On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 [email protected] wrote: > I am new to the AccessGrid community, though an old hand using vic/rat > through experience doing MBONE multicast presentations from various Web > and other conferences over the past 8 years, using SPARC/Solaris platforms; > I have great enthusiasm and respect for the energy and talent behind the AG; > nevertheless, it was a bit sad to find no one using Suns within the this > community. Is anyone else interested in seeing the AG tools ported to Suns? >
Well I'm sitting at a Sun desktop at the moment so I'm interested but its difficult to justify too much effort in this direction. > There seem to be several technical issues: > > 1) The Python-based venue management software *ought* to be portable to > Suns -- what are the likely technical hurdles? > 2) The principal video capture device used previously on Suns, the Osprey > 1500, is no longer made (though the company says it would issue some > on special order if there were enough interest). Newer Suns have > USB connections, and I've seen mention on the Web of cameras that > supposedly operate on Sun USB ports, but have no direct experience. > Has anyone had experience using USB-based video cameras on Suns, > and how difficult would it be to support such devices within vic? I also came across a port of the bttv drivers for solaris http://bt848x.sourceforge.net/ that broaden the range of possible capture cards though the VIC source may need tweaking i've no direct experience. > 3) Given that vic and rat were born on beige boxes, it ought to be > straightforward to build AG versions (with the AES encryption and any other > AG enhancements) on Suns -- are there hidden technical trip-ups lurking > here? I have used the UCL sparc versions to monitor AG sessions from my desk The one issue I have seen is some Solaris sound capture setups seem to impose a very long time delay. Its probably worth checking manually run vic/rat works ok before pushing ahead with the python stuff. > > What other technical issues would be encountered? If you want a room based node ratehr than a PIG the choice of graphics cards might also limit you a bit. > I'd be very eager to share thoughts with anyone else who is interested > in AG-enabling Suns, to see what is involved and who might be willing > to share the effort. > Stephen ====================================================================== |epcc| Dr Stephen P Booth Project Manager |epcc| |epcc| [email protected] Phone 0131 650 5746 |epcc| ======================================================================
