Watching a Session

In order to watch a session, we first launch SD -- the session directory tool. After a few minutes, session names begin to appear in the SD window, shown in Figure 5-1. SD shows ìadvertismentsî -- information about MBONE sessions that are currently active.

Figure 5-1: The main SD window.

An advertisement is composed of the following information, which is accessible via SD:

a session title
a session description
a multicast group
audio and/or video and/or whiteboard ports
the identity of the session creator
creation date and time

Watching a session is as simple as selecting the desired session in the SD window and clicking the Open button. When you choose a session, your workstation automatically runs the appropriate client for participating in the event--each application has a specific function. NV gives you the video data, vat enables access to the audio, and wb displays a whiteboard. Other tools also can be used. MMCC, similar to SD, can be used for session management. IVS, which is also used for video data, implements a different video compression algorithm than NV. SDR, the newest sessions management tool, implements much more functionality than SD and is destined to replace SD in the future. IMM is a different type of tool. It slowly downloads images from the MBONE and displays them. IMM is used mostly for picture galleries. (For more information on MBONE clients, see Chapter 9.)

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