Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Gnomemeeting Snapshot 1.9.0-20060108 CIF Video

[Malcolm Caldwell <malcolm caldwell ntu edu au>]

On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 19:12 +0100, Damien Sandras wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Le mardi 10 janvier 2006 �7:54 +0100, Conrad Beckert a �it :
> > Hi,
> > 
> > what happened to the switch to select the video size? It is gone.
> > 
> > While I admid that SIP only transmitting on QCIF is rather an Asterisk issue 
> > it is strange that I can ony send QCIF on H.323.
> > 
> > Obviously only the switch is missing - connecting Gnomemeeting 1.2.2 with 
> > Snapshot 1.9 works perfectly in CIF mode.
> > 
> > Any ideas?
> 
> It is gone for 2.00. We do not support transmitting CIF anymore, for
> several reasons :
> - the SIP code is not ready for that and won't be before a few months.
> Craig should work on this when he has the time, but it doesn't seem to
> happen very often.

This is a fair comment.  Is it possible to limit the size just for sip?

> - most users do not have enough upstream to transmit CIF, but still
> selected it because it is bigger. Then they complain that the sound is
> not of so good quality than Skype with no video.

IMHO this is a bad approach to software.  It reminds my of Linus's
complaints about gnome
( http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html )

Crippling a Ferrari just because most people drive on narrow roads is
the wrong approach.

Limiting bandwidth to <= 100 and size to small means that when someone
who DOES have the bandwidth looks at the software they say 'well, this
software is too limited for me'.  It hurts gm/ekiga adoption.

In this particular case, a popup window that arises when you select this
option that says 'this options uses high bandwidth and may not work
well' may be the answer.  Or an 'advanced' setting tab (with suitable
warning).  In fact I thought about implementing it as a separate
executable frontend to gconf, but IMHO it should just be a part of
gm/ekiga.

> If you want to transmit CIF with H.323, you will have to edit the GConf
> key, but the setting is gone for good from the GUI for now.

Telling people to resort to gconf sounds to me like the resorting to the
worst aspects of microsoft windows.