USING VIC, VAT and WB

VIC

Vic can either be started from the command line or by using the sdr tool. For the command line parameters, refer to vic manual. Once invoked by sdr tool (by joining the conference session that uses it), vic displays a window in which one or more small windows will appear, each displaying video from one of the transmitting participants in the conference. (You can enlarge them by clicking on them.) If "Waiting for video..." appears instead, that means that no one is transmitting at the moment. That is most probably going to be the case if you advertised the session.

Clicking the Menu button brings you to the vic control menu. The main parameters you can choose here are which video board you are going to use for digitizing the video, which compression scheme is to be used, the transmission bit rate and the number of frames per second. The type of video board is set by clicking on the Device button. There you should see all of the video boards available to you. Vic autodetects them, so if it doesn't show, check out if the board is connected and if the drivers are properly set.

Once you set the board, you can start the video transmission by clicking on Transmit button. The video should show in the main window. You can mute it if you want to avoid the internal loopback, thus somewhat accelerating the video compression. To stop the transmission, click on Release button.

Note: if you start transmission and no video appears in the main window, try changing the port in by clicking the Port button in the control menu.

You can see who is attending the current session by clicking on Members in the control menu.

You can find out much more information about vic here.

VAT

Once started (either from the command line, either by sdr), vat displays its main window in which you can see the current session participants (it actually starts slowly filling the window with names, as it recives information).

You can mute any participant you want by clicking in the box next to his/her name.

You can talk by clicking anywhere in the window with right mouse button. Input and output audio levels can be adjusted, as well as the input source (line in or mic) and the type of output (loudspeaker, headphones or line out) by clicking on small icons underneath listen and talk buttons.

Menu button opens control window where various parameters can be adjusted.

For more information, refer to vat manual.

WB

Whiteboard enables the user to draw graphs, send pictures or text over to other users, as well as receive the same from them. They all share one common screen, called "whiteboard". Once started, the whiteboard tool displays its main and control menus. In the control menu, current session participants are displayed. Anyone can be muted by checking the box next to the name.

Note: Under Solaris 2.5, one can only be in the Receive only mode. Unchecking that button causes the program to crash.

The whiteboard itself is very similar to drawing program and is pretty self explanatory.

For more information, refer to wb manual.

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