Anyone know anything about web conferencing? (1 Viewer)

[Todd K]

Hello, I have an event coming up in a few weeks that I would like people on the web to be able to see.

I have three requirements:

1. People can see and hear on their computers what's happening in the room

2. I need to be able to have a recording of the event for viewing at a later time.

3. People can send in questions (I'm guessing by typing into a form or something and submitting)

It doesn't have to be fancy. I will buy whatever software and cameras are necessary.

I spoke to one company and they wanted $32,000 to do it. Yikes!!

Thanks for your attention.

 

[Will_B]

After writing this I decided it would be bad advice, since if you're not already familiar with readytalk.com it would involve too much work to push it towards what you need. Nonetheless here is what I wrote:

If you did not need to show the room, but rather just needed to show your computer's screen (to show off a demo or powerpoint presentation or whatever), you could easily do that with an account at readytalk.com. People log in (on their own computers, using Internet Explorer), and simultaneously phone in to a conference call service also provided by readytalk.com and you can take their questions via phone or on screen, and everything can be recorded for playback later if anyone missed it. But it doesn't show the room, there is no video, it is purely for everyone to view one particular computer screen -- your computer screen.

Now that said, there is nothing stopping you from having your one computer (the one everyone is looking at) hooked up to a videocamera -- but the sound won't be in perfect sync since the sound would have to be over your phone line.

Still, this would be a cheap way of getting it done, perhaps. Sounds like a high risk of something going wrong though.

 

[DaveF]

For basic web meetings we use NetMeeting at work. I don't know if that scales for your size event. There's some other service used for corporate-wide webcasts.

I do know, from experience, that if you have a slide show (w.g. Powerpoint file) and a recording of the presentation audio, you can edit them together to make a movie of the final presentation. If you keep a transcript of questions, audio or forum transcript, that could be edited into the movie or provided as an attachment through online distribution. And this can be done with free tools if your budget is tight.

 

[Todd K]

Thanks for the responses --I appreciate the effort. I guess the technical term for what I'm looking for is more web casting than conferencing, but who would have thought it would be so hard to do it? It's the 21st century for crying out loud!

One thing I hadn't considered was bandwitdth -- say if dozens of people want to access the webcast at the same time.

 

[AjayM]

Check out;
http://www.webex.com
or
http://www.gotomeeting.com

I've used both in the past/currently and both will do what you're asking for. WebEx does have one time meetings (pay as you go), I believe GoToMeeting does as well, both will be FAR-FAR cheaper than $32k.