DBUG Live Webcast at 02-23-05 Meeting ID
6:45 EST
Meeting ID :
469-936-955
6:45 EST
Meeting ID :
469-936-955
Michael Smith
Signature Architects, Inc.
Signature Architects, Inc.
Sorry I missed this. I didn't get the word in time to sign in. I didn't see the email announcement until about 9:00 PM my time which would be 10:00 your time. But I would be interested in reading how this experiment went. It would be great to hear from both sides, the people who put it on and the people who joined in over the internet.
DBUG webcast results 02-23-05
Well that was interesting.
As I was attending the presentations I was imagining what it must have been like for the remote viewers, and thought that it must be like the longest and slowest slide show in history. Worse yet they would have no clue at to when the screen would suddenly change.
The experiment was unquestionably a success in that people did indeed participate - at several points to our maximum capacity for this experiment of 11 online viewers - with very very short notice (the DBUG@world notice went online at 3:15 pm, and the required meeting number not posted to the web site and the DataCAD forum until the meeting was actually running around 6:45.
In my view, though, the technology absolutely failed, as, without sound, I think such presentations are meaningless. As I listened to the usual DBUG banter of questions interupting presenters followed by other people actually offering nuggets of helpful tips and texhniques, all I could think of is that the online viewers were missing all of this (and probably wondering why the screen movement had paused for yet another 10 minutes).
I started to think that perhaps sound was even more important than the screen video - and that maybe we should instead start thinking about broadcasting DBUG as sound recordings similar to how I listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..." from PBS through the internet site rather than on the radio. ... but then Mike Smith started in to his demonstration of Alt-Key shortcuts in DataCAD. I tried to imagine what sound-only people would hear --- he would say something like "here is what my Alt-D macro does" followed just by "ooooh" from the DBUG crowd (as the screen flipped quickly through several things and automatically drew something). As it was, I am sure the video-only viewers of the same thing (since they could not see him hit Alt-D, nor even know that is what he was about to do) were probably wondering what the heck was going on with the screen flipping all around.
Thus, future DBUG webcasts, MUST be both sound and audio. I think, though I would even sacrifice video quality (if necessary) to make sure that sound was there.
Probably far more important and successful was the fact that people were there - which speaks more to the power and importance of the
DBUG@world email forum than anything else. Also, since people as far away as Australia and South Africa were part of the webcast, it shows that people would be interested if and when we work out the best way to do this.
gotomeeting
As for www.gotomeeting.com, no, I would probably not try that again. Yes it was relatively easy to set up. Yes it was fun to see the little yellow notices pop up ("Allen has joined the meeting") at least for this meeting, 'cause we had the constant reminder that we are at the very begginning of something that might be big here, but I imagine that in the future it would be distracting, even annoying, and if we did really expand this to the business-level of gotomeeting.com (which apparently is possible) to add many more people online, the pop up notices would be terrible. Yes, it is possible, sort of, to add sound to a gotomeeting session. Apparently, if you subscribe to their business version, it can quasi-automatically set up some sort of conference telephone call. The rub there though is primerily the long distance phone charges.
Before the meeting I did research VoIP - voice over internet technology a bit, where, apparently people could tie into such a conference call via a kind of internet phone type thing. The cheapest service I found there was some $7 per month (which would allow free calling to any other such subscriber (it was some $21 for quasi-normal "phone" service to call anyone anywhere)). Such internet phones (that I researched) do require another piece of hardware (part of a $35 installation fee) that functions as a kind of router. I could visualize many situations where that would be un-workable or unacceptible (for instance someone wanting to watch the DBUG from work, or networks with different or wireless routers or firewalls, etc.) The other rub is that it would require a speaker-telephone on our end of high enough quality to pick up all those meeting announcements and tips people throw in.
Rather than get into all the possible complexities of sound on this particular event, we decided to just go with the gotomeeting video. We now know that is a no-go. With all the costs and complexities of the phone thing, that makes expanding even to that, also a no-go.
