Wireless LANs might be good candidates for interactive, online training. RealOne goes a step beyond PowerPoint, combining a media player with a rich set of authoring capabilities (demos). It synchs audio, video, PowerPoint slides, graphics and web pages for live and on-demand delivery. A customizable, 3-pane interface allows authors to navigate between:

1. A media playback panel
2. A contextual information application
3. A fully functional embedded media browser

You can create a talking head in the upper left corner, content specific graphics on the right and a related web page on the lower frame. Like Yahoo’s Finance Vision. It’s built on standard HTML for easy authoring and was designed to support backwards compatibility with older player versions. Schools and businesses, who already have wireless LANs, might be the first to benefit.

RealSystem Server 8.0 Basic is free and can stream 25 users. It will time out after 12 months. Real has superior production programs (for free).

• Real Producer Basic: (the software that stores video as RealVideo streams)
• Real Presenter Basic: (streams PowerPoint presentations )
• Real Slide Show Basic: (Creates audio/video slide shows)

Real Presenter (video demo) and Microsoft Producer are free and work with PowerPoint. An inexpensive CD burner can make copies for 20 cents. Cheaper than a postage stamp. And of course they can be accessed by WiFi networks. Real’s Producer 9 Preview is the latest.

Streaming video takes more bandwidth but RealVideo 9 is said to provide 30% bandwidth savings over RealVideo 8 at all quality levels. Pocket PCs have the Microsoft MediaPlayer built-in, of course, but Real also has a player for Pocket PCs. RealSystems now includes MPEG-4 support. Real’s MPEG-4 page explains their server and client-side plug-ins using Envivio’s MPEG-4 and others. Constructing a 40 hr/wk streamcast might not be such an outrageous idea.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Thursday, April 25th, 2002 at 3:45 am.