The University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada developed the first open source rich media webcasting solution in the World, ePresence.
ePresence Solution for Webcasting
ePresence is able to stream presentations in Windows Media, Real Media, Flash, QT/MP4 and other multiple media formats. This sets multi-media publishers free from from worry which browser, operating system or bandwidth the end user utilizes.
In addition to the native Power Point support, ePresence Capture station comes with Epiphan’s VGA2USB frame grabber device. This eliminates the restriction of using Power Point only, and opens door wide audience of users with variety of presentation media (including animation).
The ePresence Capture Station and presenter’s laptop are connected via VGA cable. Depending on the amount of motion on the screen in sync with the audio and video the content can be delivered remotely as a series of static screen shots or Flash streaming (FLV).
Undoubtly, the great benefit is the ability for the rich media archive to be searchable and navigable. This is achieved by the screen shots being analyzed with OCR, added to the media search engine, interractive table of content, and indexed following the capture.
Thanks to Epiphan frame grabber, ePresence developed a high-quality product at reasonable cost. ePresence reports Epiphan’s VGA capture device to be easy to use.
ePresence’s Peter Wolf says that his company chose the VGA2USB frame grabber because, “VGA2USB allows ePresence to function independently of the presentation PC’s specific operating system, and does not require that any additional software or applications be added to the presenter’s computer”.
You can find users of ePresence Solution for Webcasting and Archiving across six continents.