Camtasia
The other technology that failed right off, so we canceled using it for the meeting was screen recording with Camtasia. I had high hopes for Camtasia, and had initially thought it would be the preferred thing we would use. The main point being that people could view it off-time, like using TiVo. People who only learned about a meeting aftert he fact, people in Australia, would be able to see DBUG at a more convienient time. If successful, I even envisioned a database of DBUG meetings stored online at the www.datacad.com site. I also like the fact that we could download free 15 day versions of it at each future DBUG host. I especially had hopes for Camtasia as I have been using it extensively in creating a whole new series of DataCAD tutorials I plan to release soon.
The reason we kyboshed it, after installing it on Mikes machine and running several tests... -- We Did Have a Microphone -- was that 1) every 60 seconds with full screen motion and sound was 8 meg, but more importantly, 2) it was too disruptive for the presenters.
The 8 meg per minute thing COULD be dealt with. The AVI files are kind of like the BMP files for images in that an image that is 3.5 meg as a
BMP could end up being a 50 k jpeg file (i.e. over 500 times smaller) and there are other video-sound formats that are more efficient. Some of those video-sound files (all of which Camtasia can save to) such as Flash, can be streamed, which means it is ideal for Web viewing. Also, the 100 minutes or so of a DBUG meeting, even if it were 800 meg or so, could be put onto a CD. Another thing that even the 15 day demo has is the ability to EASILY edit down the video file, so I estimate that, in trimming it down to just the real useful bits, it would be around 20% of that.
No, the deal breaker with Camtasia was that it required clicking on things, and saving, in segments (it would not be wise to do it all in one huge session) which would be disrupting to the various presenters. My deal with Mike and his DBUG meeting was that if any of my webcasting attempts got in his way it would be turned off. Even still, I may have attempted such a screen recording - particularly on his segment about DataCAD alt-key tips - but my experiments with the microphone showed that you had to speak closely and directly into the mic (ala how American Idol singers practically eat the microphones). I suppose that there are bigger and more expensive microphones that could pick up the room full of people (when needed) and/or allow a presenter walking around animatedly giving a presentation to be heard, but I don't have one.
Future webcast thoughts
I did research, in addition to online meeting and webcasting technologies, "webinar" technologies. Initially I had dismissed stuff like webcams (thinking we needed higher quality computer screen video) and Vodium (which, it turns out, is some $1250 per month for their basic level thing) which seemed great for showing things like presidential press conferences. Now I am re-thinking this (- not the $1250 part - but the idea of using webcam type things. At virtually every DBUG meeting we rent or borrow one of those large computer screen projector things. Thus, even though the video quality would be nowhere near as good, someone could get sort of the same view as someone in a seat in the actual conference room.
Apparently there better sound options going with this kind of approach.
A side benefit of Vodium is that the webinar is also automatically recorded, thus having some of the benefits we hoped for with Camtasia. I would think, though that there must be something cheaper and appropriate for us to use. A feature a lot of the expensive ones have is a kind of feedback or chat that the viewers can participate. Although our 15 or so online viewers entertained themselves with this feature in a kind of simultaneous second-level DBUG meeting going online, we could skip this if we can do this cheaply or free.
Finally, that this worked at all shows that there is something about people gathering together online and in person for a meeting at a specific time.
There are plenty of QandAs, tutorials, and tips things posted online, but people still tied in to our live meeting. More than just up-to-date information, we gather for a sense of community.
I think it is worth pioneering another attempt, with a different technology.
Geoffrey Moore Langdon
webcastmaster
Well that was interesting.
As I was attending the presentations I was imagining what it must have been like for the remote viewers, and thought that it must be like the longest and slowest slide show in history. Worse yet they would have no clue at to when the screen would suddenly change.
The experiment was unquestionably a success in that people did indeed participate - at several points to our maximum capacity for this experiment of 11 online viewers - with very very short notice (the DBUG@world notice went online at 3:15 pm, and the required meeting number not posted to the web site and the DataCAD forum until the meeting was actually running around 6:45.
In my view, though, the technology absolutely failed, as, without sound, I think such presentations are meaningless. As I listened to the usual DBUG banter of questions interupting presenters followed by other people actually offering nuggets of helpful tips and texhniques, all I could think of is that the online viewers were missing all of this (and probably wondering why the screen movement had paused for yet another 10 minutes).
