Video Consultation

This is a moderated video conferencing solution. Moderators control what everybody sees:

• set speakers to show on public video panels
• show slides on main presentation panel
• share files that can be downloader by others
• chat publicly or privately
• show external video streams on main panel

Permissions for rest of participants can be customised depending on project requirements.

Enter Video Consultation - Live Demo - plain PHP edition, test fast

On the simple php script demo you'll be able to create an instant one on one video consultation room, get the invite link and enter video consultation to wait for the other participants to join.

Also check other editions and integrations for more demos on advanced frameworks.

Also see some Video Consultation feature screenshots.

Adobe Cirrus 2, the second generation of RTMFP groups in Flash player 10.1, supports application-level multicast and reduces the load on the source publisher.

When participants connect it automatically tries to establish a RTMFP connection and stream video peer to peer. This saves server bandwidth and decreases latency as participants stream directly to each other.

For easy interface management, application includes a toolbar that controls layout and access to most important features.

Note: some features are not listed in sample image above. Full list below:

• Show/Hide webcam preview (first time clicked enables webcam)
• Show/Hide text chat
• Show/Hide main video : Speaker (speaker is set by moderator and can be published with external tool)
• Show/Hide secondary video : Inquirer (shows only when inquirer is set by moderator, until moderator closes it)
• Show/Hide participants list
• Show/Hide file sharing
• Show/Hide live media encoder settings (for publishing with external tools / rtmp servers)
• Stop streams (closes all streaming:main/secondary/external)
• Reset Panels (reselts all panel positions and sizes)
• Slideshow (added in v2), allows uploading and displaying multiple slides (swf, png, jpg, gif)
• Extra video panels as enabled from settings and added by moderators.
• Annotations (added in v4), allows drawing over slides (whiteboard), text comments, audio and video recordings with animated whiteboard

• PHP : Video Consultation Software This is the easiest to setup and integrate with custom sites. Allows creating unlimited rooms and sharing user/admin links for these.
• WordPress Plugin Easy to install on WordPress & BuddyPress. Each user has own rom and live rooms show in widget. Download latest version from our site.
• Joomla: Video Consultation Component Advanced unlimited room setup and management (frontend & backend). Includes multiple settings for each room including streaming settings, usage limitations, user permissions, custom room creation templates. Supports JomSocial groups when defining permissions.
  
• Drupal: Video Consultation Module Advanced unlimited frontend room setup and management for Drupal 6 and Drupal 7, Drupal 7 Pay Per View support.
  
• Moodle: Video Consultation Seminars Advanced activity module with room settings and room permissions for different user classes. Unlimited rooms can be added as activities.
  
• Elgg: Video Consultation Implement video collaboration room creation in frontend of Elgg 1.7 & 1.8 social networking sites. Includes Twitter & Facebook integration plugins.
• Custom integration with other scripts.

Not all editions implement all features available in latest application versions. If you're interested in specific features, check edition pages, demos. Contact our support if you're interested in adding features to a certain edition and our developers will evaluate.

For all editions graphics and sounds are loaded from external image files. Source code for all PHP files is included. Emoticons are listed in a XML file and loaded from external images.

What exactly can you do with this?

• video consultations where participants get professional advice and information (from a lawyers, doctors, financial advisors or other experts)
• video trainings where students from various places can participate in live video interactive trainings with no traveling and accomodation costs
• video seminars / webinars where groups of students meet regularly under the guidance of a tutor for study and discussion
• online research communities
  • setup invitation-only, private online communities centred on a single brand or customer segment
  • engage customer groups or target consumers who might be difficult to reach using traditional off-line methodologies
  • watch how people interact and let them raise the questions you want to ask
  • see members in their social context
• online deliberative polling combines small-group discussions involving large numbers of participants with random sampling of public opinion
• interactive e-learning
  • Improved performance: A 12-year meta-analysis of research by the U.S. Department of Education found that higher education students in online learning generally performed better than those in face-to-face courses
  • Increased access: Instructors of the highest calibre can share their knowledge across borders, allowing students to attend courses across physical, political, and economic boundaries. Recognized experts have the opportunity of making information available internationally, to anyone interested at minimum costs
• e-participation enables citizens to connect with one another and with their elected representatives
• civic dialogue where people participate in public intentional and purposeful discussion about civic issues, policies, or decisions of consequence to their lives, communities, and society
• video collaboration brings project teams, workgroups, committees, partners at different sites together for a meeting where they can speak in a moderated way and share documents

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All these features are available to moderatos and most of them to users, depending on configuration.

