Chris MoffattLead Program ManagerLearning Sciences & TechnologyMicrosoft Research

chrismof@microsoft.com

Project Overview

Objectives Build ConferenceXP Research Platform

Infrastructure for real-time collaboration Core emphasis on high quality, low latency

video Use standard protocols and data formats and

publish API’s Partner with Universities to:

Design and build prototype learning applications that leverage the ConferenceXP platform

Perform classroom and distance trials to assess effectiveness and outcomes of technology

Establish a user-community of developers and implementers

Improve the “in classroom” experience

Learning Experience Project

Enabling three Scenarios

Enable effective Distance education

Learning Experience Project

Enabling three Scenarios

Add asynchronous capabilities to the

classroom

Learning Experience Project

Enabling three Scenarios

Guiding Scenario Deliver a 5-way graduate level CS

class between TAB Universities and MSR UW, Brown, CMU, Berkeley, MSR

Milestones 5-way TAB Call (Personal Nodes) Successful 2-way distance learning course

UW Professional Masters Course

Research Platform and Prototype Applications

Conference API

Rtp API

LearningXP Services

Professor Experience

UW

Student Experience

Brown

New Projects

UCB - LiveNotesUCSD - Active Campus

UCDavis - Smart ClassroomUSC/ISI – (Rtp)

UCSC - Workflow

System Components

Facilitate lecturing – scrollable overlays, integrated whiteboard, attention

indicators

Presenter (UW)

System ComponentsConferenceXP Client (MSR)

Enable distance learning – immersive and interactive discussion enabled by high quality, low latency audio and

video

System ComponentsReMarkableTexts

(Brown)

Facilitate ad-hoc, small group learning – note taking, collaborative review, context-sensitive playback

System Components

Archive Service – synchronized streaming of audio, video, ink strokes, and document

navigation into SQL Server 2000

System Components

Class Portal

Windows Sharepoint Services Template – supports asynchronous activities

System Components

Student device

On demand playback; Integration of sync & async activities

System Components

ConferenceXP ArchitectureConference XP User Interface

Custom UI

Conference API

CustomCapability ViewerCapability Sender

Rtp API

RTDocumentsCapability ViewerCapability Sender

RTDocuments API

RTDocuments UI

Audio / VideoCapability ViewerCapability Sender

DirectShow

Audio / Video UI

IETF 1889 RFP Protocol

Multicast & Unicast UDP/IP

ConferenceXP Services

Reflector / Gateway Archive / Playback DiagnosticsVenue

ConferenceXP Client Utilizes Windows Media High Quality Audio

& Video Codec's, DirectShow, and a custom low latency networking stack (RTP).

The ConferenceXP UI is a ‘sample’ UI. Conference API allows different skins to be easily created. (e.g. launch ConferenceXP from Messenger)

The conferencing architecture supports: Full screen video at 30 fps, with 250 ms latency FireWire cameras to enable high quality,

efficient video capture Five way conferencing < 2 Mb/s

Network Components A key design decision of ConferenceXP was to

utilize Internet2 and multicast to deliver high quality and low latency streaming video

Real Time Protocol (RTP) A peer to peer network transport that handles stream

and message data. Designed for scenarios where latency is more

important than guaranteed delivery. Network Diagnostics

A utility called PipeCleaner provides the ability to monitor, log and diagnose multicast network problems.

Unicast Bridge Enables retransmission of multicast signals over

unicast. Designed primarily for use as a backup to multicast

ConferenceXP Services Venue Service

Provides the services necessary to create and manage ‘collaboration and learning venues’

Venue Service interfaces are exposed as Web Services

Archive Service (not yet released) Enables the recording and playback of lectures

and conferences. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 is used as the

archival platform Exposed as a .NET TCP remoting server,

supporting direct access for clients during playback to enable fast-forward, pause, rewind etc.

Questions?