I started to think that perhaps sound was even more important than the screen video - and that maybe we should instead start thinking about broadcasting DBUG as sound recordings similar to how I listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..." from PBS through the internet site rather than on the radio. ... but then Mike Smith started in to his demonstration of Alt-Key shortcuts in DataCAD. I tried to imagine what sound-only people would hear --- he would say something like "here is what my Alt-D macro does" followed just by "ooooh" from the DBUG crowd (as the screen flipped quickly through several things and automatically drew something). As it was, I am sure the video-only viewers of the same thing (since they could not see him hit Alt-D, nor even know that is what he was about to do) were probably wondering what the heck was going on with the screen flipping all around.
Thus, future DBUG webcasts, MUST be both sound and audio. I think, though I would even sacrifice video quality (if necessary) to make sure that sound was there.
Probably far more important and successful was the fact that people were there - which speaks more to the power and importance of the
DBUG@world email forum than anything else. Also, since people as far away as Australia and South Africa were part of the webcast, it shows that people would be interested if and when we work out the best way to do this.
gotomeeting
As for www.gotomeeting.com, no, I would probably not try that again. Yes it was relatively easy to set up. Yes it was fun to see the little yellow notices pop up ("Allen has joined the meeting") at least for this meeting, 'cause we had the constant reminder that we are at the very begginning of something that might be big here, but I imagine that in the future it would be distracting, even annoying, and if we did really expand this to the business-level of gotomeeting.com (which apparently is possible) to add many more people online, the pop up notices would be terrible. Yes, it is possible, sort of, to add sound to a gotomeeting session. Apparently, if you subscribe to their business version, it can quasi-automatically set up some sort of conference telephone call. The rub there though is primerily the long distance phone charges.
Before the meeting I did research VoIP - voice over internet technology a bit, where, apparently people could tie into such a conference call via a kind of internet phone type thing. The cheapest service I found there was some $7 per month (which would allow free calling to any other such subscriber (it was some $21 for quasi-normal "phone" service to call anyone anywhere)). Such internet phones (that I researched) do require another piece of hardware (part of a $35 installation fee) that functions as a kind of router. I could visualize many situations where that would be un-workable or unacceptible (for instance someone wanting to watch the DBUG from work, or networks with different or wireless routers or firewalls, etc.) The other rub is that it would require a speaker-telephone on our end of high enough quality to pick up all those meeting announcements and tips people throw in.
Rather than get into all the possible complexities of sound on this particular event, we decided to just go with the gotomeeting video. We now know that is a no-go. With all the costs and complexities of the phone thing, that makes expanding even to that, also a no-go.
Camtasia
The other technology that failed right off, so we canceled using it for the meeting was screen recording with Camtasia. I had high hopes for Camtasia, and had initially thought it would be the preferred thing we would use. The main point being that people could view it off-time, like using TiVo. People who only learned about a meeting aftert he fact, people in Australia, would be able to see DBUG at a more convienient time. If successful, I even envisioned a database of DBUG meetings stored online at the www.datacad.com site. I also like the fact that we could download free 15 day versions of it at each future DBUG host. I especially had hopes for Camtasia as I have been using it extensively in creating a whole new series of DataCAD tutorials I plan to release soon.
The reason we kyboshed it, after installing it on Mikes machine and running several tests... -- We Did Have a Microphone -- was that 1) every 60 seconds with full screen motion and sound was 8 meg, but more importantly, 2) it was too disruptive for the presenters.
The 8 meg per minute thing COULD be dealt with. The AVI files are kind of like the BMP files for images in that an image that is 3.5 meg as a
BMP could end up being a 50 k jpeg file (i.e. over 500 times smaller) and there are other video-sound formats that are more efficient. Some of those video-sound files (all of which Camtasia can save to) such as Flash, can be streamed, which means it is ideal for Web viewing. Also, the 100 minutes or so of a DBUG meeting, even if it were 800 meg or so, could be put onto a CD. Another thing that even the 15 day demo has is the ability to EASILY edit down the video file, so I estimate that, in trimming it down to just the real useful bits, it would be around 20% of that.
