Chuck Anderson via WLUG writes:

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 05:59:12PM -0400, Keith Wright via WLUG wrote:

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so I plan to try it tonight. I'll report back to this list.

I have never used the camara or microphone on this laptop, I don't know if I have used sound output, it was long ago and might have been a different machine,

Is video chat built into the browser now?

Yes, video chat is built into all modern browsers. They call it "HTML5" and "WebRTC".

Thank you. HTML5 is a good search key. I have a lot of reading to do, but already I learned from wikipedia that

...

In early November 2011, Adobe announced that it would discontinue development of Flash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5#%22Thoughts_on_Flash%22

I noticed that it seemed to be going away, but thought it was just web site developers getting smarter: "Hey Joe, Why do we make the customers download flash before we tell them about our product?" It's more official than that.

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What exactly does Zoom or jit.si do then?

It starts up a WebRTC session over HTTPS to the jit.si server using your microphone and camera to send your video/audio,

As I said, I have never (knowingly) used the camera or microphone on this computer, nor even the speaker/headphones. But I have a few questions: (1) Did you guys see me? I tried to join WLUG meeting last Thu. I never got sound, but I saw some people I recognized, and a picture of myself. I was the guy with the big head. It actually looked bigger than it is, partly because of the firmware in the standard laptop camera which uses AI to zoom in and magnify any slight hint of receding hair, and partly because I was leaning back in a comfy chair with the "Lap"top on my chest. (2) Is the URL https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA still active? Does it work with Microsoft Windows? I am thinking that I could test it out by connecting to WlugMA with my Linux computer while Diane connects with her MS computer. Then we could debug by shouting across the living room. After I quit the WLUG meeting, a poked some menu buttons I had not before and discovered Multimedia ==> PulseAudio Volume Control. By turning that up, I can reliably get sound while playing a *.mp4 with vlc. I tried listening to radio stations (wicn, wbur, wgbh) and it mostly didn't work, but once or twice it did work. I really have no idea why it is sometime but not always. I did notice that when I click (what I take to be) the button to listen to streaming radio over internet it starts looking up all kinds of things I did not ask for (facebook, twitter, chartbeat). I'm wondering if I might have a DNS (named) problem. I have never set up DHCP here, I just assign a static IP address each time I get a new computer. That does not happen often enough to be worth automation. (3) Does HTML5 require DHCP to redirect or forward the data stream? (4) Is there a standard codec or is that something that must be installed to match the whim of the website? -- Keith (Wright) aka Egghead

On Sun, Oct 18, 2020 at 04:57:30PM -0400, Keith Wright wrote:

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As I said, I have never (knowingly) used the camera or microphone on this computer, nor even the speaker/headphones.

I been messing with it a bit. When trying to listen to WBUR, it seems random, sometimes works, usually not. Websites that tell you how to pronounce words, I can hear them. Program vlc with a *.mp4, I can hear. I don't know how to test the microphone.

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(1) Did you guys see me?

Chuck Anderson writes:

Yes we saw you. We also saw and replied to your text chat messages.

Sorry, I stumbled into the text chat, but did not see the reply, probably not because anything was wrong, but because I was busy trying to get the sound working and logged in and out repeatedly without looking for text.

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(2) Is the URL https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA still active? Does it work with Microsoft Windows?

I don't know.

The URL is still sitting there. Diane logged in with a MS computer and I with my Linux. We could see each other, mostly, but no sound.

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(3) Does HTML5 require DHCP to redirect or forward the data stream?

No. Your stream worked fine.

I'm not so sure. I'm starting to suspect the firewall. I have a lot of blocked IP addresses that have accumulated over the years. I don't know what they are nor recall what they did to offend me years ago. On the other hand, when I start jit.si it has a button that says "Join Meeting", when I click it, it pops up another button that says "Join without sound", no other choice, so I choose that. Maybe it can't find the microphone, so it turns off the loudspeaker? But when it starts up it has a message at the bottom that says: "It sounds like your microphone is working". The Multimedia==> Pulseaudio==>Input device has a jumping blue line that reacts to sounds I make, so I know there is a microphone in there somewhere.

What Debian version are you running? What web browser and version?

kwright@fcs22:~$ uname -a Linux fcs22 4.9.0-12-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 4.9.210-1 (2020-01-20) i686 GNU/Linux Help==>About==> Mozilla Firefox Quantum 68.7.0esr (32-bit) Maybe I'll see you next time, but busy websites and video seem to make it overheat even when they sort-of work. I'm a black-and-white Greek subscript kind of guy. If it weren't for the virus I would be happy with TeX, Scheme, and email; I wouldn't be trying to turn my good computer into a bad television. -- Keith