Cisco TelePresence Content Server - Poor Presentation Quality

[SrinathGopalkr]

Hello - We are running Cisco TelePresence Content Server (TCS) v5.3 on G2 Platform and find the quality of Presentation on a Live Stream is very poor. In other words we don't find the clarity and sharpness of the Presentation preserved after the TCS encodes it. The content of the presentation can always be questioned, however, if we compared the Presentation quality between an ongoing Video Conference and a Live Stream session, we find the presentation quality delivered by Video Endpoints are superior.

FYI, the Video endpoint dialing into TCS is a C60 codec running software version TC 5.1 and Poor Presentation quality is being observed from a stream that is streamed right from within the Content Viewer webpage. Furthermore, the server logs clearly indicate that the call is on H.264 and NOT H.263 (which i understand TCS does NOT support at this time and/or has issues with Transcoding).

Increasing bitrates even upto 2 Mbps provides only a marginal improvement.

Any input on the above would be highly appreciated.

Thanks

SG

[andri]

Hi

did you find out what the problem was ?

Regards

Andri

[manuelsanchez]

Well, the recording has quality enough for me, the problem comes when doing a live streaming even if I do it in high quality.

Thanks

[SrinathGopalkr]

Please try lowering the resolution / fps on TCS side and check.

Thanks

[Wayne DeNardi]

As I asked before - do you have the Premium Resolution Option installed on your Content Servers?  Without this, the on-demand streaming will be a maximum of w448p30, and can be up to 720p60 with it (and up to 1080p30 for the recorded/downloaded version).

Any presentation, being downscaled to fit in a 448p window, is going to look poor compared to what the endpoints can do natively between each other.

The maximum call speed without PR is 2Mbps (and 4Mb with PR).  See Chapter 9 of the Admin and User Guide for more info.

As for your query on H.264 - the TCS does support H.264 as the call type, but will only record the presentation stream using H.261, H263 or H.263+ without the PR key (and H.264 with it).

Wayne
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[manuelsanchez]

Hello Wayne,

I have the PR option installed, but still the quality is very poor. Any other ideas?

Another user has mentioned about changing resolution on the TCS but I don't know how to do that and how can that help.

Thanks!

[Wayne DeNardi]

Here's a few things to check:

How do you have your recording alias, call profile and templates configured?

• Check in the call options that you have all the speeds and codecs selected (to make sure that it's not speed or codec limited).
• Check your Template has an appropriate layout (I find the "Joined" layout is often the best when there's content involved).
• Make sure that the "Sizes" has "Large" selected.

Wayne
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[manuelsanchez]

Hello,

How can I change the resolution in the TCS, I don't find that option..

[Patrick Sparkman]

Changing the resolution on the TCS isn't possible.  It accepts what the transmitted resolution of the video/content from the codec is, based on bandwidth.

[manuelsanchez]

Hello, there was no answer to this question?

[Wayne DeNardi]

Do you have the Premium Resolution licences installed on the TCS?  Without that, it won't record in High Def and only does, from memory, w448p.

Wayne
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[SrinathGopalkr]

Please try lowering the resolution / fps on TCS side and check.

Thanks