Jeff Kopang, Vice President of Marketing for ViewCast, provides a quick overview of the Niagara 2120 streaming media appliance.

If you are considering renting the Viewcast Niagara 2120 for your next webcast, web conference, live event, or pod cast, please watch this video for more information

Streaming Video is the future of the Internet. In the United States of America, $2 billion was being spent on streaming media technologies, and is projected to grow to in excess of $12 billion per annul over the next few years.

Today the Internet is the fastest growing marketplace and offers global, opportunities to all, from international conglomerates to the individual person sat at the kitchen table. What though is the most effective form of communication on the information super highway? The Internet has become the place to communicate with one another and the means to search for and locate information. Video streaming brings a whole new dimension to this experience for everyone, be they business persons negotiating a deal, friends and family keeping in touch with their loved ones, or people sharing a common interest seeing one another for the first time.

For communication to be of use, it must be effective. People are expounding vast amounts of time, effort and money to communicate effectively on the Internet. Studies have shown that using video on the Internet gets people’s attention and increases the likelihood that the message will be remembered.
Humans remember:

• 10% of what they read,
• 30% of what they see,
• 50% of what they see and hear together,
• and 80% of what they see, hear and do.

(source: Dr. Mehrabians, Study of Communication.)

This should have a significant impact on how one uses the Internet as a means of communication. Email changed the Internet, but video is changing the World. Email has become the fastest growing form of communication. Every day billions of emails are sent and received and the number continues to grow, (even allowing for the known problems of Spam, viruses etc.) some analysts are predicting that the number of messages will ultimately grow to as many as 100 billion a day!

This may sound great, but if one remembers that to be of use communication has to be effective, clearly definite strategies will have to be developed to achieve this aim of successful communication. The three major problems that have to be considered are:

• “How do you make your message ’stand out from the crowd’?”
• “How do you ensure uniformity of message (so everyone sees and hears the same message?” and
• “How do you try to ensure your message is not confused and misunderstood?”

Some people have started to include pictures and images to help convey the meaning and to add impact, but that still doesn’t solve the problem! This is because we are used to ‘face to face’ communication, where the message is interpreted not only from the spoken word but also the non verbal communication. 55% of a messages meaning is derived from facial expression and 38% is derived from gestures, body language etc.

So what is the solution? People online need fully integrated video streaming facilities for their online communication and this technology is available now, ranging from Video Email, Video Instant Messaging and even live Webcasting and Streaming Web TV. Streaming Video is the online future, and now is the time to place ones self at the fore front of this next communication revolution.

Video Conferencing – A Checklist

What do you wish to achieve?

• Point to Point two locations only at any one time
• Broadcast Live from one site to many watch and listen
• Broadcast pre-recorded from one site to many watch & listen
• Multipoint three or more sites with Q&A between any, relayed to all
• Multipoint – three or more plus broadcast from any to satellite sub-groups as a watch and listen.
• Live with session taped for future edit and distribution
• Person to person/s with video & audio & data manipulation across participants e.g. sharing documents, drawings with or without live edit and audit of changes made.

With whom do you wish to communicate by videoconferencing?

• Only inside your company
• From your company to sister/ contractor/ supplier companies
• With your customers
• With your prospects

Frequency of system use

• Ad hoc
• Estimated use per annum (min/max)
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly

Installation type

• Custom built static installation i.e. a designated room
• Desktop location/s i.e. from the office desktop PC
• Mobile “roll-about” system -
• Off-site facilities required going to a dedicated videoconference facility

Options required

• Record, Edit & Distribute by hardcopy (CD/DVD)
• Record, Edit & Distribute by softcopy (Web cast)
• Broadcast live via direct links to named recipients/ groups
• Broadcast pre-recorded across one or more time zones
• Log who watched and listened and when
• Multiple persons at One or Two (group to group videoconferencing e.g. design teams, board to local management)
• Multiple participants at Three or more sites

What are your current IT capabilities?

• ISDN 1
• ISDN 2
• ISDN 30
• LAN Cat5/ Cat5e/ Cat6
• LAN Fibre
• LAN wireless type?
• WAN bandwidth?
• VPN bandwidth?
• Internet access, dial-up 56k
• Internet access , Dial-up 128K
• Internet access , Broadband 1Mb
• Internet access , Broadband 2Mb
• Internet access , Broadband 4 Mb
• Internet access , Satellite link
• Internet access , permanent fibre/ cable link
• T1 / T2 / T3 / T4 (aka DS-1/ DS-2/ DS-3/ DS-4)
• OC-1 / OC-3 / OC-12 / OC-38

Impact on your system to be considered

• Bandwidth load
• Current capacity used & unused & reserved (max/ min for each)
• Planned bandwidth use excluding video conferencing
• Contention ratio
• Speed
• Video quality predominantly static (talking head Yes/No)
• Hardware at point of display
• Hardware at point of transmission
• Hardware at point of distribution

Points to consider

• Budget
• What do you spend currently on flights/ travel/ accommodation per annum?
• Write-off period for cap ex
• Leasing options
• IT infrastructure
• Cost and timescale of increased capacity and hardware -if required