Introduction to CU-SeeMe

CU-SeeMe is a desktop videoconferencing program available for the Macintosh and PC computers, and is available free from Cornell University. CU-SeeMe provides a one-to-one conference, or by use of a reflector, a one-to-many, a several-to-several, or a several-to-many conference depending on user needs and hardware capabilities.

It displays 4-bit grayscale video windows at 160x120 pixels or at double that diameter, and now includes audio on the Mac. So far as we know, CU-SeeMe was the first software available for the Macintosh to support real-time multi-party videoconferencing on the Internet.

CU-SeeMe is intended to provide useful conferencing at minimal cost. Receiving requires only a Mac with a screen capable of displaying 16 grays and a connection to the Internet. Sending requires the same plus a nifty camera called QuickCam which can cost as little as $100 to add on.

At this time CU-SeeMe runs on the Macintosh (with audio) and the PC (without audio) using an IP network connection. With CU-SeeMe each participant can decide to be a sender, a receiver, or both. Although being improved with each version, CU-SeeMe is still beta test software.

The developers suggest that we use the program at our own risk, and to keep bandwidth limits set down under 100kbps, or less if we share limited bandwidth with others. Cornell says that many folks connected to the Internet can use CU-SeeMe with the default settings and will cause no problem to a network. They suggest that we check out the program over our networks before we go nuts with it.

CU-SeeMe was initially written for the Macintosh by Tim Dorcey with design assistance and sponsorship by Richard Cogger of the Advanced Technology group in the Network Resources division of Cornell University's Information Technology department (CIT).

Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, Cornell University. See accompanying software notices from Cornell FTP site.