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Can You Receive the MBONE?

We transmit compressed video at 128Kbps, and audio at 56Kbps. These are separate streams, so you can select audio only. If you do not have enough bandwidth on your Internet link, you cannot watch the SVLUG multicasts online.

Call your network administrators or network provider to inquire whether they can provide a "multicast feed" or "MBONE tunneling". Not all sites are set up for this, so, if you have to convince your network administrators to connect to the MBONE, you may also have to wait while they decide the best method to do so.

If your receiving system is a Linux machine, make sure your kernel has IP multicast enabled. (You can compile a new kernel with that configuration, if you're missing it.) For other systems, follow your vendor's instructions to configure IP multicast in your TCP/IP stack, if it isn't already present.

General and technical information about the MBONE can be found at:

• MBONE FAQ
• Vinay Kumar's mbone.com site
• Merit Network's MBONE Software Archive
• Henning Schulzrinne's Real-Time Protocol (RTP) site

MBONE Client Software

Linux-specific MBONE information or binaries can also be found at:

• Linux Multicast HOWTO
• http://mates.cdt.luth.se/ftp/mbone/other/Linux/ (Sweden)
• ftp://fmvv.ec.kyushu-u.ac.jp/pub/Linux/VideoCapture/ (Japan)
• BTTV/Bt848 frame grabber driver for Linux (Germany)

These tools can also be used to transmit on the MBONE. SVLUG's transmissions are done with sdr, vic, and rat.

Sample MBONE Client Screenshots

On Unix systems, the "sdr" session directory application is used like a channel selector. Click on the session you wish to receive from.
(image is actual size)

On Windows clients, a similar display accesses the same channels.
After selecting a session, "sdr" will present information about it. Click "Join" to start all the media in use for this session. (On SVLUG multicasts, it's just audio and video. Other channels may have interactive whiteboards or other applications, as well.)
(image is 3/4 size)

SVLUG MBONE Transmission Equipment

At the March 1998 meeting, the MBONE multicast transmission was handled by the MBONE coordinator of the Bay Area Large Installation System Administration (BayLISA) group. The system was a Sun SparcStation running Solaris.

At the April, May, and June 1998 meetings, an on-site MBONE transmission system at Cisco Systems was used to televise the SVLUG meeting. The system was also a Sun SparcStation running Solaris.

SVLUG is constructing a Linux-based video capture system, which will be used at a future meeting.

SVLUG's Future MBONE Plans

We hope that, soon, SVLUG will implement a system where video output from our MBONE system can be put up on the video projectors and audio output to the public address system in the conference center. Then, it would be possible for SVLUG to field questions live from the Internet, from MBONE viewers with their own video capture and transmit capability. (Yes, that means we can see you, if you send video!)

If you're putting together an MBONE viewing system, keep working on it to add video and audio capture capability. It could be used to be seen and heard at upcoming SVLUG meetings!

SVLUG MBONE Contact

Before we give you the address, please do not ask us whether you can receive MBONE at your site. We have no way to know your site. For that question, you need to contact your own site's network administrators and install your own copy of the software (if it hasn't already been installed at your site).

For appropriate administrivia, SVLUG's MBONE contact is mbone@svlug.org.