As most of you know who read my blog on a regular basis I am a big fan of using Video in my presentations. Probably about 1/3 to 1/2 of my blog postings are done on the subject of incorporating video. Well recently after talking to a customer of Articulate (Steve), I began working on creating an example of incorporating LIVE Presenter Video in Articulate Presenter. Well I finally got around to actually creating a working version of this, and I wanted to explain what I have done, and show some screen shots of my LIVE Presenter Video in action.

I warn you, this example might be a little complex, but I will try to be as clear as possible. And if you have any questions on this, please don't hesitate to contact me on the subject.

Requirements for adding LIVE Presenter Video in Articulate Presenter:

1. Articulate Presenter
2. Flash (the application)
3. Flash Media Server or Flash Communication Server or Flash Streaming Service (such as Vital Stream)
4. A Web Cam
5. A Microphone

Why this is cool:

Adding LIVE Presenter Video in Articulate Presenter definitely produces a WOW factor. How cool is it that I can add LIVE Video and stream it to my learners. This will allow presenters to present LIVE presentations to users without expensive, bloated, bandwidth killing, enterprise applications (the app I am referring to rhymes with sneeze).

What does it look like:

Here is a screenshot of what Articulate Presenter looks like when I have streamed in LIVE video into the presenter panel.

As you can see I am waving my hand to the camera.

What you can't see is that the presentation is also streaming audio from my microphone to the presentation as well, so I didn't have to record audio.

How I accomplished this:

I was able to accomplish this by creating two SWF's. One was inserted into Articulate Presenter as Presenter video (play.swf), the other was run on the machine that I wanted to stream the video from (publish.swf). The publish.swf would open up a connection to the Flash Media Server, then the play.swf, when inserted in Articulate Presenter would stream the video back down.

Step by Step Instructions

Create the SWFs:

1. Download the source files for the play.swf and publish.swf here.
2. Create a folder in the applications folder of your Flash Communication Server's applications directory called "videos" (Should be C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash Communication Server MX\applications by default)
3. In the "videos" folder copy the main.asc file downloaded in the zip file in step 1
4. Create a "streams" folder in this folder as well
5. Open up the play.fla in Flash
6. In the Actions Frame change the my_nc.connect("rtmp:/videos/") string to point to the videos application on your rtmp server.
7. Save and publish this file
8. Open up the play.fla in Flash
9. In the Actions Frame change the my_nc.connect("rtmp://66.74.217.93/videos/") string to point to the videos application on your rtmp server.
10. Save and publish this file
11. Close out of Flash

Verify it works:

You should now test your two SWF's to ensure they are setup properly. Launch the publish.swf, it should be blank by default, then launch the play.swf. If everything is set up properly, you should now be able to see what is being published in the publish.swf in the play.swf file. It should look something like what is on the right. If this is not working, then most likely the paths that you have setup in the FLA to point to your Flash Media Server are incorrect.

Add the SWF to Articulate Presenter:

Now that you have verified that it works it is time to add the play.swf to Articulate Presenter.

1. Open up PPT
2. Go to Articulate>Insert Flash Movie>Display in presenter panel
3. Browse to and select the SWF
4. Deselect the option to Move to next slide automatically when movie finishes
5. Click Next
6. Click Finish
7. Repeat for any slide that you want to contain live presenter video

Distribute your presentation:

Before distributing your presentation test your project and make sure that it works successfully. After verifying that it works you are ready to distribute it:

1. Upload your presentation to website or intranet
2. Send the link to the presentation to anyone you want to view the presentation with instructions on when the presentation will begin
3. When the presentation begins click on the publish.swf

This will then begin the broadcast of your presentation.

I hope this helps everyone out. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

Labels: Presenter