EVO Videoconference Application
Originally developed for the international high-energy physics community, this video-conference application is applicable to all areas where collaboration via shared video and audio is of benefit. Installation requirements are minimal, although it is required that SUN Java is installed on the user's machine. The latest version of the client software is checked for at each use, so any software updates, etc, are automatically taken care of as far as the end user is concerned.
Whilst EVO is suited admirably to one-on-one communication, it does of course accommodate meetings across several participating locations. In the simplest case, all that is required for a single participant is a microphone/headphone headset for audio, and a webcam for video, on a laptop or desktop machine. EVO also is in use in rooms with projectors for display, multiple cameras for video feeds, and echo-cancelling systems for room audio.
A benefit of EVO is its ability for ready and simple interfacing with other locations which are running H.323 teleconference systems. For example, a single user may be running EVO on a laptop in Australia, and be having a meeting with a roomful of colleagues in Europe who are in a room furnished with a Tandberg or Polycom system.
A list of EVO's functionalities (from the main website, http://evo.caltech.edu) is presented:
- Instant messaging functions and presence information (e.g. available, busy, ... )
- Private or group chat during a meeting
- Meetings-by-invitation, ad-hoc meetings, booked meetings, and permanent meetings
- Playback and recording functions (of the entire session [video, audio, whiteboard, Instant Message, Chat,..])
- Shared files, high-resolution sharing of any screen area, and whiteboard functions
- Support for several standard videoconferencing protocols: H.323 (Polycom, Tandberg, ...), Session Initiation Protocol (RTP) used by most of the collaborative applications.
- Automatic TimeZone adjustment and Multi-Language support (English, French, Slovak, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, and Chinese)
- Firewall-friendly and support for Network Address Translation (NAT)
- End-to-End encryption of all the media (video/audio/chat/IM/ ...)
- A new video application based on OpenGL where all the live video windows and other objects are embedded in, and may move in a three dimensional space. (This application, which uses the graphics processor unit (GPU) to offload the main CPU and leave it free for other work, is currently available on Windows only, support for other operating systems will follow soon.)
- An integrated telephone gateway allows users to join an EVO meeting through the normal phone system |
EVO is compatible with Linux-, Mac- and Windows-based systems.
Below is a screen capture of an EVO meeting showing the client window, video control window, and video display window. In this case, two rooms were participating- one with a laptop with single webcam video feed, and the other room sending two streams from Sony EVID70P cameras:
Please note that the above screen capture is from a Windows laptop; all displayed video streams show up within a larger, resizable box Within that larger box, however, the video streams are not able to be moved or resized independently. Under Mac OS and Linux, displayed video streams appear as individual windows on the desktop which may be moved around and resized independently.
NOTE: 14/7/08 The Windows version of EVO has been updated, and the vievo control window has been integrated into the video display window. This changes the appearance of the video aspect of EVO under Windows, whilst maintaining the same control functionality. Notes on this updated vievo/display window will be added to these pages presently.
Further pages will be forthcoming, containing more in-depth information on
- installing and using EVO with specific operating systems
- specific User Cases which detail how EVO is being used
A Camera Compatibility Page is available here, which lists the results of testing EVO with various cameras and operating systems.