Streaming video & powerpoint

[Shez]

The scenario:

Next Tuesday (gotta love short time-scales...), we've got a speaker doing a presentation with powerpoint in a big hall (~500 people) but the powers that be have expressed concern that more people may turn up than can be accommodated. Their suggestion - stream it to a big room in another building which can act as overflow.

 

The tricky bit:

Last time we did streaming, it took several weeks of research, planning, testing and programming to get it working well (we eventually used Real Helix server and an Osprey card). It was also just SD video which would be no good for powerpoint.

 

The questions:

In view of the shortness of time (and the uncertainty currently of whether this will be needed or not) I'm looking for suggestions of easier, "one-box" solutions. I'm aware of Sony's Anycast and Newtek's Tricaster (which I loved the look of at Video Forum earlier this year) but suspect they're slight overkill for this job. It'll be two cameras (CV) and the powerpoint (XGA) plus sound. The internal network is reliable and fast.

 

My backup plan is to just stream audio and have someone manually advancing a copy of the powerpoint in the remote building. Low tech but should work at a pinch!

 

Are there any other more basic systems out there that could still do this job? Do you happen to hire them? All suggestions welcome. I've seen plenty of webcasts over the last few years that have integrated video & powerpoint so there must be a few different ways of doing it. Given more time I'm sure I could cobble something together but in this instance, ease of set up / use and reliability straight out the box are key.

[bruce]

How about using a pair of simple hardware videoconference codecs with H.239 support? That would give you audio and one composite video stream, and the H.239 channel would allow you to send the powerpoint output to the other end.

[Shez]

And this is why the BR is great - that kind of solution never even crossed my mind! Much as I'd love an excuse to have a play with a Tricaster, justifying the cost would be hard. As it happens, the neighbouring university use lecture overflow systems quite regularly so I'll have a chat with them about it. It remains to be seen whether that'll work out cheaper though...

[Shez]

No luck from the uni - their overflow systems are hard-wired rather than using the network and they don't have anything suitable available for hire.

 

A bit of googling suggests a Polycom Viewstation FX as being suitable, although now discontinued. Is there anything else similar out there that's commonly held in hire stock?

[bruce]

Plenty other products from manufacturers like Polycom, Tandberg, Lifesize. I'll PM you some reviews and contact details.

[cho_drummer]

if it's just one camera try songpro or pro presenter.

Both designed for churches. Just stick your camera nearish to the PC and stick a firewire straight in, assuming you're using a prosumer camera or a pro camera. Otherwise send your composite video feed via a usb dongle or something similar. If you have a bit of budget, get a capture card like a matrox mx02 or something. I find firewire streams pretty reliably if you have a decent machine. If you want to use multiple cameras mix them first on a vision mixer then send the output into a capture card, then send the video through pro presenter along with the powerpoint. You may want to delay the audio a little for that one though as the video feed might be a few frames behind.

 

Expensive way is to rent an octoFX.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Chris.

[mac.calder]

I guess the main question - what connectivity do you have between venues - ie is there a direct copper patch? is it possible to get cat5 patched between the venues without network switches in the middle? Is it possible to get a direct fiber optic patch between the venues (or at least the buildings) - basically, do you HAVE to use the network - because if you can avoid encoding it, your costs go down dramatically and your reliability tends to go up equally as much.

 

The more of the infrastructure and processing you can control (ie a direct patch between points) the more you can control the variables. Because all you need is to be going through a network switch that the network admins have placed some form of QoS that kicks video to the bottom of the stack to make what starts out as a good connection into a bad one really quickly.