Rembrandt II
PictureTel
Rich Baker -Director of Research
508/977-8289 Phone
508/977-9491 Fax
bake@pictel.com Email
Bob Reynolds -Technical Staff
reynolds@pictel.com Email
VideoTelecom
Joe Duran -Technical Sales
512/834-3703 Phone
512/834-3792 Fax
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Owner of this document:
John E.(Jack) Drescher INTERNET drescher@concert.net
Manager, Program Development Phone 919/248-1412
MCNC Center for Communications Home 919/848-6876
PO Box 12889 3021 Cornwallis Road Fax 919/248-1405
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2889
To obtain the 7 Architecture Charts by Yee-Hsiang Chang:
Please use anonymous ftp to the server at "ftp.concert.net".
Get the file /doc/mm.ietf.ps. This is a long and big
Postscipt file, in which case please use the -s option in lpr
to print the file.
To obtain the 5 "Catalog" Charts by Tom Sandoski:
The Postscript file containing the slides about
the packet-video packages and catalog is available via anonymous
ftp from ftp.concert.net in "pub/pv-packages.slides.ps".