Chapter 5: Scheduling and Broadcasting a Live Presentation

This chapter gives you step-by-step instructions on how to use RealPresenter to broadcast your live streaming media presentation over the Internet or a corporate intranet. All instructions in this chapter work for either PowerPoint presentations or Web Tour presentations.

What is a Live Broadcast?

A live broadcast is simply a presentation that is watched by your audience at the same time you are presenting it. Your audio and video recording are streamed as RealAudio and RealVideo along with the slides or Web pages you are describing.

Whether you are a part of a corporate intranet or want to show your presentation to anyone on the Internet, live presentations give your audience instant access to your information.

When you broadcast a live presentation, you use a program called RealServer to allow your audience to connect to your broadcast. With RealPresenter, there is a limited version of the RealServer installed on your machine. This limited version allows a small number of connections from people connected to your machine via a network. For the free version of RealPresenter, fifteen people can connect; and with RealPresenter Plus, up to twenty-five people can connect to your machine. All of these people must be within your firewall.

If you are using RealPresenter Plus, you can also broadcast your live presentation using a remote RealServer. This method allows you to send your presentation to a computer outside of your network and greatly expands your audience.

Basic Steps: an Overview

Broadcasting your presentation to a live audience is very similar to creating a recorded presentation. The main difference is in preparation and getting your audience to connect at the designated time.

Because there are different steps involved in broadcasting a live presentation, the rest of this chapter is divided into sections that guide you through each step. Select a link to go directly to that step.

Step 1-Schedule the Presentation: enter a time, date, and location where your audience will link to your presentation.

Step 2-Prepare RealPresenter for a Live Broadcast: learn how to set up this product to allow your audience to connect to your presentation.

Step 3-Prepare Your Presentation for Broadcast: start RealPresenter and enter information about your broadcast.

Step 4-Broadcast Your Presentation: start the live presentation and broadcast to your audience.

Also see "Other Presentation Tips" for information on creating an effective live presentation. These tips are helpful for those who are inexperienced with giving live presentations.

Step 1-Schedule the Presentation

When you plan to create a live broadcast, it's a good idea to schedule the broadcast, notifying your audience with the start time and where they can view the broadcast. RealPresenter's scheduling feature is designed to work with Microsoft Schedule Plus or your e-mail application.

You use RealPresenter's Scheduling Wizard to enter a time, date, and location of the live broadcast. Be sure to schedule the presentation with plenty of time to give your audience members enough notice to add it to their calendars.

Depending on if you are using your machine to broadcast locally, or using a remote RealServer (RealPresenter Plus version only), choose one of the following procedures for scheduling a presentation.

Broadcasting from Your Machine

To schedule a broadcast from your machine

Click the Schedule Future Live Presentations button.
The Presentation Information dialog opens.
Enter a Title, Author, E-Mail Address, Copyright, Keywords and Description for your presentation and click OK.
The Scheduling Wizard opens.
Under Scheduling Information, select From RealPresenter and click Finish.
The Scheduled Broadcast Start dialog opens.
Enter a Date and Time for the broadcast and click OK.
An e-mail is created inviting your audience to view your presentation at the date and time you specified.
Enter the e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite to the presentation and send the e-mail.
RealPresenter informs you when the presentation is successfully scheduled.

Broadcasting from a Remote RealServer

To schedule a broadcast from a remote RealServer:

Click the Schedule Future Live Presentations button.
The Presentation Information dialog opens.
Enter a Title, Author, E-Mail Address, Keywords and Description for your presentation and click OK.
The Scheduling Wizard opens.
Under Scheduling Information, select From a Remote RealServer and click Next.
The RealServer Remote Information page opens. You must obtain certain network and server information from your network administrator before you can begin. See "Notes for Network Administrators" below for instructions that you can give to your administrator to help you get this information.
Enter this information and click Next.
The FTP Server Information page opens. You must also obtain this information from your network administrator before you can begin. See "Notes for Network Administrators" below for more information.
Enter this information and click Next.
The Scheduling Summary dialog opens.
Confirm that the information you entered is correct. If you want to save the URL location of the broadcast, select it and press CTRL+C to copy the URL.
Click Finish.
The Scheduled Broadcast Start dialog opens.
Enter a Date and Time for the broadcast and click OK.
An e-mail is created inviting your audience to view your presentation at the date and time you specified.
Enter the e-mail addresses of the people you want to invite to the presentation and send the e-mail.
RealPresenter informs you when the presentation is successfully scheduled.

Testing a Remote Presentation

Using your RealPlayer, you can test your remote presentation to verify that you entered correct information about the remote RealServer.

Enter the URL of the presentation in the Location field on the RealPlayer. You can get this URL from the Live Presentations tab of the Manage Presentations dialog (see "Keeping Track of Presentations" on page 48).

If you entered the server information correctly, your RealPlayer will show a text placeholder; if you entered it incorrectly, the RealPlayer will either not connect or show an error.

Notes for Network Administrators

In order to use the remote publishing feature, the user of RealPresenter must have access to a current version of the RealServer as well as access to a FTP server. Ideally, both server software should be installed on the same machine, making uploading much easier. If this is not practical, different users' accounts can be set up as subdirectories of the content directory.

