Live Web-Casting, HKU Video Conferencing Scheduler and NetMeeting Directory Server

Live Web-casting

Web-casting is the delivery of multimedia content from a host server to clients over the Internet.  In live web-casting, the content is directly captured at source, encoded and put on a host server ready for streaming to clients.  Communication is uni-directional, hence non-interactive.

The Computer Centre can assist in arranging live web-casting sessions for the departments if sufficient time for preparation and tests prior to the real broadcast is allowed. The location where the web-casting will take place should be installed with a Campus Network point.

To publicize the web-casting event, departments may create a web-page for the event by customising this template, which contains a link (not to be modified) to the server from which the web-cast content will be streamed. If the link is clicked on a client PC after the web-casting is started, RealPlayer will be launched to play the content. Departments can send emails to notify the interested parties of the web-casting event to be held.

HKU Video Conferencing Scheduler

This is a device on the HKU campus network that provides a Web-based GUI interface for users to create, schedule and monitor their multipoint video conferences themselves. Departments can set up multipoint video conference if the following conditions are satisfied:

• Total no. of parties (including yourself) is not more than 6
• The parties must either be IP or ISDN connections
• The maximum no. of IP connections is 6 at 768Kbps each
• The maximum no. of ISDN connections is 3, at 384Kbps each

In a multipoint video conference, the conferencing parties establish connections with the Scheduler, which brings the parties together and displays them on each party’s video display.
 

Thus the Scheduler can be thought of as an integrated system comprising of a Web server and the above-mentioned Multipoint Control Unit (MCU).  The Web server communicates directly with users, passing requests back to the MCU, or conference status information from the MCU to users.

Users normally start by logging in the Scheduler to create their own conference by specifying a number of parameters, such as names of the video-conferencing parties, connection speeds, connection types (IP or ISDN), screen layouts etc.  Then the conference can be scheduled to take place either immediately or at a future date.  When the conference starts, users login the Scheduler again to connect the conferencing parties to the conference (if dial-out mode is chosen) or to monitor the conference status.  Finally, when the conference finishes, it can be terminated in the Scheduler. For further details on the operation procedures, please refer to the User Guide of HKU Video Conferencing Scheduler.

NetMeeting Directory Server

Microsoft NetMeeting is a low-cost video and data collaboration tool that runs on Windows platforms.  It enables you to :

• video-conference with others
• share applications and documents with others
• send files to others
• text-chat with others

For network bandwidth and security consideration, the directory server is only available to users within the campus network. The self-help procedures on using this directory server can be found at the guide on Using the HKU NetMeeting Directory Server.

HKU Web Conferencing Service

Video collaboration over the Internet is attracting wider use nowadays. In recent years, the use of web-conferencing for video collaboration has become more popular. Such systems allow communicating parties to have conferences with information sharing through the Web. All the conference participants need are a networked PC with a web camera and a web browser in order to join the conference. The set-up is simple, as compared to the traditional video conferencing system, which requires the set-up of sophisticated video and audio equipment with a high demand on the network bandwidth.

The Computer Centre has set up a web-conferencing system based on the Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional software. Departments can make use their account created on the system to set up and schedule meetings for themselves. Notification email is sent to participants who can then join the scheduled meetings through web browsers by clicking an URL embedded in the notification email. The Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional web-conferencing system also supports interactive information sharing, such as synchronized presentation, interactive chat, or whiteboard sharing, etc.