AVChat Software Product Blog

Hello all, as promised the May build is here and it has some great new features some of which the client requested and some that we thought would come in handy for you. We have also fixed in this version some reported bugs and some unreported ones.

There are a few new key features in this build such as the possibility of  leaving  the last room when a user has joined only one room).This is an important feature because, in the past, when an admin would try to kick an user(from a room, not from the entire chat) that joined only a room it had no effect because the user couldn’t leave that room.

Another  important feature is the persistent block. This feature was requested by many of our clients. Now, when you block an user and reload the chat,  the block will still be there.

Here’s the entire list of what’s new:

• Rotating text messages can be inserted in the text chat every X seconds (period controlled by the new  rotatingMessageTime in avc_settings.xxx). The script responsible with feeding the text messages is set through rotatingMessageUrl (setting in avc_settings.xxx). A count parameter is sent through GET to the script telling the script the number of times the script has been called ( this way you can set different frequency of appearance for different messages ).
• You can now can leave the last room you are in and get back to the Rooms panel.
• We’ve finally added persistent blocking (refreshes don’t kill the blocking list anymore) .
  
• You can now redirect all links posted in the chat to a local link verifying script that checks the link and allows the browser to take the user or not to that link. This is achieved through checkLinkUrl setting in avc_settings.xxx .
• dragEnabled setting added to avc_settings.xxx to control whether or not the items of the interface can be moved around (webcams are always draggable) .
• showOnlineTime setting in avc_settings.xxx to control whether to show or not to show the user the online time period in the upper menu .
  
• You can control weather or not to transform the urls into links in the text area through interpretLinks setting in avc_settings.xxx .
• Custom error messages are thrown if any of the xml’s (such as badwords.xml, etc.) loaded during the “Loading Settings…” phase fails to load .
• You can now disable the echo cancellation filter applied to Speex audio streams in the chat (useEchoCancelation setting added to avc_settings.xxx) .

Here’s what’s fixed:

• fixed the problem where admins couldn’t view the private cams after implementing the new mechanism for private cams
• fixed the consistency problems (duplicates and so on) with the en.xml translation file
• the silence screen now disappears automatically after X seconds
• fixed some errors on Wowza
• the eye icon misalignment  problem
• fixed an error thrown when resizing the interface during the “Loading Setting…” screen
• fixed the  position of the elements from the login screen when being resized vertically

How to get the new build:

The new build is available in your private client/trial areas.

How to upgrade an existing build:

You need to overwrite your existing AVChat files (both client side and server side) and clear your browser cache(this is very important because if you use a cached version on AVChat the application will not run corectly).

Forum thread:

There’s a forum thread regarding this build available here.

Next day update(build 1506):

Build 1506 is now available for download now and it fixes a few issues reported in the forum with build 1505:

• The users list disappearing sometimes when closing a room (Wowza only)
• The time shown in the text chat for each message was not correct when using US type time (like 5:32 pm)
• When denying a private webcam access request the request wasn’t disappearing

Second day update (build 1510)

Due to some critical bugs reported in our forum we’ve came up with a new version that fixes the following:

• the persistent block had no effect (introduced in 1506 build)
• admin could view the private cams even though they were not allowed
• inserting emoticons in the text chat area caused the text  formatting  to break

Hello and hope you had a great Easter. But we didn’t rest to much these days and updated the AVChat3 Integration Kit for Joomla! 1.6-2.5 (build 1486). We brought minor updates and bug fixes to the integration kit, and here there are:

• We’ve updated the AVChat Admin Interface page to tell you when the admin.swf file is missing or the installation of the integration kit was not performed properly.
• Changed the minimum Flash Player version necessary to run our software from 10.0 to 10.3 because of new AVChat requirement introduced in build 1461.
• Improved “room dropping” from “Who’s chatting module” in order to perform the “drop” action correctly.
• Resolved issue with popup dimensions not being taken into account when you set it from the AVChat Admin Interface options page.
• Now the integration detects the browser default language site’s current language and tries to use the appropriate language from the translation folder . In the translation folder you should put the desired language file in the following format (suppose the default browser language is German): de-DE.xml  . If it does not find the requested file, the language file will be defaulted to the language file found in avc_settings.php , under avchat["languagefile"].

Hope this update resolves some of your problems and we will continue to update the Integration Kit until there will be close to perfect.

Download will be available from your private client/trial management area .

Update instructions:  Just like a normal extension of Joomla! .

1. Go to Joomla! administration area -> Extensions -> Extension Manager.
2. Click on Browse from Upload Package File (Under Install tab).
3. Locate the com_avchat3.zip archive from the joomla1.6.x_1.7.x_2.5.x_component folder
4. Click Upload & Install
5. Done
   

For further information or new installation , follow this link: http://avchat.net/support/documentation/joomla#123

Hello all,

This is the first build with the new dedicated team for AVChat (more on that in a future blog post) and we’ve tried to implement some of the requests that you’ve asked for but also fix some of the bugs reported and unreported.

