Distance Education solutions (Video)
Sorry for the break, I’ve been away on a conference trip. After such trip the workload gathers .. After yet another partly failed H.323 videoconfernecing session, I’ve been wondering about alternative solutions for meetings & distance music education. My colleagues Matti Ruippo and Philip Donner have been working to improve distance education and performing situations via videoconferencing for about a decade now. We have been using H.323 systems for several years in our network-meetings, but have shifted to using either Flash-meeting, Skype or sometimes iChat. Our Flash-meeting system was ran down due to employement issues, and Skype & iChat can only support certain number of simultaneous connections. In many institutions Skype is concidered a security risk, thus not allowed to be installed. Webcams are so cheap and quite common nowdays. So we really need a system, which can be used from one’s computer. H.323 conferencing systems may hold their place in higher-end conferencing situations, such as Conducting classes of Jorma Panula and collaborative sessions by symphony orchestras in Eastern-Finland.
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Adobe ConnectPro and Connect seem like a very useful products, but especially Pro is also quite expensive. Connect is a hosted servide and connect pro is installed into an institution’s server. CP supports shared desktop among participants, personal meeting rooms (several simultaneously in the pro version)
Now Google has – surprise, surprise! – entered into the picture by buing Marratech, a respected company in producing videoconferencing solutions. Videoconferencin should be a lot more “everyday” activity than it currently is. H.323 systems seem to have neverending problems with Firewalls and some often unknown problems. They are fairly expensive, and although some H.323 capable desktop systems exist, I have not found one that is reliable and of good quality. So, a central desktop system is needed to make video-based meetings and especially lectures and instrumental lessons an everyday activity. I am enthusiastic to see what the goolge-deal will bring out.