[BLU/Officers] Built-in video in E51 classrooms

[jabr at blu.org (John Abreau)]

Just heard back from MIT about the in-classroom cameras. Seems we can use
them
to stream our meetings, but there are no provisions for recording the
stream. Also,
we get no technical support, so we have to figure out for ourselves how to
use the
equipment.

If we can receive and play a live stream on a laptop, then in principal it
should
be possible to also record that stream on the laptop for later playback,
right?

This also means the built-in facilities cannot record a VGA stream from the
document camera or the presenter's laptop. At the January meeting I used
the old Kodak camcorder to record the screen that the document camera
displayed on, but the results suck badly. Recording directly from the
camera's
VGA output would yield much better results.

I'm currently testing iMovie's picture-in-picture functionality with the
recording
of our January meeting. I'm inserting still images of the slides first, and
once
that's completed I'll try the same with what the Kodak recorded.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sloan Technology Services <STSHelp at sloan.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 1:27 PM
Subject: Your Technical Service Request #53975 has been resolved.
To: jabr at blu.org
Cc: classroomsupport at sloan.mit.edu, sharper at mit.edu


    MIT Sloan Technology Services
Service Request Resolved
  *Medium*  *#53975 - Live streaming user group meetings in
E51?<http://STS-HELP-V/AeXHD/default.aspx?cmd=viewItem&id=53975>
*    We have closed ticket #53975.   Please take a moment to ensure that
the request was resolved to your satisfaction. If you have any questions
about the resolution of this request, or if more work needs to be done,
please respond to this email or call 3-2000.        Comment   Hi John -

I'm sorry, but we can?t accomodate your request for video streaming and
recording using the Sloan School?s in-house services.   The reason is
partly our service model, and partly technology driven.  On teh service
side,  the recording service is only available to the MIT Sloan community
for academic uses or for events by official MIT Sloan groups.  On the
technical side, the camera and microphone outputs are only routed into the
Sloan School?s classroom recording and video conferencing systems, so there
is no way to direct the output to a laptop, or even to the in-room
computers, for capture in YouTube or any other software client.

You are welcome, however, to use the self-service IP video conferencing
function of the room.  The rooms use Cisco C-series codecs, which operate
on the h.323 standard, and connect via TCP/IP.  If you have access to a
service that you can call and stream to using h.323 you may be able to
provide a live stream to your group.  This is a self-service function of
the room however, and we will not be able to provide you with additional
assistance.  Simply select the video conferencing function and dial the IP
address or FQDN using the dialer pad.

I hope this helps,

Wes

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wesley Esser
Director IT Consulting and Support
MIT Sloan School
50 Memorial Drive, E52-025b Cambridge, MA 02142
wesser at mit.edu Tel. 617-253-1512
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Best regards,   Wesley Esser
------------------------------
Thank you for using the Sloan Technology Services Help Desk.



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John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
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