|
Note 44
We didn't know that you couldn't send video from one workstation to another, in software just using the workstation's processor, including voice with echo suppression. Sure you might be able to do this over a local area network, but it would never work over a wide area network - or so the experts told us. Paul and I got the idea for PicWin in response to our experiences working on the DWSNet (Distributed Wargaming System Network) project which had a hardware-based video conferencing system. We felt that the requirement for reserving time (and bandwidth) to use the system stifled spontaneous collaborations. Rather, we wanted to be able to pop up a video conferencing window on our workstations in our offices whenever we wanted. This was the motivation behind PicWin, the first Internet-based desktop video conferencing system.
Paul Milazzo was the brains behind all of the programming for the version of PicWin that ran on Sun Workstations. He implemented a simple changed block video encoding algorithm that we could execute quickly on the processors of that era. One of the other interesting aspects of PicWin was Carl Howe's focus on making PicWin a product from the start: this work was all funded with BBN money and so we didn't have to do our usual thing: first convince an outside sponsor, wait for funding and then build it. This is not to say that PicWin was a huge success. As usual, the idea was a lot more compelling than our “word of mouth” marketing and sales efforts. Ideas, prototypes and early products was what BBN was all about. However, there were many people who copied PicWin, most notably, CuSeeMe. People at Cornell bought a single copy of PicWin and applying the rule “if you see that something can be built, building the second version is much easier,” they came out with a free version of desktop video conferencing that ran on Macintoshes, a much more affordable platform than our Sun workstation platform. CuSeeMe was commercialized, then sold during the .COM meltdown and is still being sold and used. For a timeline of video conferencing technology, with several mentions of the work we did on desktop video conferencing, see “A history of video conferencing (VC) technology.”
Paul Milazzo was the brains behind all of the programming for the version of PicWin that ran on Sun Workstations. He implemented a simple changed block video encoding algorithm that we could execute quickly on the processors of that era. One of the other interesting aspects of PicWin was Carl Howe's focus on making PicWin a product from the start: this work was all funded with BBN money and so we didn't have to do our usual thing: first convince an outside sponsor, wait for funding and then build it. This is not to say that PicWin was a huge success. As usual, the idea was a lot more compelling than our “word of mouth” marketing and sales efforts. Ideas, prototypes and early products was what BBN was all about. However, there were many people who copied PicWin, most notably, CuSeeMe. People at Cornell bought a single copy of PicWin and applying the rule “if you see that something can be built, building the second version is much easier,” they came out with a free version of desktop video conferencing that ran on Macintoshes, a much more affordable platform than our Sun workstation platform. CuSeeMe was commercialized, then sold during the .COM meltdown and is still being sold and used. For a timeline of video conferencing technology, with several mentions of the work we did on desktop video conferencing, see “A history of video conferencing (VC) technology.”
Copyright 2012-2022 @ xbbn.org under a Creative Commons license.
