What's new in ConferenceXP 5.3.2 (8/6/13)

(RC1 8/6/13. RC1 designation removed 4/22/14.)

• Added support for VideoCompressorName app.config option to enable testing non-standard video codecs.
• Increased the default maximum video bitrate and made it configurable.
• Added support for Blackmagic Decklink video capture hardware.
• Added a configuration option to disable DV audio.
• Fixed a bug that caused the default diagnostics webpage view to not always reflect the current venue.
• Updated the Archive Service install script to work with the current SQL Server version
• Added support for the Opus Audio codec, and added a custom configuration UI for it.

What's new in ConferenceXP 5.3 (2/25/2011)

• Changed all projects to target .Net framework v4.0 Client Profile, except the web services which need to target the full v4.0.
• Converted the source to Visual Studio 2010. Cleaned up and simplified the build process.
• Updated the UW Classroom Presenter capability to the latest code.
• Updated the TabletPC components to the latest version.
• Removed a number of line breaks from strings to make dialogs look better on Windows 7, though some will now be rather wide on XP.
• Added new ways to escape out of full screen mode with mouse click or any keyboard button press in response to feedback that the escape key wasn't obvious enough.
• Hid the reflector service ForceLeave feature in the UI since it isn't currently working.
• Made the Diagnostic Service installer automatically create/remove its firewall exception.
• Fixed a Windows Vista issue concerning the automatic creation of firewall exceptions during setup.
• Fixed tool tips and an error message to make error conditions involving bad reflectors more comprehensible.
• Added SubType Guid for WVC1 to facilitate VC-1 compression experiments.
• Made the Rtp MTU configurable to facilitate testing with larger frames.
• Modifications to the RtpSource filter to make it work with the VMR to render uncompressed HD video.
• Fixed a bug concerning uninstalling CXPClient on Windows XP with a disabled firewall.

What's new in ConferenceXP 5.2

• Added backup reflector and venue servers supported by niu.edu to the default configuration.
• Allow the frame around the video window to be hidden when the window is maximized.
• Resolved an issue concerning overly verbose event logging in the RTP code. (AppPacketReceived)
• Bug fix: Limit the frequency of participant and stream cleanup in RtpSession to better handle large conferences.
• Improved Archive Service setup to provide better automated support for diverse SQL Server configurations.
• Updated Office Interop to version 14 (Office 2010).
• Updated Firewall code to use current API's if available.
• Workaround for an unhandled exception found after installing certain camera drivers on Windows 7.
• Updated license to Apache License Version 2.0 in accordance with OuterCurve Foundation guidelines.
• When the audio source is a DV device, hide audio compression formats that won't work
• Provide a way to disable DV audio in app.config
• Modified the shared browser capability to send http headers and post data in addition to the URL. This allows it to work with a wider range of web sites
• Bug fix: Removed an audio format that wasn't working
• Updated the Venue Service Visual Studio project to work with Windows 7 and VS 2008.
• Updated the client setup project to explicitly exclude ieframe.dll so that it will build on Windows 7
• Bug fix: Under some circumstances launch was taking an extremely long time on Windows 7 due to use of a Messenger API to retrieve the user's identity. The fix was to no longer use this method of getting the identity.
• Minor improvements to the method used to determine if a capture device is a DV device. It should now be compatible with DV devices using default drivers on Win 7

What's new in ConferenceXP 5.1

This release combines a set of relatively minor features and bug fixes, including:

• Added support for DV audio sources.
• Diagnostic service logging was added to record connectivity history.
• Audio codec has been added to the client setup. Previously this required extra installation steps for Windows 7, Vista and Windows Server 2008 users.
• The reflector service can now run on the same system with client or archive service.
• Source updated to Visual Studio 2008.
• Fixed an Archive Service bug that sometimes caused a participant to be skipped from the archive.
• Presentation capability: added "Save as Image" menu command.
• Update Archive Service Setup to work better with SQL Server 2008.
• Added app.config configuration support for screen streaming frame rate and bit rate.
• Repaired an unhandled exception that occurred after launching the client on a system with no network adapters.
• Added more compressed audio formats to the audio configuration.
• Fixed a locking bug that occasionally caused the Reflector Service to fail.
• Fixed a reflector service bug that caused the reflector to not work until one minute after a client changed from multicast to unicast.
• Fixed a bug in the Presentation capability which caused some Office 2007 PowerPoint slides to display with black on the bottom and right.
• Added support for venue passwords to the CXP Client command-line mode.
• Tested against April 2009 Windows 7 RC. Repaired and documented a number of minor setup issues.

What's new in ConferenceXP 5.0

• Diagnostics: The diagnostic service provides visibility into network-level statistics. The various statistics -- include group membership, transmission rates, and loss rates -- are displayed in an ASP.NET web page. In addition, feedback is incorporated into the ConferenceXP Client UI using tool tips and participant icon decorations.

• Security: Two security modes have been added:
  • Weak: A password is required to access the mapping from venue name to multicast address. This mode is intended to prevent accidental access.
  • Strong: The Password is hashed into a symmetric encryption key, and all stream data is encrypted with the key.

• NAT-friendly Reflector: The 5.0 Reflector supports multiple clients behind a single NAT device. Improved JOIN protocol removes assumptions about which ports will be used.

• Multi-Reflector: Multiple reflectors can be configured to work together to improve scaling for large numbers of unicast clients.

• High Quality Audio: DirectShow buffering modifications permit PCM uncompressed mono and stereo audio. Higher quality compressed formats have also been added.

• Audio/Video synchronization: Using the DirectShow buffering parameters, it is possible to synchronize the audio and video streams fairly accurately.

In addition, the 5.0 release will attempt to be somewhat "future-proof", in that future additions (network heterogeneity support, for example) do not require simultaneous upgrades from all clients.

Download

Downloads are available at http://cct.cs.washington.edu/downloads/CXP/.