Echo in video conferences is frustrating for all parties involved. For users who use video conferencing often they have the proper equipment and their computer’s audio settings are optimized. The infrequent user not setup properly for video conferencing is often frustrated or can disrupt an entire meeting.
There are a number of reasons why echo occurs in phone calls and video conferences. The largest culprit is audio that comes from a computer’s speakers and picked back up by a microphone. This creates a loop that feeds an echo back into the meeting.
We have built in Automatic Echo Cancellation (AEC) into the Vibe client. We have leveraged the open source AEC and noise cancellation code implemented as part of the WebRTC code in Chrome.
There are several things that meeting participants can do to help reduce echo:
Infrequent users can utilize our WebRTC client at https://vibe.ezuce.com/webrtc. This is a simplified client for people who are just dropping into a meeting and uses the AEC that we’re working to implement in the more feature rich desktop client.
We and others in the industry work tirelessly on these issues. All vendors struggle with echo issues as witnessed in the technical support sections of their websites.
To run Vibe properly, your computer or mobile device should be at or above certain minimum hardware requirements, especially if you intend to send and receive quality video and audio.
At a minimum your computer should have the following:
An Intel Core™ Duo CPU or better or AMD equivalent
Microsoft Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) and later
Mac OS X (10.7 and later)
Linux distribution (not older than 2 years if possible)
A microphone and speakers
A web camera is optional, but highly recommended and can be either built-in, or connected via a USB port or an HDMI connection to a video grabber card.
Vibe supports Apple’s iOS devices version 4.3 or later on either an iPad 2, iPhone 4S or later.
For Android devices (phones or tablets), Vibe requires operating system version 2.3.2 or later and API level 9 or later with at least a dual-core microprocessor.
Vibe WebRTC client can be started using any Chrome or Firefox.
A reliable Internet connection with a minimum of 1-megabit per second download speed and a 256-kilobit per second upload speed is required. These requirements will be higher for large meetings or if high resolution videos are in use.
A hard-wired Internet connection is preferred when connecting a PC other than a mobile device. Vibe streams each video tile to the desktop unlike other solutions, WiFi may work for a single person but the high packet loss over WiFi makes HD videoconferencing a substandard experience over WiFi.
Vibe Hybrid Cloud works fine in a Network Address Translation (NAT) environment. The organization’s firewall should permit outbound communication on UDP and TCP port 36015. Your network administrator can open up these ports in your organization’s firewall.
With some versions of MS Windows the system or antivirus program will ask you whether to authorize or block the Internet access for some programs depending on your security settings. Please make sure that you authorize all programs started by the Vibe application.
Please check for your question in our technical FAQs before you ask a technical question.
If you are having a problem and are using the desktop client, look for the icon that looks like a triangle with an exclamation point in it. This can be located in the Menu under ‘Help’ menu item where you will see ‘Send Report’.
If you are having a problem with the Web Portal (https://vibe.ezuce.com) or WebRTC client (https://vibe.ezuce.com/WebRTC) Please send an email to our technical support team (support@ezuce.com) or visit this page to leave a message.
Please provide the following information for technical questions:
Once your are running vibe this file can be saved to any location from the vibe menu by selecting Menu -> About -> Copy Log File.
You can also find the file at the following locations depending upon your operating system.
Windows WinXP, Vista, 7 & 8:
Type the following line into your Windows Explorer (File Manager)
%temp%
This will take you to the directory where you will find the log files. The most recent meeting log file is named “vibe.log” previous meetings are numbered sequentially (i.e. vibe.log.1, vibe.log,.2 etc.) with older meetings having a higher number.
Mac:
To locate the file follow the following steps
Linux:
Use the /tmp command to find: ” ls -al /tmp/vibe.log*”.
This may occur after you have clicked to join a meeting or logged into Vibe.
The exact error message will vary, but OpenGL will be referenced in the text. The video component of Vibe requires the OpenGL 3D software engine version 1.5 or greater, which is supported by nearly all graphic chip sets sold in the past 6 years.
If Vibe crashes or freezes attempting to join a meeting the probable cause is a graphic card that does not support OpenGL version 1.5 or greater. To solve this problem, download and install the latest version of your graphics card’s driver from the PC or graphics card manufacturer. Follow the appropriate manufacturer’s link to update your graphic card driver.
Alternately you may see an error message saying, “The vibe application is unable to connect to a server. See the technical FAQ on “Firewall and Network Address Translation (NAT) Support”. It is likely that you don’t have the required ports open on your firewall or your network requires a proxy server for connection to the Internet. Technical Support can assist with the settings for a proxy but your network team will need to address required outbound ports.