No, the deal breaker with Camtasia was that it required clicking on things, and saving, in segments (it would not be wise to do it all in one huge session) which would be disrupting to the various presenters. My deal with Mike and his DBUG meeting was that if any of my webcasting attempts got in his way it would be turned off. Even still, I may have attempted such a screen recording - particularly on his segment about DataCAD alt-key tips - but my experiments with the microphone showed that you had to speak closely and directly into the mic (ala how American Idol singers practically eat the microphones). I suppose that there are bigger and more expensive microphones that could pick up the room full of people (when needed) and/or allow a presenter walking around animatedly giving a presentation to be heard, but I don't have one.
Future webcast thoughts
I did research, in addition to online meeting and webcasting technologies, "webinar" technologies. Initially I had dismissed stuff like webcams (thinking we needed higher quality computer screen video) and Vodium (which, it turns out, is some $1250 per month for their basic level thing) which seemed great for showing things like presidential press conferences. Now I am re-thinking this (- not the $1250 part - but the idea of using webcam type things. At virtually every DBUG meeting we rent or borrow one of those large computer screen projector things. Thus, even though the video quality would be nowhere near as good, someone could get sort of the same view as someone in a seat in the actual conference room.
Apparently there better sound options going with this kind of approach.
A side benefit of Vodium is that the webinar is also automatically recorded, thus having some of the benefits we hoped for with Camtasia. I would think, though that there must be something cheaper and appropriate for us to use. A feature a lot of the expensive ones have is a kind of feedback or chat that the viewers can participate. Although our 15 or so online viewers entertained themselves with this feature in a kind of simultaneous second-level DBUG meeting going online, we could skip this if we can do this cheaply or free.
Finally, that this worked at all shows that there is something about people gathering together online and in person for a meeting at a specific time.
There are plenty of QandAs, tutorials, and tips things posted online, but people still tied in to our live meeting. More than just up-to-date information, we gather for a sense of community.
I think it is worth pioneering another attempt, with a different technology.
Geoffrey Moore Langdon
webcastmaster
Geoffrey Moore Langdon, AIA
Architectural CADD Consultants
www.architecturalcadd.com
617-233-2511
glangdon@architecturalcadd.com
Architectural CADD Consultants
www.architecturalcadd.com
617-233-2511
glangdon@architecturalcadd.com
Hello:
Great post, Nick! I would add the complication to the already complicated list: one of the things that has helped DBUG continue to be the vigorous group that it is, is the policy of rotating the job of hosting the meetings. This means that it is held in 7 or 9 different offices (we have 10 meetings a year, August and December being the off months) and a couple or 3 meetings are held in the BSA 5th floor conference room. (After all, DBUG is technically a subcommittee of the BSA!) Oh, and every office has to have a broadband Internet connection...this is probably available in most host locations.
So, the broadcast would ideally be a movable thing! And I believe it will totally depend on the software used. A real-time, decent quality screen capture with decent quality (and real-time) sound. If a combination of two programs did the trick, or added some important ability -- like audio from each of the Internet participants that is heard in the host location, then we would be the richer for it.
The other major limitation of the GoToMeeting (at least the free version!) is the limit of Internet participants -- eleven just won't cut it! Even with the short notice, we maxed that out!
So, lets hear from the vast number of you lurkers out there! What program or what two programs should we use to do this? Would you participate if these issues could be solved? Is there a fair way to spread out any (likely) costs?
Great post, Nick! I would add the complication to the already complicated list: one of the things that has helped DBUG continue to be the vigorous group that it is, is the policy of rotating the job of hosting the meetings. This means that it is held in 7 or 9 different offices (we have 10 meetings a year, August and December being the off months) and a couple or 3 meetings are held in the BSA 5th floor conference room. (After all, DBUG is technically a subcommittee of the BSA!) Oh, and every office has to have a broadband Internet connection...this is probably available in most host locations.
So, the broadcast would ideally be a movable thing! And I believe it will totally depend on the software used. A real-time, decent quality screen capture with decent quality (and real-time) sound. If a combination of two programs did the trick, or added some important ability -- like audio from each of the Internet participants that is heard in the host location, then we would be the richer for it.
The other major limitation of the GoToMeeting (at least the free version!) is the limit of Internet participants -- eleven just won't cut it! Even with the short notice, we maxed that out!
So, lets hear from the vast number of you lurkers out there! What program or what two programs should we use to do this? Would you participate if these issues could be solved? Is there a fair way to spread out any (likely) costs?
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