Videoconferencing background: VRVS

The Virtual Room Videoconferencing System or VRVS provides a means of videoconferencing that -in principle- is completely separate from our "standard" Ad-Hoc H.323 conferencing. It is largely desktop based, has a fairly large user community, and the recommendation for e.g. the LHC experiments (see the CERN RTAG-12 working group) is for VRVS to be always available as a means of communication. Moreover, it is (freely) available on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, ...), so for smaller-scale meetings (but see the notes on meeting etiquette) it may be a good low-budget alternative.

VRVS is very flexible, in that it supports multiple protocols:

• MBone tools (the Robust Audio Tool RAT and the VIdeo Conferencing tool VIC);
• AccessGrid;
• SIP;
• and H.323.

Especially this last point implies that VRVS is not necessarily decoupled from Ad-Hoc videoconferencing aspects. This means that groups using a set-top or hardware based desk-top system for their Ad-Hoc conferences may also use it with VRVS (this is presumably useful especially if multiple persons want to attend a virtual meeting together).

There is one known issue: if such a setup uses the ESnet GateKeeper (which it typically will, if it is used for ESnet Ad-Hoc H.323 meetings), this information must be entered accordingly in the VRVS client. There are ESnet instructions on how to deal with this.