The main new feature in this build is the Silence feature which allows admins to block users from doing anything in a chat room for 30 seconds (period can be changed). Here’s how it looks when you’re silenced:

So, here’s everything that’s new:

• Silence option for admins that offers to an admin the option to silence an user for an amount of time controlled from avc_settings.xxx (silenceDuration). There is also a setting (adminCanSilenceOtherAdmins) to control whether an admin can silence other admins and another setting (adminCanSilenceFromRoom) for the state of the silence button. At this time this option silences an user by using his IP address so any user using the silenced IP will be affected.

• Block Buzz Sounds button added in the toolbar under the text chat area
• Erase All Screens button for admins in the toolbar under the text chat area. This will currently erase the screens of all rooms (weather or not the admin is logged in them) for all users. This feature helps the admin remove unwanted stuff (like spam links or images or videos) from the text chat.
• showNumberOfCamsAndMics setting in avc_settings.xxx that controls whether the number of cams and mics are shown to admins in the users list
• Error messages in the client area are now selectable so that they can be copied and pasted.

Here’s what’s fixed:

• Misalignment of the text errors and login/register buttons when resizing the AVChat area
• Fixed issue with some YouTube links that were not properly formatted
• Fixed issue with link on avc_settings.xxx related error messages not working

That wraps it up for the Easter build. A new build will be released at the beginning of May in which we will implement more feature requests.

How to get the new build:

The new build is available in your private client/trial areas.

How to upgrade an existing build:

You need to overwrite your existing AVChat files (both client side and server side) and clear your browser cache.

Forum thread:

There’s a forum thread regarding this build available here: http://avchathq.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1561-new-avchat3-build-1477-easter-build-available/

There are two ways to open the AVChat Video Chat Component in a pop up in Joomla!:

1. Using Joomla!’s default method:
   • Log in the administrator area of Joomla!.
   • In the Menus area edit the link to AVChat 3.
   • Set the On Click, Open in option to  New Window without Browser Navigation (screenshot below)
   • Click Save.

   

   That’s it! Clicking the link in the menu will now open the video chat in a pop up. Using this method however you will not have control over the pop up dimensions

2. A way that allows you to control the size of the pop up:
   • For this you’ll need to login to your website with an FTP client (FileZilla is our favourite) and go to /components/com_avchat3/
   • Open avchat3.php for editing.
   • Replace the object & embed html tags (everything from <object… to </object>) with this html code:
     <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="window.open('/components/com_avchat3/index.swf', 'AVChat', 'menubar=0, resizable =0, width=900, height=650');">Launch AVChat Video Chat</a>

   • Save the file and make sure you upload it back to the web server.

   You can change the size of the pop up by editing the width and height properties in the code above.

We used to solve all AVChat issues by email, and it was wrong because all the info we’ve shared by email is now locked in those private email discussions, and believe me there’s a lot of useful info in those emails!

That’s why we’ve now launched a proper, public, forum : http://avchat.net/forum/,  to make all that „problem solving info” available to everyone! The entire AVChat team will be answering questions in there so expect proper deep technical documented answers.

There are special areas for all our products including AVChat, the HD  video recorder and the audio recorder.

The private and personal support by email is still available to our customers, the forum is just an addition!

New features:

• Better audio quality (Speex codec now used by default).
• Users become idle (by default after 1 minute of no activity in the chat, this value can be changed from avc_settings.xxx):
• You can now control the volume for each audio/video stream in particular and mute or go fullscreen with one click:
• You can now change the color of the text chat area background (edit style.css, white by default).
• If the user denies access to his webcam/mic the [Start My Webcam] button will show up again.
• You can now drag windows by clicking anywhere in them (not just on the title).
• Better ghost users detection (the users list attempts not to show the ghost users, fix for the IE issue on the standalone version)
• vBulletin 4 compatibility

Bugs solved:

• Some issues with writing Unicode characters in the text chat logs
• Issue with UI being scrambled sometimes when streaming was turned off completely
• Issue with user item side menu sometimes disappearing when the user being clicked was in the lower part of the users list.
• Issue with the external users/rooms list not being updated and not having special characters escaped
• Absolute number of users in external file (instead of teh sum of users in all rooms)
• When sorting by cams/mics the groups that form are now sorted by username!

How to get the new AVChat 3 build:

• download the software again from your client area

How to update your installation:

• in the usual way: overwrite ALL the old files (including the en.xml language file and the media server files) and restart the media server!
• if the above fails make a clean clean  install!

When AVChat 3 is opened in a pop up window you can use the [Leave Chat] button to close the pop up window:

1. edit avc_settings.php or avc_settings.asp
2. set $avconfig['disconnectButtonEnabled']=1;
3. set $avconfig['disconnectButtonLink'] = ‘javascript:window.close();‘;

By default clicking [Leave Chat] takes you to a new web page instead of closing the window!

On the publisher side:

Problem: low frame rate

Solution(s):

1. Increase the light in the room, natural light works best.
2. Get a better web cam, good web cams capture a lot of frames with little light in the room.
3. Lower the picture resolution requested by AVChat 3, some web cams just can’t capture 30fps at 400×300.
4. Increase the movement in the shot, if there’s no movement Flash Player will not capture many frames/second because there’s no movement.

