Interactive Webcast

The Interactive Webcast is a new platform that combines a video signal with a comfortable interface for slide navigation. It follows a client's corporate design and provides a wealth of features, such as full-screen modes and mouse- and keyboard-based control.

The console supports all major browsers and operating systems. It is based on the Flash and Windows Media / Silverlight platforms, so that no additional plugins are required for playback. Slide synchronization is supported for both live and on-demand content, and the console can be fully adapted to a client's corporate design. It is currently available in English, German and French language versions (more languages available upon request).

The Interactive Webcast is developed in-house by MES and was used in over 500 webcasts by us and our partners. Interested in using the interactive webcast in your company? Contact us!

Please use the following link to access a sample webcast:

User Interface Features

User interface overview

The user interface consists of a video window and a slide window. Video and slides are synchronized at all times.

Video Controls

The video window provides standard play/pause, stop, seeking and volume controls. Full-screen video may be activated by clicking on the video or the magnifying glass icon. The Space key pauses and resumes playback.

Slide Controls

The slides can be controlled by the back-/forward buttons, and by using the keyboard arrow keys. The slide window prominently features the current slide number for easy reference, which may be changed by simply typing a number and pressing Enter. The video will follow suit, i.e. it will stay synchronized.

Slideflow

The integrated Slideflow control mimics the popular Coverflow navigation and has proven highly suitable for navigation in presentations. The slide stack may be dragged using the mouse, and may be thumbed through using the mouse wheel or the visual slider bar. A click in the stack quickly scrolls to the selected location. Clicking on the center slide moves video and slide display to the selected location.

Lightbox Mode

Lightbox mode with slide in the foreground; video and other controls are dimmed out

By clicking on the magnifying glass icon below the slide display, a large view of the slide may be obtained (Lightbox mode). Playback is uninterrupted; separate controls are provided to allow the user go forth- and backwards in the slide set – here, as well, the video will stay synchronized. In Lightbox mode, the video and other controls are dimmed out.

User Assistance

In our experience, most users quickly grasp the interface concepts and are tempted to experiment with its features. Nonetheless, we provide the necessary resources to explain the interface and to verify the technical requirements.

Plug-in Detection

The user is prompted to install Adobe Flash

When the console is opened, it automatically looks for a suitable plug-in to play back the provided media type(s). If content is provided in both Flash and Windows Media formats, the first found plug-in will be used.

If no suitable plug-in is found, the user is prompted to install a plug-in that matches the provided media and his system.

Help Overlay

Clicking on the «Help» menu item in the lower right corner fades in a Help Overlay. The overlay is localized (English/French) and visually resembles the player's configured layout (video window position left or right, with or without Slideflow).

System Requirements

System Requirements

The System Requirements screen may be accessed from the respective menu item in the lower right corner. It explains the browser and plug-in requirements, which are adapted to the media that is available – e.g. Flash will only be shown if a Flash clip is provided. The requirements are localized (English/French).

Configuration and Customization

Adapting the Design and Layout

Styling using CSS

The webcast console elements can be adapted to a client's corporate design using CSS. This allows adapting colors, fonts and images, and to a certain extent layout and margins.

Footers and Menu Items

A custom overlay is used to show a file widget from box.net

The footer is split into left and right sections, where the left section usually holds copyright information, and the right section holds menu items. The two footer elements may contain links that can open either in a new window, or as a Lightbox overlay.

Integrating Third-Party Widgets

Using Dynamic Elements, HTML code from third party websites may be embedded to provide functionality such as:

• Media repositories
• Panel Questions
• Chat or Technical Support
• Analytics

Custom JavaScript code may be added to interact with these elements (see «Scripting and JavaScript API»).

Scripting and JavaScript API

The console can be controlled using public JavaScript methods, and supports several callbacks. This allows to create custom controls that interact with the player, for instance to realize a menu for navigation within a playlist. Furthermore, JavaScript code may also be added to control dynamically added components. The console includes the Prototype JavaScript Framework, which is available for use by custom scripts.

Integrating the Console

The console is integrated in the following steps:

• The console is linked from the client website using a configuration identifier (clip1.xml)
• Once opened, the console loads the specified XML configuration and finds charts as well as assets such as logos and styles
• Media is hosted on streaming servers and referenced from the configuration using rtmp or rtsp/mms URLs.
• Hosting of the console including all assets (slides and design) is usually performed by MES; however customers may opt to perform the hosting on their own servers. Any standard HTTP Server such as Apache or IIS is suitable for this purpose.

On-Demand and Live Slide Ingestion

The slide ingestion process differs depending on whether the content is archived, i.e. all slides and their timings are known in advance, or whether the content is presented live, where slides need to be sent in real-time and the user cannot modify the stream position (unless time shifting is employed).

In case of an archived presentation, slide timings are provided in the XML file. MES provides free of charge tools to process slides and can assist in the editing process.

In the case of a live presentation, our custom SlideSync tool allows to synchronize slides with video data. After the event, slide timings can easily be extracted as XML to prepare an archive.

Video Platform Support

The console serves as an intermediary between the browser and video plug-ins, allowing simultaneous use of multiple video platforms such as Flash and Windows Media.

The platform currently supports Flash, Silverlight and two Windows Media playback interfaces. The extensive range of Windows Media playback support guarantees delivery to all Windows Media clients – whether they are using an out-of-the-box installation of Windows XP, whether they are a Firefox user, or whether they are using Silverlight on a Mac.

The video element of the upcoming HTML 5 standard will allow connecting a wide range of generic players for containers such as MP4, QuickTime, Ogg and Matroska.

Reference

Feature Summary

• Multi-platform
• Supports streaming and progressive download delivery
• Coverflow-like interface
• Fullscreen support for all plug-ins
• Lightbox mode
• Keyboard control
• Languages: English, French (more languages on request)
• Rounded corners
• System Requirements screen
• Resizable or fixed size
• Plug-in detection
• XML-based configuration
• CSS-based customization
• JavaScript API for custom behaviours

Complementary Tools

The following tools developed by MES are available on request:

• SlideSync: Tool to synchronize slides for live presentations
• PPTExport: Drag-and-drop tool to export a PowerPoint slide set to JPG
• Slideflow actions for Photoshop: Used to prepare Slideflow thumbnails

Supported Browsers

Supported Players

Default Metrics