The Virtual Meeting for Windows

The Virtual Meeting system is a low cost alternative to real-time video or mixed media conferencing. Used with a simultaneous audio conference call over regular telephone lines, it adds the ability to centrally control the simultaneous presentation of text, graphics, images and video on every participants screen from one location. Computers at participating sites are linked together by our Conference Server application. The connections between conferencing locations can be made using modems, the Internet, a Local Area Network or a Wide Area Network.

The Virtual Meeting system allows people with ordinary desktop computers and modems to visually communicate while talking on an ordinary audio telephone call. The person who has the floor in a Virtual Meeting can control the simultaneous presentation of slides, QuickTime movies or video clips, live sketching, World Wide Web documents or the documents that were created with any Macintosh or Windows application.

The system consists of a suite of applications which create an interactive Multimedia communications environment that can be used to conduct meetings, lectures and presentations between participants in many geographically dispersed locations.

The system is scalable. Virtual broadcasting networks can be built to support from two to thousands of simultaneous users using Local or Wide Area Networks, or modems. A meeting participant can electronically raise his or her hand at any time. When the meeting moderator recognizes their request, they give that person the conference floor and their photograph is displayed in each participant's Current Speaker Window. The meeting protocols supported are moderated and un-moderated meetings as well as circle and round table discussions.

You can use The Virtual Meeting with Distributed or On Demand Multimedia objects. When using the distributed style multimedia and document files are distributed to each participant before the conference. The time required to access any file is minimized because all the files are local during the conference. The on demand style of conferencing employs a Web Browser like Netscape Navigator to download the multimedia and document files from a file or web server just as they are needed. The time required to access any file is dependent on the file size and network bandwidth. this style works best if the multimedia files are small or if Web pages are used to view the material. .

Cross Platform Features

Cross Platform Between Mac And Windows

The Virtual Meeting client and server are available for both Macintosh and Windows computers. Meetings or Conferences can be made up of participants using either type of computer system. Meetings held on either type of Conference Server can be attended by a mix of Macintosh and Windows users. Most all of the features of TVM are available on both Macintosh and Windows computers.

Conference Gateway

The Conference Gateway manages communications between your computer and your collaborators computers. For Two party conferences a modem or network connection can be made between yourself and your collaborator. In multi-party conferences network connections can be made with our Conference Server application or the built in terminal emulator can be used to connect with collaborators in the private chat areas of on online services like Delphi, Compuserve, or Genie. Once a connection is established the terminal emulator window can be hidden so the screen can be used for multimedia presentations. The Conference Gateway controls which Windows Applications are launched on each collaborators computers. The conference Gateway also handles communications with some Windows presentation and document viewer applications (see list below). For example Netscape Navigator can be launched and controlled on each collaborators computer and instructed to display any web page or multimedia document on the network.

WhiteBoard

For the live creation of graphics on everyone's screen in real time the electronic WhiteBoard application is used to broadcast sketches, drawings and text to all sites as they are being drawn. The WhiteBoard can also be used to create and save sketches for future broadcast to you collaborators. Graphic elements from bitmap files can be easily imported. The WhiteBoard can be used to view and annotate on top of Bit Map files that have been created by other applications. An electronic pointer is provided so that objects on the WhiteBoard may be referenced in conversation. The WhiteBoard is a collaborative application that allows more than 1 participant to work simultaneously.

QuickTime Movie and Slide player

The QT Movie Player application allows a conference participant who has the floor of the meeting to control the playback of an Apple QuickTime for Windows Movie or Slide presentation. Movies or Slide presentations may be Loaded, Cued, Started, Stopped, Advanced to the Next Frame, Backed Up to a Previous Frame, Enlarged, etc. A Pointer is included so the presenter may point to objects of interest in the Movie or Slide presentation. This action will cause an arrow shaped pointer to be displayed at that same spot in everyone's QuickTime window. Facilities are provided to convert presentations created by any of the standard presentation packages like Microsoft PowerPoint or Aldus Persuasion to the QuickTime file format. Shareware tools are available that allow any application to print to QuickTime files. Utility programs are also available that convert Microsoft .AVI files to the QuickTime format.

Adobe Acrobat

Using Adobe Acrobat Exchange and Exchange LE with The Virtual Meeting allows all conference attendees to simultaneously navigate and view Acrobat PDF documents together. TVM's Acrobat Plug-Ins allow free hand sketches to be added to any Acrobat PDF document. These annotations can be viewed by all users as they are sketched by the conference leader. These changes can be saved by any conference attendee using Acrobat exchange if desired.

