Marratech Overview

By: James Reynolds & Joe Bishop - Revised: 2014-01-23 richard

Download Slides – PDF-File, 537.5 KB

Introduction

Marratech is iChat and SubEthaEdit on steroids. It can do text, audio, video chats. It has a whiteboard for viewing text files, images, even pdf's, and you can even write on them. And best of all, it is very easy and intuitive to use.

Joe Bishop of Marratech will provide an overview & demonstration of the Work Environment kit.


Marratech Description

Marratech is iChat and SubEthaEdit on steroids and is very easy and intuitive to use.

What can Marratech do compared to iChat and SubEthaEdit?
  • Text/audio/video chat, just like iChat
  • Collaboratively edit a document, just like SubEthaEdit
What can Marratech do MORE than iChat and SubEthaEdit?
  • Text/audio/video chat with a group of people
  • View/edit multiple documents of several file types: PDF, images, text documents
  • Secure connections

What do you need to use Marratech?

  • Minimum Client OS requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.6, Windows NT/98/ME/2000/XP, Red Hat 9
  • Minimum Client hardware requirements: G4 w/ 256MB RAM, PII/300 w/ 256MB RAM
  • Minimum Server OS requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.4, Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Server, Red Hat 7.1, Solaris 8
  • Minimum Server hardware requirements: G4 w/ 256MB RAM, PII/450 w/ 256MB RAM, UltraSparc w/ 256MB RAM
  • Free client: Marratech Pro
  • Not-free server: Marratech E-meetings Portal (or use a public server like emeetingportal.com)
  • Audio chat requires a mic and headphones (use headphones to remove audio feedback)
  • Video chat requires a camera

Recommended audio hardware for Mac

  • Plantronics DSP-300 $89 ($60 from CompUSA and others)
  • Plantronics .Audio 30 - 80 $24.95 - $34.95 (these also require an iMic)
  • Sennheiser MAB 15, 25, 30, etc (these also require an iMic)
  • ClearOne AccuMic II $650 (also requires an iMic)
  • GlobalMedia ClearMic $300 (also requires an iMic)
Note: you can use a built-in mic or a mic on a camera, but you should always use headphones to get rid of audio feedback. Combo mic/headphones are recommended over built-in and camera mics because the combos are better for teleconferencing. They have less background noise, which is important when there are many people who are also sending audio.

Recommended video cameras for Mac

  • iSight
  • Micro iBot
  • Fire-i

Cost for the Server

The Marratech clients are free. The server is not though. There are several licensing options. Contact Marratech for exact prices.

Demo

Here is a snapshot of Marratech's client, showing the chat participants in the top left, the whiteboard on the bottom left (where I have scribbled onto a document), my video/audio options, the video of the person I am focusing on (me), and the chat window below that.