Marratech

Improving Video, Audio and Network performance

After making sure your computer meets the system requirements and you have Marratech installed correctly, if you still hear "clipped" audio,suffer from long delays and receive poor image quality, you or another participant may be connected through an inadequate network connection. Proper bandwidth is important when using web conferencing.

Here are some helpful tips to avoid network problems:

1. Set your Network Connection
Marratech can limit the amount of data to your network connection. To do this, simply open your Options (Windows), General (under Preferences.on the Mac) and set the Network Connection to the one that best matches your network.


The speed of your connection is entered as download / upload speed in kilobits per second. This will help remove any delays caused by DSL / cable TV modem buffering. It will hinder your Marratech client from sending more than your uplink can handle.

2. Activate network status meters
Enable the "Show Network Status" function under the preferences for Participants. This will add two small network loss meters to each user, which will make it easier to see which user that causes packet loss.


The left of the two meters show how you receive information from the user, the right is how your information appears at the user. If any data is lost, these will indicate (in approximate terms) how much.

3. Turn off the video
A quick way to determine if the current e-meeting room is not properly configured (i.e. it uses too much network resources) is to have all the participants stop sending video by un-pressing the camera button. Please note that your video image may take up to 30 seconds to disappear. If this solves the audio quality problem, read the next tip to lower your video bandwidth speed.
If not, one of the participants may have an inadequate computer or a very slow network connections. Have different participants use the microphone buttons at different times to help identify where the issue is.

4. Lower your video bandwidth
Try lowering the maximum amount of bandwidth assigned Options, Video on the Tools menu (under Preferences, Video on a Mac). Have the others do this as well.


5. Decrease your video image quality
You can also decrease the image quality (not while sending H.264 video) to gain a slightly better refresh rate even though you just lowered the maximum video bandwidth.

6. Look at the networks statistics
There are also a number of functions to more precisely determine packet loss, etc. in the Information window that is accessible by pressing the "I" button in the private window. This is a handy tools for determining network statistics and packet loss.