[JDEV] Videoconferencing with jabber

[Carsten Breuer]

Hi all,

im new on this list, so i want to introduce myself.
I'm a software developer working for a big car company in germany
(the fast ones) and i am part of the engine control team.

Topic:
This mail contains some questions how to support videoconferencing
with the jabber protocol.

Why i doing this:
My mother live in california and i want to make videoconferences with
her. She use WinXP and is never even thinking off to change to linux.
My newest Windows is 98 and Microsoft doesn't support Videoconferencing
between  98 and XP anymore. I was never happy with the M$ Netmeeting 
stuff, because i have to nearly switch off my firewall  to let this 
messy H323 in. But now this is really anoying because the want to push 
the people to XP and i have enaugh of that. I have searched the open 
source scene a long long time if someone change the chanlenge, but it 
doesn't happened. So it was time for me to start up with my own stuff.

Why i dont like SIP or H323:
The problem with these protocols is that they starts a second assynchcon
connection on a unknown port. So i cant say the firewall waht to open. 
As i know, microsoft switchs off the firewall for 30 seconds after a 
H323 call is initiated. This is realy a bad joke. So one of my goals is 
to have only some ports to handle the "small entity" conections. I like 
Jabber ihere very much. It uses only one port and that's the way i like it.

What i want to have:
- A messenger program to start up the connection and chat etc.
- A video and audio connection with two or more people.
- Server based video and audion broadcasting if the connection
   is used by more then two people. The audio could be merged
   on the server and  sent to each client.
- Single or double port usage for the connections. Not more.
- Firewall friendly.

My questions:
- I have readed that jabber supports streams . Is there a way to
   transmit audio (www.speex.org) and video (mpeg4ip?) within the
   jabber protocol.
- Are there any plans to doing so?
- What do you think about that. Is it posible. What's about the
   performance? How can it be made?


Thanks a lot for any help.


Best Regards,



Carsten Breuer