• Instant video consultation room and invite link generator
• 1 High definition fixed video panel, unlimited private video panels
• Fullscreen button for any video panel
• Streaming settings (select hardware, adapt bandwidth to connection)
• Link parsing (urls, twitter)
• Emoticons
• Enable/Disable sound on new text message
• Timers (used time/available time)
• Logout
• Watch privately an user from that list
• Show/Hide panels from tool bar icons
• Private Chat
• Reset panel positions and sizes
• Set status (Available, Request, Away, Busy)
• Download shared documents
• Tooltips explaining button actions
• Sound is automatically turned off when playing own stream, to prevent echo
• Volume control for all video panels
• See who's watching via server or rtmp (subscriber icons in user list)

• Set Speaker (stream to see on main video panel)
• Set Inquirer (opens a public secondary video panel for a second user to speak/ask)
• Kick User
• Broadcast using external rtmp server / broadcasting tool (i.e. Adobe Flash Media Live Econder)
• Change room background (pick background from file sharing list)
• Stop streams
• Upload documents (files to share)
• Slideshow (upload multiple slides, display slide, back/next) (swf, png, jpg, gif)

These features require editing or replacing files by ftp.

• Skin based interface (all graphics including logo, icons, buttons, panels, emoticons, background are loaded from external images and can be changed)
• Translation engine that allows translation of most important texts
  Send message "/videowhisper translation" using text chat to get full list of translations used during current session.
• Enable/disable access to streaming settings
• Enable/disable access to advanced settings like fps, resolution (including NTSC & PAL DVD quality that automatically changes aspect ratio)
• Enable/disable webcam access
• Enable/disable access to extra videos for regular users
• Setup default, maximum bandwidth
• Setup webcam resolution and frames per second (FPS)
• Setup microphone rate (i.e. 8, 11, 22, 44)
• Session timing and control from php (can be used to setup pay per view, pay per minute systems)
• Enable/disable timer
• Set html welcome to chat message
• Set room users limit
• Enable/disable chat panel for regular users
• Enable/disable file sharing panel for regular users
• Enable/disable participants list for regular users
• Enable/disable file upload for regular users
• Enable/disable file deletion for regular users
• Enable/disable webcam audio
• Enable/disable webcam video
• Enable/disable webcam publishing with external encoder
• Enable/disable annotations (comments with whiteboard, audio/video recording)
• Filter bad words (regex)
• Configure flood protection for text chat (in seconds)
• Enable/disable writing in text chat
• Configure default and maximum extra video panels to show
• Configure default panel layout (positions and sizes)
• Configure a default rtmp stream (live stream or recording) to play when there's nothing on main screen

If moderators want to broadcast their screen (when using a new software or site, tutoring various computer skills) they can do that easily just by using a screen sharing driver that simulates a webcam from desktop contents. Read more about: Screen Sharing with Flash .

 

Panels can be changed realtime during run time by each user and also webmaster can change their startup position.
Read more about: Changing video consultation default panel positions and sizes.

Unlimited extra video panels can be added as needed. Some default ones can be configured from parameters (including their starting display position and stacking type by columns or rows). Also moderators can be allowed to add extra panels up to a maximum number defined in settings.
Moderators can also:
- close panels (for everybody until used for publishing)
- use all panels to publish user videos (including default, new added, closed)

The media encoder setup box can be used to display streams from various rtmp servers and publishing applications.
The Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder should be used with a Adobe Flash Media Server.

Also latest versions allow publishing webcam trough same rtmp server. Just click the tool icon on the webcam panel and pick external encoder - details with server and stream name to publish will be provided.