The power to communicate
Video streaming, or ‘webcasting’, enables you to extend your conference to a wider audience, so you can reach and involve those people who are unable to get to a conference venue. Streaming can be delivered in real time or archived for viewing at a later date. It enables you to deliver high-impact, rich-media messages for anyone with a PC and an Internet browser.
Webcasting enables you to;
- Hold seminars, presentations or training sessions for audiences of any size, from almost anywhere in the world, anytime
- Reach more employees, partners, customers and investors with the key messages you need to deliver
- Replay conference content to people who can’t attend
- Use multiple speakers and slide shows to maximise effectiveness – without incurring significant additional costs
- Save time and costs by removing the need for attendees to travel to conference venues
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Client Support available
Key features
- Live (real-time) or archived (on-demand) video systems
- Easy scheduling and preparation
- Archiving – stored to play at a later date
- Question and answer session to interact with your conference attendees
- Voting
- Multiple presenters
- Audience registration so you can identify who will be attending the conference
- Security
- Flexible reporting
Additional features
- Table of contents to quickly navigate through archived presentations
- Flexible reporting options enable you to measure return on investment
- Complete support – we take care of the technology so you can focus on preparing your content.
What do I need?
You produce the presentation for your streamed conference, we take care of everything else. We encode, post and host your event, whether it’s live or pre-recorded.
You need to request streaming when booking your video conference. There is a streaming booking form to complete, available from your account manager.
The only requirements for viewing streamed content are a personal computer with Internet access, a sound card, speakers and RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. These are standard components of most personal computers.
Webcasting FAQ
What is Streaming?
From a viewers’ perspective it’s a URL link through to a webpage that typically has audio, video and slides all delivered through an online connection. This can be viewed either:
- Live “as it happens” – where participants watch your event ‘live’ via a web page
- On-demand “recorded” – where participants watch your event, via a web page after your event has happened.
What streaming services do we provide?
We offer a host of audio and video streaming services:
Video streaming
Our video streaming service can be captured via either:
- Video conferencing equipment – the most popular way to capture a streamed video event
- Satellite
- Fibre
- Onsite encoding
Audio streaming
Our audio streaming service is captured using standard telephone conferencing equipment.
What’s included?
All standard streaming packages include the following:
- Event duration: 2 hours average, can be extended – streaming begins 15 minutes prior to scheduled start time
- Stream archiving for 90 days: with a defined number of times the stream can be viewed. (this can be varied with different package options)
- Encoding
- A registration page for people to register to view the stream. This can be customized and also password protected
- User reporting: contains the results of the registration page entries, list of viewers and how long they viewed the event.
Presentation package
Our presentation package is a chargeable option that will enhance your audio or video streaming event.
What’s included?
The following is included in this package:
- PowerPoint slides: slides can be imported as PPT and are presented to viewers as static images. Animation is not currently supported. Multiple PowerPoint slides can be uploaded and selected when required.
- Live, interactive Q&A: typically a participant types in a question and the presenter can verbally provide the answer during the Q&A session. Alternatively, the answer can be emailed back to the participant. If the event is configured such that the participant can see the answered questions, then the presenter can respond directly to the participant and every participant viewing the stream will be able to see both the question asked and the answer.
- Polling: this allows the presenter to push a poll to the participants. A popup window is displayed to all participants while the presenter has the poll open. The popup window is closed once the participant votes, or when the presenter closes the poll. The presenter can optionally choose to publish the results of the poll.
- Corrective Polling: this option allows the presenter to pose a question together with some potential answers during the live and on-demand event. When shown in the on-demand event there is an option to pause the event playback until all questions in corrective polling group have been correctly answered.
- URL broadcast: the presenter can choose to push a URL broadcast so that all participants get to see a nominated URL in a new internet explorer window. The URL can manually be entered or be selected from a predefined URL list. Closing the URL broadcast will close all participant viewer windows.
- Flash broadcast: the presenter has the option of uploading and broadcasting a Flash file to all participants. The Flash file will be played over the slide window to all participants currently connected to the streaming event.
- Content Indexing: on-demand indexing can by provided by presentation title slides or client-defined index and timings. Indexing is not supported by Firefox browsers.
- Speaker Photos: speaker photos can be displayed in the video window for audio streaming calls. Multiple speaker photos can be uploaded and selected when required.
Additional services
Including the following (additional charges apply for these services):
- Stream consultation
- Event management: custom productions
- Custom HTML work: changes can be made to registration, launch, and viewer pages
- Additional video encoding speeds
- CD archiving of streamed events
How do I book a streaming event?
You can book a streaming event by contacting your Account Manager
How much bandwidth is consumed whilst viewing a streamed event?
Consumed bandwidth depends upon the bit rate speed for the streamed event. Typically this is 22 kilo bits per second for an audio only stream and 300 kilo bits per second for a video stream. For viewers connected directly to the Internet this should present no problems, as each participant will have their own dedicated bandwidth. For viewers connected via a company Intranet, you will need to consult with your IT department to ensure that your network has sufficient Internet / Intranet bandwidth or support for streaming. For example, 1000 participants viewing a 300 kilo bit per second video stream from a company Intranet will consume 300 Mega bits per second unless the network has support for streaming.
Does streaming work through firewalls?
Yes, provided your firewall is configured correctly to allow streaming. Please contact your IT Department about possible firewall, proxy server, or other security systems in place that may block audio/video streaming media.
How secure is access to the stream?
Video and audio streams have to be played by standard PC / MAC players and for this reason can not be encrypted. However, there are several levels of event access restriction that can be applied to make your event more secure:
The simplest and lowest level of security is to apply a common password protection to your event. This is done via the VisualWebcaster platform, and can be applied and removed by you as the customer.
One level higher is our Unique Username/Password security. Each participant is issued a unique username and password which is a one-time use access code. It will authenticate the PC it is first used on for that event, and will not work again on any other machine. Usernames and passwords can be provided by us or you as the customer.
A very popular technique for access restriction is to validate the participant’s IP address against a list of pre-authorized addresses. We can also offer URL referral authentication, whereby you as the customer places a hyperlink to your event on an internal, access restricted page (on an intranet or similar access). Only participants clicking on the hyperlink on that page are permitted access to your event.
Finally, many corporate customers utilize internal Multicasting or Unicasting behind the firewall. This ensures that only users within that network can access the streams.
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