Step by step guide

1
Step by step guide

• The sending site has the lecture present and an
  audience of students. Screen 2 (right hand screen
  for audience) will have the presentation
  material. Both the lecturer and the telematics
  technician have touch screens which enable
  question taking and switching inputs e.g. from
  PowerPoint to video. Screen 1 in the presentation
  site is blank unless a student is asking a
  question in which case they will appear on screen
  1.
• The presentation material is converted to an RGB
  image via a scan converter and then compressed in
  real time by an NCast to MPEG4 and streamed to
  the other receiving sites and the sending site as
  screen 2. Therefore all sites have the same
  image. Whilst it is being streamed it is also
  stored on the NCast hard disc for subsequent
  streaming
• The lecturer or talking head is imaged on camera
  as S-VHS then compressed in real time by a VBrick
  6000 to MPEG2 and streamed to the other receiving
  sites as screen 1. Whilst it is being streamed it
  is also stored on the VBrick hard disc for
  subsequent streaming.
• When students ask questions (yes its rare but
  does happen and the technology seems to have a
  neutral effect) their image is projected onto
  screen 1 at all sites. Radio microphones are used
  which the students pass around themselves. The
  technology is similar to the talking head but
  another VBrick is used.
• Within 24 hours the 2 video files are acquired
  via FTP to a computer in the PMS multimedia lab
  in Plymouth. They are then compressed with a
  double pass in Real Producer 10, taking
  approximately 3 hours. The 2Gb talking head and
  90 Mb presentation are compressed down to a
  fraction of the size 80Mb and 45 Mb and streamed
  together at 300-360Kb/sec. The 2 files are loaded
  onto the Helix server and subsequently streamed
  on request. Students and staff access the streams
  via our Managed Learning Environment (Blackboard
  provider) which we nickname emily. There is a
  search function available which utilise date,
  lecturer name, sending site, title. We are
  exploring adding metadata to all lectures streams
  to augment this function.