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	Convoq ASAP

Desktop - Application Sharing

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Convoq ASAP integrates a full screen-sharing facility which allows the presenter to showcase either her full desktop activity or anyone selected open application.

If the Moderator has enabled it, other ASAP users (only) in the meeting may also share their applications, desktop, or presentations. Starting screen-sharing will automatically end any other already ongoing current screen-sharing by another user.

Upon activation of the Screen Sharing function, available under the "Activities" button, the presenter is shown a dialog box in which she can select which open application or document window, open on her desktop, she wants to share with the other meeting attendees.

Once the presenter has selected what to share a thumbnail preview of the application/screen being shared is shown inside the Screen-Sharing Preview window.

The Moderator for each meeting controls both activation of screen-sharing and activation and use the Annotation tools by Presenters and/or all participants.

During screen sharing the presenter can also activate the "annotate" function, accessible on the screen-sharing Preview window. What this function does is to take an instantaneous screenshot of whatever content the presenter was sharing and to make it available to all attendees inside the ASAP presentation area.

At this point the view can be marked and annotated live by both the presenter and the attendees (though this can be controlled by the presenter/moderator) as if they were working over a Powerpoint slide. If so enabled, a screen-sharer can then control use of the Annotation tools while sharing. And if annotation is enabled, multiple users can annotate any shared display.

Once the presenter desires to move on she can simply click on the "Resume" button on the screen sharing window to start sending again live images from the selected application or from the full desktop view of her computer.

Cons:

Once the presenter starts sharing any document/application window she does not receive any visual feedback or reminder that this is going on. The presenter needs in fact to go back to the Sharing Preview window and to press the Stop Sharing button to end this task.

The presenter does not see what she is sharing. To do so she needs to call up the Sharing Preview window and get a gist of what he is sharing by looking at the 290x180 thumbnail displayed there.

To effectively screen share a good amount of bandwidth is needed. Though most data transmissions happen in short bursts when your screen changes, users on high-speed Internet connections will have a much more acceptable responding and rapidly-updating view of the content being shared than users on slow dial-up or ISDN connections.

Performance is acceptable but not outstanding.

Maximizing the "ASAP-Screen-Sharing" window while sharing the desktop results in many nested instances of the desktop view in the display area (tunnel effect). This happens because the screen capturing mechanism of ASAP acts as a video camera which is shooting itself through a monitor. This creates a well known kaelidoscopic and iteratively looping displays of the preview window.
To avoid this problem, eliminate the preview window from the capture area using one of the following approaches:
a) Don't maximize the "ASAP-Screen-Sharing" window and minimize it if this remains an issue.
b) Share only the application you are presenting.
c) If you have a second monitor, move the "ASAP-Screen-Sharing" window to that monitor.

« Video Conferencing | Main | Remote Control »

Posted on April 05, 2004 at 08:14 AM

Updated on April 16, 2004 at 09:28 AM

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