Thriller Media Group

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.

If you wish to stream your own video technical experience is not a prerequisite; you just need to follow some simple instructions and you will quickly be up and running. Continue on with this report and I’ll teach you how simple it is to get started right away.

You see, in order to ‘paste’ a video file onto one of your webpages, the initial job is to “translate” your raw video file into flv format (known as flash video) – this is the net’s preferred display format for videos. This unique format enables you to ’squeeze’ your videos onto a reasonable file size (so you won’t end up with ‘heavyweight’ files…) while maintaining a top quality display level.

No matter when you want to stream your own video, this distinctive format keeps your digital movies in a special mode known as ’streaming’; this means that anytime your viewers click on play they can begin viewing any of your video(s), without delays of any kind, and even better, without having to download or install anything on their pc.

Okay, so now you’re familiar with the system, and you’re probably asking yourself how to get up and running, the answer is quite simple – you’ve got to find a simple (yet professional) software solution to do that for you. This utility will have to be able to convert your initial file(s) to flv combined with an embedded movie player, so all you need to do is send the new video to your webserver, and insert a small code line onto your webpage, wherever you would like the video to be displayed, and it’s ready to go!

Now you understand that in order to stream your own video no special training is required, you need to look for a proper solution that will have you up and running with a few clicks of your mouse, it needs the capability to compress your movies to at least 10% of the original file(s), and provide you with a professional embedded flv player.

1. It is cheap. The prices on web conferencing services have come way down in recent years. What used to cost literally hundreds of dollars has since deflated down to extremely affordable prices. Snoop around the web and you will find that decent web conferencing services can be had for as little as $20 per month. Buyer beware should be the rule as usual but this stuff isn’t only for $100 million dollar businesses anymore.
2. The productivity boom. Web conferencing can drive your business to be more productive. No doubt. More than half of my day used to be wasted going to and from meetings. Cutting out just 15% of travel time can make a huge difference. Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else besides waiting to go to meetings? Web conferencing can significantly cut down on your wasted time and can help your business become more profitable also.
3. The technology is there. The technology has piggybacked the broadband revolution. What used to be choppy video in a 3 inch by 4 inch square has turned fully interactive, multi-user, and full screen. Web conferencing is big, stable, and enjoyable. This part of the internet has come a long way since 1999.
4. Web conferencing is good for environment. Another bonus is that web conferencing allows you to save commuting time and therefore we use less fossil fuels. Everyone could deal with less global warming. The computer time used to web conference must be amortized in here somewhere as making and running a computer isn’t exactly fantastic for the environment. However, the few hours it takes to web conference surely outweigh the environmental damage that 5 people running their cars does to our planet.

Check out web conferencing. You’ll be amazed how far it’s come and how far you could go with it!

• Consider using LiveStream – ProCaster, WebEx, Go to my PC, Oovoo, Yahoo Messenger, Live Messenger and others for free and low cost video conferencing.

1. It is cheap. The prices on web conferencing services have come way down in recent years. What used to cost literally hundreds of dollars has since deflated down to extremely affordable prices. Snoop around the web and you will find that decent web conferencing services can be had for as little as $20 per month. Buyer beware should be the rule as usual but this stuff isn’t only for $100 million dollar businesses anymore.

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