At the recent usergroup I mentioned a number of developments and promised I would send out a communication following that up. So here is my attempt at addressing those comments a little more formally. During the morning session I ran through some of our recent developments – this post, however, is specifically focused on two of those developments:-
(1) The ability to stream and view webcasts in 16:9 aspect ratio (widescreen)
(2) Integration with CMIS committee management system
The 16:9 aspect ratio has been on the agenda for some time – and we developed our player with a widescreen video placeholder for this very reason. Without getting in to the technical details and reasons for the delayed implementation of allowing widescreen webcasts I am very happy to announce that we have made changes to both the content capture software application (webcaster), the administration software application (cms) and the viewing software application so that the webcasts can be automatically booked in your desired rate (note: once you switch to 16:9 all webcasts will be in that format, unless you specifically ask to be switched back).
Take a look here at how it looks in 16:9 at the LGA Conference…
The LGA Conference 2013 in widescreen
And how it used to look. This screen shot is from an usergroup from a while back…
A usergroup webcast in 4:3 aspect ratio.
We believe that this introduction will improve viewing over portable devices, and complement the webcast viewing experience generally along with the increased capacity of internet connections, and the quality improvements to the webcasting data rates. We will be sending out an official communication once we are ready for deployment within the next few weeks.
As you may know, we have integrated with Modern.gov committee management system, meaning that your webcast bookings can be transferred from your modern.gov application to the Connect cms application, meaning less effort and an increase in productivity. We have been asked at previous usergroups if such an integration would be possible with CMIS – this, obviously, would benefit us and our existing clients, so the good news is, yes and we have. Full details will be formaly communicated, but if you want to contact us to find out more please do.