Web Conferencing

Using a World Wide Web Browsers like Netscape Navigator with The Virtual Meeting allows everyone in the conference to follow along while the meeting leader surfs the World Wide Web. When the current conference leader goes to a new location on the web so does everyone else. If the leader clicks on a reference to a QuickTime movie or slide presentation that file will be downloaded to everyone's computer and it will be opened by TVM's QuickTime movie player helper application. Once the QuickTime movie or slide show has been loaded the conference leader will be able to control the presentation of the movie or slide show and the built in electronic pointer.

Cyber Link Web Conferencing

Cyber Link is a utility that allows you to use the Windows File Manager and its icons to gather, organize and keep track of all the locations on the World Wide Web you want to visit in a web conference. Using Cyber Link with The Virtual Meeting allows the conference leader control all the other conference attendees web browsers. When the conference leader double click on a Cyber Link files icon in the Windows File Manager, Cyber Link will not only tell the conference leaders web browser to go that location it will broadcast a message to all the other web browsers in the conference telling them to go to that location as well.

Netscape WEB Helper Applications

Besides the WhiteBoard and QuickTime Player remote controllable helper applications described above, almost any Windows Application can be controlled by a web browser in order to synchronize the viewing of its special type of documents. A standard spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel can be used to display the same Excel spreadsheets on the screens of all participants simultaneously. Once launched however most applications will not provide any further synchronization of document contents UNLESS a specially created hook dll helper program has been created for that application. Hook dll helpers are provided for The Power Point Player, Acrobat Exchange Player, and the Common Ground Mini Viewer .

Windows Specific Features

Application Sharing

Using specially prepared hook dll's The Virtual Meeting allows everyone in a conference to view and share presentations using the following applications. Microsoft PowerPoint, CommonGround Mini Viewer, and Microsoft Write.

Customizability

You can customize The Virtual Meetings User Interface by adding Windows resources to the Conference Gateways .exe file. Tools like Resource Workshop can be used to create the necessary menus, and scripts.

Extensibility

Alegiant's SuperCard (cross platform), MacroMedia's Director (cross platform), Asymetrix's Toolbook, Borland's Delphi or Miicrosoft's Visual Basic can be used by end users to create customized multi user groupware applications utilizing the communications services provided by the Conference Gateway. These auxiliary applications can be used for Voting, Group Response, Courseware, Testing, Presentations or Auctions, the possibilities are endless. Traditional development environments like Visual C++, Borland C++, and Symantec C++ can also be used to create add on applications. Developers kits and consulting services are available to assist you in these areas.

Communications with Apple Macintosh

The WhiteBoard and QuickTime movie and slide player can be used to communicate with collaborators using Apple Macintosh computers. Document sharing and viewing can be accomplished using a cross platform document viewer like Adobe Acrobat Exchange.

Specifications

The Virtual Meeting System supports the following Windows standards.

Communications Devices

Connection Types

Graphics Types

Compressed graphics and movie support thru QuickTime for Windows

Web Browser Support

The Virtual Meeting uses AppleEvent to monitor and control web browsers in a conference. Web browsers have built in support for some document types and can be extended indefinitely by adding helper applications to view new document types.

Windows Dynamic Data Exchange Support

QuickTime for Windows is a trademark of Apple Computer
Windows is trademarks of Microsoft

Configurations

The Virtual Meeting is available in several configurations:

TVM For Windows Standard Edition: A generic Multimedia Teleconferencing systems that can be used for conducting meetings, telepresentations, classes, and brainstorming sessions.

TVM For Windows Classroom Edition: A special version of The Virtual Meeting system that has been customized for Interactive Distance Learning.

TVM For Windows Telemedicine Edition: A special version of The Virtual Meeting system that has been customized for Medical collaboration.

TVM For Windows Auction Edition: A special version of The Virtual Meeting system that has been customized for a Live Auction

TVM For Windows Electronic Town Hall Edition: A special versions of The Virtual Meeting system that have been customized for electronic town hall meetings and voting.

Typical Configuration

The Virtual Meeting For Windows Standard Edition
Each users installation includes the Following Components:

In addition the conference moderator would have the Moderators Extension installed on his computer.

For conferences with more than two participants a data bridge of some kind is required to broadcast the data to each person. The Conference Server application runs on a Macintosh and allows several people to participate in a conference. Textual conferencing facilities available on on-line services like Delphi or BBS systems like FirstClass can also be used as a data bridge and can accomodate TVM conferences.

More Information

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TVM The Virtual Meeting

Visual Communications Software for Macintosh and Windows Computers


Go To The Virtual Meeting For Macintosh Home Page

RTZ Software

P.O. Box 610457
North Miami, FL 33261-0457
QuickTime, AppleScript, AppleShare, HyperCard and AppleGuide are Trademarks of Apple Computer Inc.

Copyright 1996 by Seth Snyder All Rights Reserved