Recording a Video Conference

Video conferences become even more valuable when presenters can record them. Nefsis lets you record an entire video conference in non-proprietary file formats for later editing, reference, and distribution.

Background

Even when users can participate in a video conference from any Internet-enabled personal computer in the world, schedule conflicts can still prevent their attendance. When presenters can record the entire conference and make it available for review later, these online meetings increase their value to the organization greatly.

Another important use for recorded meetings is for training material. Organizations that conduct training through online meetings can preserve, edit and distribute recordings of the online meetings to get more mileage out of an important session.

Recording in non-proprietary file formats

When using Nefsis, recording a video conference captures everything that takes place in the conference: VoIP audio, multipoint video, and any and all live sharing, including whiteboarding, shared applications, shared documents, and shared media. Most Web conferencing products record one or the other data type, but not all of them; and most hardware-based video conferencing products are only capable of recording the video and one H.239 data sharing channel (typically desktop sharing).

Nefsis captures everything it controls in display memory, then runs the data through an encoder that compresses it and creates an output file in one of two industry-standard formats: FLV (Flash) and AVI (Audio Video Interleaved). Most products save their conference data in proprietary formats, which limits playback to those computers with the proprietary player already installed.

Because the recording is in a non-proprietary format, Nefsis users can edit the recording with standard tools such as Adobe Flash Professional/Creative Suite, then distribute it as needed.

For the FLV format, any computer running Nefsis can play the file in the Nefsis Flash Player, which is included in the Nefsis application. FLV is also playable on other media players that support Flash — e.g., Adobe C5, FLV Player, Real Player, and many others. Files recorded using the AVI format are playable on Windows Media Player.

In generating the AVI files, Nefsis uses compression techniques that are highly optimized for this application — multiparty video conferencing with live sharing and web collaboration — thereby producing a smaller file than just about any solution available.

You also have the option of HTML output. This generates an HTML pointer to the FLV file that you may place on a Web server. When users click on the link in the HTML page, it invokes the Flash Player plugin and plays the recording in their browser. This feature may be useful in posting video recordings to websites and employee portals.

Steps to follow

For step-by-step procedures on recording a video conference, please visit the start recording page in the Nefsis Online User Guide or play this start recording movie.

Live Demos and a FREE Trial

Contact us for more details or to schedule a live demonstration. You can also start a free trial right now and test Nefsis recording features as many times as you like for up to 14 days.