A Thank-you and overview of how I used FMS

First I want to thank everyone on this list. Your
knowledge and prompt replies have help me
tremendously. I would not be at the position now if it
wasn't for this list serv.

Everyone has different ideas on how to use FMS and I
would like to take a minute to share mine. Its
currently in testing phase and adjustments will be
made. It may be a rude way of doing things, but with a
tight budget you just have to cut corners.
Additionally, I am a one man show so I was really keen
on automation.=20

Recently my department asked me to put something
together for distance learning which has become very
popular in the college setting. I spent a few extra
dollars and had them place cameras in each room.
Mounted to the ceiling, two views of the instructor.
They are simple JVCs (around $350) with a Svideo
output. Additionaly, I had them give me a seperate
feed for content, in essense, everything that goes
through the projector in the classroom also goes to
this feed. For example, any powerpoint or document
imager will come through. All feeds are SVHS and go
into the AV closet of the room. I have a light weight
server with three osprey capture cards. As for audio,
I have the standard wireless but also hanging
microphones throughout the room. I swear to god you
can hear a pin drop with those things. Anyway, the
mics are fed through a matrix mixer, which is then fed
to the server.

Here is how it works. At the beginning of the quarter,
an instructor gives me the hours of class. I use the
windows scheduler to open and close the publish page
for the live feed. I also use the scheduler to run a
bat file I created to open the media encoder to record
the class as well. The recorded file is then saved to
the Stream folder within the FMS apps. The script
gives the file a default name of class1, Class2. Now
the stream file is also a "Watch" folder for Squeeze
which will automatically convert it over to flash. I
keep the wmv file for backup because personally, flash
video in not up to par with windows.

Ok...for the main app. Of course if the live feed is
being published, they will see that. For the live feed
I push out the content feed at 320 while the
instructor is 240. Also, I put in a switchter for the
two instructor feeds. The app is coded with the
default class1, class2...so if they are avaiable, it
will see them as well. Oh, by the way, for the
archive, both the view of the instructor and the
content video play at the same time...in sync with the
media component. As for the communication aspect, I
used the audio conference to conserve the banwidth for
the main educational content. I made some adjustments
to the audio component code and it is working great.

The end result is that I use the template and repoint
the address for any new class. Take a few minutes to
enter the new address for the scheduler and bat file
and the thing pretty much runs itself for the quarter

There are many other things that I did and reasons
behind them. I hope this gives some ideas to others
who are on a tight budget.

Again, Many thanks
Steve

=20

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