|
Table of Contents » Linktivity WebDemo » Recording
Recording
« Annotation Features - WhiteBoard | Main | Moderator Controls »
Linktivity WebDemo is very well equipped with an excellent and easy-to-use recording facility. This option allows the presenter make recorded meetings and presentations available online, for example to participants who weren't able to personally attend a meeting. In WebDemo the recording tool is referred to as Record / Playback.
Review Overview
This review discusses the following aspects of the Recording feature within Linktivity WebDemo:
Starting A Recording Session
To start recording session using WebDemo, the meeting host needs to click on the Record/Playback button in the toolbar. WebDemo recordings are saved in a proprietary format, using the .lrec extension. Linktivity has made a separate player available that—after installation— hooks up to every file with that extension. This allows users to quickly launch an existing recording by double-clicking on its name in Windows Explorer.
Starting a WebDemo recording session
The Record/Playback dialog box allows to immediately start a session or to first change one or more options (Options Menu > Record or Options Menu > Playback).
Record Options
If no changes are made to the Record Options settings, WebDemo records activities in the viewport, voice chat and text chat panels and saves the recording to a new, local file. This default mode first takes a complete, still snapshot and then automatically records any incremental changes.
The Snapshot mode allows the host to take a single snapshot of the Viewport area. With each click on the record button, another snapshot is added to the recording. In this mode incremental changes are not recorded automatically.
Recordings can be saved on the on the host’s local PC or on the Linktivity Server (Save on Server option).
The Record Offline option ... (to be described)
A timer and a numeric marker on the control panel indicate how much time has elapsed. The total time of the recording is indicated as well. They help the user to keep track of specific points in the recording.
WebDemo recording timer
If during a recorded viewport session an annotation window is opened, then those annotations are recorded as well. Video conferencing sessions may be recorded together with viewport and text chat sessions, but they may not be combined with the option to record a voice chat session.
WebDemo record options
Playback Options
The Playback options dialog box allows the host to show a preview of a recorded session, to broadcast the session or to have an interactive session. The host can loop continuously through the recorded session and also set the viewer scaling to either fast or smooth.
WebDemo playback options
Archived Recordings
If the recorded session is stored on a local machine, only the session host can broadcast that recorded session. By clicking on the Public Area button in the WebDemo reception screen, any user can access public, archived recordings (recordings saved to the Linktivity Server) and recordings from public meetings . To view any recorded meeting, the user simply selects the one to view, and then clicks on the link on the display. The necessary software (the viewer or player) is then automatically downloaded to the user's machine, the playback control panel is launched and the playback begins playing the selected file.
Cons
- The hosts need to make any desired changes to the Viewport settings before starting recording. Once the recording has begun, Viewport settings can no longer be changed.
- The layout of the record and playback option dialog boxes is not intuitive. Radio buttons should have been used instead of check mark boxes for some of the mutually exclusive options. Descriptions of functions are cryptic. The user interface of this dialog box should be redesigned. For now, a detailed context-sensitive help file is much needed in this section of WebDemo.
- It is important to point out to WebDemo users that it is not possible to record co-browse sessions. This is naturally caused be the fact that only urls are transmitted to the meeting participants, not the actual screens.
- A proprietary format is being used for the recordings,. To share recordings with other people not using WebDemo, they first need to be converted to .avi files.
Conclusion
Linktivity WebDemo provides an effective recording feature that captures almost everything in the session including live presentations, voice, chat and annotations.
To see how the recording option in Linktivity WebDemo compares to the one offered by other tools reviewed in the Guide, consult the Recording comparison table.
« Annotation Features - WhiteBoard | Main | Moderator Controls »
Posted on June 20, 2003 at 09:56 PM
Updated on January 10, 2005 at 09:36 PM
|
Facilities
