ePresence Interactive Media 5.0 Webcasting User Guide

ePresence Interactive Media Production Overview

Welcome to ePresence Interactive Media, the world's best presentation capture solution!

ePresence provides you with all the tools you need for live and on-demand webcasting, and publishing interactive rich media presentations to the Web

Applications:

ePresence Interactive Media is based on two primary components:

1. ePresence Server: A web application that provides the web-based user interface for streaming and watching multimedia archives.
2. ePresence Capture Station: A workstation for capturing, editing, and publishing multimedia archives. ePresence Capture Station supports encoding in QuickTime?, Real Media, Windows Media, and Flash Media formats, which act as the real-time encoding components required for live webcasting. ePresence encoders are different from similar applications offered by Real Networks, Microsoft, and Adobe, because they support presentation media (e.g. Power Point) synchronized with the video and audio.
   Or, ePresence Capture Software, a cross platform Flash-only encoding application optimized for laptops and mobile environments.

Additional (optional) applications include,

• ePresence Producer: Advanced post production tool for video editing, presentation media authoring and customization.
• ePresence Webcast Presenter: An all-in-one presentation application that provides tools for webcasting PowerPoint? slides, software demonstrations, website content, and screen captures for local and remote presenters.

1. Production Hardware Setup

A typical ePresence production set consists of one ePresence Capture Station and a video camera. The capture station can be installed in the presentation room permanently or on the portable cart:

2. Producing a Live and On-demand Webcast

ePresence webcasts allow you to stream live and make recordings of important events and presentations available to online audiences. To produce a webcast with ePresence follow these easy steps:

2.1 Production

1. Plug the audio and video source cables and the presenter's PC VGA output to the Capture Station. Start the Capture station and wait until the Welcome screen is displayed:

2. Click the New Session button The following window will show up:

3. Enter the webcast title and presenter’s name. Specify the way presentation media is captured. Click Next: The following window will be displayed:

4. At this point you are ready to proceed with the webcast. Click start button when the even begins.

5. Click Stop button when the event ends. Now you are ready to publish the event to the web server. Click Next to continue.

2.2 Post-production and publishing

1. Click “Publish On-demand Webcast” button

2. Select the webcast title you would like to publish from the list box. Click Next.

3. This step is optional. If the presentation media was captured from VGA Click the OCR button. When OCR is finished you can scroll through the slides and fix OCR mistakes if present. OCR accuracy depends on the type of the presentation, font size, colors, etc. Click Next

4. Select the repository folder name, specify the archive password and click Next. Publishing process may take some time depending of the length of the video, number of supported media formats and c connection speed between your Capture station and your ePresence Server.

2.3 Testing your On-demand Webcast

Once you have completed the publishing process for your on-demand webcast test your online archive by doing the following:

1. Launch your Web browser

2. Enter your ePresence Server URL.

3. Click the Published Events menu.

4. Locate your new archive on the archive page.

5. Ensure the archive title and presenter’s name is displayed properly. Click on each of the player icons in the Watch column to test each media format. The Archive User Interface opens.

6. Test the various player functions. Navigate through the archive with the interactive Table of Contents, and Timeline applet. Click Share It to post your archive to a website or blog. Click Tag It to assign a Tag (metadata) to the archive. Search for keywords in your archive by entering a keyword and clicking the Search button. A purple marker will appear on the Timeline, indicating every instance your keyword was found.

3. Editing Multimedia Archives using ePresence Producer (ADVANCED!)

ePresence Producer includes some post production tools, which allow advanced users to make edits to multimedia archive before publishing them to the web. Please note that this application is compatible only with ePresence Capture Station 5.0+. Currently the stand-alone Capture Software doesn't have any post-production options. To edit your presentation media follow the steps below:

3.1 Opening the archive

Select the event title from the list located on the tool bar.

3.2 Previewing Archives

ePresence Producer automatically opens a preview of the video file, slides, and event stream data from your archive. Review your archive to ensure the video quality is good, and the slides play in the correct order.

3.2.1 Timeline

Move your cursor along the Timeline to navigate through your video.

The red marker indicates the current position of the video file. The blue maker indicates the position of chapters. The green marker indicates the position of slides.

3.2.2 Post-Production Editor

If your archive requires editing, you can make the necessary corrections with the post-production editor.