The following information must be provided to the user so that they can connect to the RealServer and FTP server using RealPresenter:

RealServer Host Name or IP Address- the IP address or name of the RealServer

RealServer User Name-your user name for the RealServer

RealServer Password-a password that verifies you to the server

RealServer Port-the port number used to connect, if different than the default (554)

Content Mount Point/Directory-the location on the RealServer where your content will be placed

FTP Server Name or Host IP Address-the IP address or name of the FTP server that the user will use to upload files

FTP Server User Name-your user name for the FTP server

FTP Server Password-a password that verifies you to the FTP server

FTP Server Port-the port number used to connect to the FTP server, if different than the default (21)

Directory Path for Uploaded Information-the location of your uploaded files

If the FTP server is not on the same machine as the RealServer, once content is uploaded it will need to be moved to the appropriate content directory. The RealPresenter user will need to know the new location so that he or she can notify the audience of the content's location.

Step 2-Prepare RealPresenter for a Live Broadcast

If your audience is on your network, little preparation is necessary. RealPresenter will automatically stream to your audience during the broadcast when they point their RealPlayers to the URL that you announced.

However, your audience must be within your network's firewall. A firewall is a security feature of most networks. It keeps track of information passed between computers within the firewall and computers outside the firewall (Internet servers, for example) and can alert system administrators of any security breaches.

Configuring a Local Server for Multicast (Optional)

For simple broadcasts to a small number of people, you can use your local machine as a server. This server is set up to run without needing any information.

You can also set up RealPresenter to use multicast when using the local server. Mulitcast is a more efficient way of using your local RealServer, but you will need some information from your system administrator before you can use this feature:

Multicast Address-range of IP addresses that will be used to connect to your computer's installed RealServer. You will need a multicast-enabled network to use this feature.

Router Hops-number of routers necessary to connect to your RealServer

To configure a local server for multicast:

In the RealPresenter main window, click the Change Default Settings button.
The Presentation Settings dialog opens.
Click the Advanced tab.
Choose the Enable Mulitcast option.
Enter a range of multicast addresses plus the number of router hops needed to propagate the broadcast. Your network administrator will give you this information.
Enter the number of router hops that your presentation will travel over during the broadcast.
Click OK to save your changes and return to the main window.

Step 3-Prepare Your Presentation for Broadcast

Preparing for live presentations is nearly identical to preparing for recorded presentations. Actually, you will only need to perform an additional task before the next step. That task is to notify your audience that the broadcast is about to start.

To prepare the broadcast:

Open RealPresenter from the Start menu.
From the RealPresenter main window, click on either Narrate a Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation or Narrate a Web Tour Presentation.
If you are broadcasting a PowerPoint presentation, browse to the PowerPoint presentation you want to convert into streaming media, select it, and click Open.
The Presentation Options page opens.
Select Broadcast a Live Presentation.

Note
If you want to make a recording of this presentation, you can select the Save a Recording of the Live Presentation option.
Choose a scheduled presentation from the list, or choose Unscheduled Presentation if you skipped the scheduling step.

Note
If you didn't schedule your live presentation, you can only broadcast using your local server to people within your firewall.
Click Next.
The Presentation Information page opens.
Enter the following information in the appropriate areas:
1. Author: enter your name or the name of your company
2. Copyright: enter the year and owner of the presentation you will create (for example, "copyright 1999, ABC Corporation")
3. E-Mail Address: enter your valid e-mail address
4. Title: type in an appropriate name for the final presentation
5. Keywords: one or two words that will help your audience search for your presentation.
6. Description: type in a brief summary of what your presentation is all about
Click the Next button when finished.
The Ready to Broadcast Live page opens.
Notify your audience:
1. Click the Announce Presentation button.
2. Your e-mail application opens with information about the live presentation.
3. Enter e-mail addresses of people you want to notify and send the e-mail.
If you have not broadcasted before, you should check your input devices:
1. Click the Check Audio/Video Equipment button.
2. Set up your recording devices by making sure the audio levels and video camera set-up are fine. Follow the procedure as detailed in "Checking Audio and Video".
3. Click OK.
Click the Finish button to continue.
The recording controls open and your PowerPoint slides or Web browser opens. For a description of the recording controls, see "Step 4-Record Your PowerPoint Presentation".

Additional Information
If you are broadcasting a PowerPoint presentation, RealPresenter converts your slides before opening the recording controls.

	Note
If you want to make a recording of this presentation, you can select the Save a Recording of the Live Presentation option.

	Note
If you didn't schedule your live presentation, you can only broadcast using your local server to people within your firewall.

	Additional Information
If you are broadcasting a PowerPoint presentation, RealPresenter converts your slides before opening the recording controls.

Step 4-Broadcast Your Presentation

Now that your audience is aware of your presentation, and you have set up RealPresenter to broadcast, it's time to go on the air. Have your script ready, and let's go live!

To start broadcasting:

Click the Start button to begin your broadcast.
Read through your script, moving through your presentation.
At the end of the broadcast, click Stop.
The broadcast is paused.
If you are recording an archive copy of the broadcast, you can save the recording or discard it. Or, you may continue broadcasting.
If you are not archiving the broadcast, finish the broadcast by clicking Return to the Main Menu or Exit RealPresenter.

The User Experience

You may be curious about what your audience experiences during a live broadcast of your presentation. This section shows you what your users see and how they connect to your live presentation.

The main way your audience finds out about the presentation is through their Outlook schedule or through e-mail. They receive a URL that they can click to view the presentation.

If your audience is connecting to your local machine, RealPresenter creates a "waiting room" for them. This is a Web page that contains a counter that counts down to the scheduled start of the presentation. The title, author, and description are also listing in the waiting room. When the presentation begins, the audience's RealPlayers automatically launch so that they can view the broadcast.