Problem: video stream does not use entire allocated bandwidth

Solution(s):

1. Increase the light in the room, natural light works best. More light helps the web cam capture more details!
2. Get a better web cam, good web cams capture a lot of detail with little light in the room. DV cams for example capture huge ammounts of data compared to normal web cams.
3. Check your connection to the media server. When you’re publishing video you’re  uploading data to the media server. Even tough you might have a 20Mbits/s Internet connection, that’s most probably your download rate, your actual upload rate could be much less. If you’ve configured the video chat to use as much as 768kbits/s per stream, this ammount of video data will not fit in real time trough your 350kbits/s upload pipe!

Problem: dark image or noisy image

Solution(s):

1. Increase the light in the room, natural light works best.
2. Get a better webcam.

Problem: no image at all or blank image

Solution(s):

1. Make sure your web cam is not already used by another app
2. Make sure the proper web cam is used by Flash Player (Right click -> Settings -> Web Cam tab -> Select the web cam you want to use from the drop down list)

The May Build of AVChat 3 (due next week) will have support for the Speex audio codec introduced in Flash Player 10. This will mean better audio quality,lower latency and less bandwidth usage than before!

This is one of the reasons we’ve switched to Flash Player 10 for AVChat 3 starting with the April Build, other changes will include separate volume control for each web cam and proper behaviour when the users denies access to his web cam and mic.

The old codec we’ve been using so far in AVChat 3, the NellyMoser Asao codec, was introduced in Flash Player 6 and was licensed by Adobe from NellyMoser Inc. . Because NellyMoser Inc. had the full rights to the audio codec this made it hard and expensive for developers to convert files encoded with NellyMoser to AAC or MP3. This was one of the main complains against NellyMoser Asao.

The Speex codec, introduced in FP10, is optimized for voice and provides better audio quality using less bandwdith. It is also open souce so you can decode it and convert it to mp3 or aac (ffmpeg already decodes Speex) without needing any licenses. It also provides more levels (11) of quality as opposed to NellyMoserAsao (only 5).

In this table comparing compression rates for Nelly Moser Asao and Speex in Flash Player you can see that Speex at its highest setting needs half the bandwidth NellyMoser Asao uses at its highest setting:

We will update our article covering changing the audio quality in AVChat 3 in time for the release next week, however, no changes will be needed as the new build will default to using the new Speex codec for audio. Until next week you can test the new audio quality in our online demo of AVChat 3.

Overview

In order to show on your website who is logged in the video chat, AVChat 3 generates 2 external files in the folder where it is installed:

• users__definst_.txt -> a text file containing the number of unique users connected to the video chat
• users__definst_.xml -> an xml file containing the list of rooms and users in each room

You will see these files ONLY AFTER THE FIRST USER (NOT ADMIN) LOGS IN THE VIDEO CHAT!

You can use these 2 files to show on your website how many clients are logged in, the room structure or which clients are logged in!

How to actually code/do that is outside the scope of this article but anyone with minumum php or .net experience  should be able to parse the xml/text file and post the contents on the website.

How it works

In detail:

1. user joins the video chat via index.swf, the path to the writeuserslist.php is automatically detected
2. user joins a room, the media server sends the new  rooms/users structure to writeuserslist.php via POST (using the path detected at step 1)
3. writeuserslist.php receives the new info via POST and creates the 2 files on the web server

The media server automatically detects the path to writeuserslist.php WHEN THE FIRST USER (NOT ADMIN) LOGS IN THE VIDEO CHAT.

One some of our integration kits admin.swf and writeuserslist.php are placed in separate folders, that’s why admins logging in do not trigger an attempt to detect the path to writeuserslist.php!

Admins and users are properly listed in the external .xml file as long as at least a user has logged in in the past so that the media server knows where writeuserslist.php is located!

You can also set the path manually (via the settings.asc/avchat3.properties files on the media server) and you should when:

• you’re using writeuserslist.asp (or any other scripting language) instead of writeuserslist.php
• you’ve moved writeuserslist.php to a separate folder
• you have troubles with the external users list not being generated

Troubleshooting

If the 2 files refuse to appear do these tasks in this order:

1. Log in the video chat trough the user interface (not the admin interface/area)
2. Make sure the folder containing writeuserslist.php is chmoded to 777 so that writeuserslist.php can write/crate new files
3. Make sure calls to the new info is POST-ed from the media server to the web server (check Apache logs)
4. Make sure the folder where writeuserslist.php is located is not password protected!
5. Hard code the path to writeuserslist.php  in settings.asc ( on FMIS ) or in avchat3.properties ( on Wowza/Red5 ) and restart the media server
6. contact support: http://avchat.net/support/request-support/

Turning the feature off

On FMIS  edit applications/avchat30/settings asc, set application.writeUsersLists=false and restart FMIS!

On Red5 edit webapps/avchat30/avchat3.properties, set writeUsersLists=false and restart Red5!

On Wowza edit conf/avchat30/avchat3.properties, set writeUsersLists=false and restart Wowza!

This will turn off the feature and stop the media server from making POST calls to the web server!