To access the post-production editor do the following:

1. Click View > Expand. The main window expands and displays the post-production editor.

With the post-production editor you can:

• Change the title of slide and chapter events
• Add new slide and chapter events
• Delete slide and chapter events
• Adjust the timestamps of slide and chapter events

3.3 Editing Slide and Chapter Events

3.3.1 Editing Slide Titles

The slide titles that appear in the Slide List match the title lines of the individual Power Point slides. Slide titles may require editing if an appropriate title line did not exist when the slide was imported, or if the existing title has spelling mistakes.

To edit the title of a slide do the following steps:

1. Select the slide you want to modify from the Slides List.

2. Enter the new slide title in the Slide Title text box.

3. Click the Set button to save your new slide title.

3.3.2 Editing Chapter Titles

To edit the title of a chapter do the following steps:

1. Select the chapter you want to edit from the Chapters list.

2. Enter the new chapter title in the Chapter Text box.

3. Click the Set button to save your new chapter title

3.3.3 Adding New Slides and Chapters

To add a new slide or chapter do the following steps:

1. Move your cursor along the Timeline, and click on the point that you want a new slide or chapter to occur.

2. Right-click on the Timeline. Select Create New Chapter Here or Create New Slide Here from the context box

You can also add a new event by clicking the green New button in the chapter and slide areas. The timestamp for the new event will match the current position of the video marked in red on the Timeline.

3.3.3 Deleting Slides and Chapters

To delete a slide or chapter do the following steps:

1. Select the slide or chapter you want to remove from the appropriate list box.

2. Click the Delete button.

3.3.4 Adjusting Time Stamps

The timestamps of slide and chapter events can fall out of sync with the video.

There are two methods for synchronizing slide and chapters with the video file, manually entering the correct time, or using the media player and the Timeline to locate the correct timestamp position.

To adjust slide and chapter timestamps manually do the following steps:

1. Stop the video file by clicking the Stop button on the media player.

2. Select the slide or chapter you want to adjust from the appropriate list box.

3. Click the Set button to save the new timestamp, and update the Timeline.

4. Enter the correct time into the Time field in HH:MM:SS:000 format.

To adjust chapter and slide timestamps using the media player and Timeline do the following steps:

1. Uncheck the AutoPlay? checkbox.

2. Select the slide or chapter you want to adjust from the appropriate list box.

3. Play the video file. Pay close attention to the Timeline, and click on the point on the Timeline that you want the slide or chapter event to occur.

4. Click the Update Time button. The timestamp for the slide or chapter event will be set to the position you marked on the Timeline.

5. Click the Set button to save the timestamp, and update the Timeline.

3.3.5 Adding a Time Offset

With the Time Offset tool you can change the timestamps for all chapter and slide events simultaneously.

In most cases adding a Time Offset is not necessary. However, in some circumstances a video file can fall out of sync with all the event items, if for example you captured the video from a pre-recorded tape.

To add a Time Offset do the following steps:

1. In the Time Offset box enter the number of seconds you want to offset by clicking the up and down arrows, or manually enter an offset value with your keyboard. The offset value can be negative or positive.

2. Click the Set button.

All of the slide and chapter event timestamps are adjusted by the specified number of seconds.

3.3.6 Saving the Event Stream Data

After you have made the necessary edits to the slide and chapter events you must save the event stream data.

To save the event stream data, click the Save icon on the tool bar.

3.4 Editing the Video File

With ePresence Producer you can cut segments out of your video file before you publish your archive.

To make cuts to your video file do the following:

1. Select the video segment you want to cut by dragging your cursor over the region of the segment on the Timeline.

2. Right click on the Timeline. Select Mark Selected Segment for Deletion from the context box.

3. A dialog box opens displaying the exact time range of the segment you have selected to cut.

Click Yes to confirm the cut.

4. Play the video file to preview what it will look like with the cut segments.

5. You can undo your cut by clicking Edit > Cancel Selection.

6. To save your cuts click Edit > Cut Selected Video. The status bar on the bottom of the window displays a progress message. Wait until the status bar is 100% complete.

4. Publishing Multimedia Archives to CD/DVD

1. Click Export > Publish this archive.

2. Select any empty temp directory or create a new one in the directory browser window. Click OK.

5. Open the directory you specified in the step 2, and burn its content to a CD or DVD.

Your multimedia CD/DVD will play on Windows XP or Windows Vista with Windows Media Player 9, and any MS .NET Framework installed.