I haven't blogged in a while, so here's something for free.
Category Sametime Video
Yes, as my Dad keeps telling me, I haven't blogged since February. In fact, in the time since my last blog about Microsoft Flight, Microsoft have already laid off the Microsoft Flight team, so we won't be hearing much more about that product. Any way, on to the free stuff. A long long time ago in technology terms, 5 years ago almost, I blogged about a little tool that I thought was promising, but didn't work for me, namely Fake Webcam.
The concept for Fake Webcam is simple, use a stored video file instead of your live webcam in things like Web Meetings. I mentioned at the time this would be great for those online meetings, where you had a video message from the CEO or something that you wanted to share with everyone. Back then and still now, Sametime doesn't have a way to have a video that you can share and start playing automatically. You can upload the video as a file in the document area, but that isn't what people want, they want to be able to start it playing and have everyone watching the same video in sync at the same time, Fake Webcam will let you do this.
There are two versions of fake Webcam available right now, 7.1 and 7.2. 7.1 worked great with skype and Yahoo Messenger etc. but didn't work with Sametime, giving a scrunched up picture. 7.2 Does work with Sametime and using it made my life much easier for testing video. I could have a VM loaded with one Sametime client connected into a meeting with video enabled, sharing a video on loop, whilst on my host machine I could have another Sametime session with my regular webcam. Think about that, with enough VMs, you could do the Brady Bunch Connections video demo without requiring another person. Here's a very short video showing how I can switch between stored movies that are played, and the resulting video showing in the Sametime Meeting window.
Yeah, yeah you say, what about the free stuff. Well Kate who writes Fake Webcam posted a comment on my blog about her software and made a really nice offer for blog readers, if you download the software, and shoot them an email with your registration key and mention my blog, they'll send you back a key for your own free copy.
To download 7.2 here is the link:
www.fakewebcam.com/download/setup7.2.0.0.exe
So not a bad little gift.
So I started thinking, it would be a great way to have people attend a Sametime meeting and have a looping video play, make the video the right length and you could say, demonstrations start every 30 minutes or something, but as I started to think about implementing that I came across various things in Sametime Meetings that really made it not a good idea. So here are some suggestion for IBM regarding Sametime Meetings with Audio/Video.
1. If a moderator sets it so that users entering a meeting are muted, the user should not be able to unmute themselves.
2. A user should not have to manually select join audio/video in a conference
3. There should be an option for a moderator to set a Sametime Meeting as broadcast mode, where users will see video but cannot share their video
Yes, as my Dad keeps telling me, I haven't blogged since February. In fact, in the time since my last blog about Microsoft Flight, Microsoft have already laid off the Microsoft Flight team, so we won't be hearing much more about that product. Any way, on to the free stuff. A long long time ago in technology terms, 5 years ago almost, I blogged about a little tool that I thought was promising, but didn't work for me, namely Fake Webcam.
The concept for Fake Webcam is simple, use a stored video file instead of your live webcam in things like Web Meetings. I mentioned at the time this would be great for those online meetings, where you had a video message from the CEO or something that you wanted to share with everyone. Back then and still now, Sametime doesn't have a way to have a video that you can share and start playing automatically. You can upload the video as a file in the document area, but that isn't what people want, they want to be able to start it playing and have everyone watching the same video in sync at the same time, Fake Webcam will let you do this.
There are two versions of fake Webcam available right now, 7.1 and 7.2. 7.1 worked great with skype and Yahoo Messenger etc. but didn't work with Sametime, giving a scrunched up picture. 7.2 Does work with Sametime and using it made my life much easier for testing video. I could have a VM loaded with one Sametime client connected into a meeting with video enabled, sharing a video on loop, whilst on my host machine I could have another Sametime session with my regular webcam. Think about that, with enough VMs, you could do the Brady Bunch Connections video demo without requiring another person. Here's a very short video showing how I can switch between stored movies that are played, and the resulting video showing in the Sametime Meeting window.
Yeah, yeah you say, what about the free stuff. Well Kate who writes Fake Webcam posted a comment on my blog about her software and made a really nice offer for blog readers, if you download the software, and shoot them an email with your registration key and mention my blog, they'll send you back a key for your own free copy.
To download 7.2 here is the link:
www.fakewebcam.com/download/setup7.2.0.0.exe
So not a bad little gift.
So I started thinking, it would be a great way to have people attend a Sametime meeting and have a looping video play, make the video the right length and you could say, demonstrations start every 30 minutes or something, but as I started to think about implementing that I came across various things in Sametime Meetings that really made it not a good idea. So here are some suggestion for IBM regarding Sametime Meetings with Audio/Video.
1. If a moderator sets it so that users entering a meeting are muted, the user should not be able to unmute themselves.
2. A user should not have to manually select join audio/video in a conference
3. There should be an option for a moderator to set a Sametime Meeting as broadcast mode, where users will see video but cannot share their video
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Comments
Posted by Almar Diehl At 02:08:57 PM On 09/18/2012 | - Website - |
Posted by Mathieu P. At 03:39:48 PM On 09/18/2012 | - Website - |
As per Kate's request, posting that she did send it to myself as well -- for those who are doubting it.
Posted by Farbz At 09:17:32 PM On 10/02/2012 | - Website - |
Posted by Carol Sumner At 11:25:43 AM On 11/01/2012 | - Website - |