Hi,
I'm wondering whether someone knows any Moodle plugin to synchronize videos with ppt slides? Something very similar to Autoview, but with full HTML5 support?
the "media server" is going to be the big issue most likely. the flash and java applet web conferencing platforms use. send/recieve data through a media server. that converts video, audio, (power points) on the fly, to support multi devices. a couple years ago there was only a handful of media servers programs out there (if that). you might try focusing on media servers first, and then working your way up from there for what is available.
red5 = open source
adobe media server, i forget the name
microsoft silverlight, i think they might have a media server as well, for silverlight functionality.
there was a couple other small frameworks out there. a couple years back. "slim down" stuff. but if memory serves most of the stuff out there still required a media server. granted this been 2 to 4 years ago. before html5 was implemented into browsers. and/or html5 was just starting to get implemented.
Hi Ryan,
A media server is only necessary for live broadcasting/relaying lectures or webcasts (Actually, this will soon be superseded by WebRTC: http://www.webrtc.org/ so media servers may become a thing of the past). Otherwise the video, audio, and slide synchronisation can be achieved via two methods:
- Embed "cue points" in the video files themselves and have the browser client (Javascript, ActionScript, Java, or Silverlight) listen for the cue points and control the slides.
- Define the cue points in an external, human readable and editable text file, e.g. XML, SMIL XML, or SubRip, and have the browser client (Javascript, ActionScript, Java, or Silverlight) listen for the cue points and control the slides. Here's a demo: http://matbury.com/strobe/jsdemo.html (Clicking on the captions will take you to that cue point in the video).
SMIL XML is a well established W3C standard for synchronised multimedia presentations which is already supported by a number of client-side media players: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronized_Multimedia_Integration_Language The widely used subtitling and captioning format TimedText (AKA RealText) is a subset of the SMIL specification.
A number of Flash-based media players already support SMIL and other external text synchronisation file formats, e.g. Strobe Media Player and JW Player. AFAIK, HTML5 media players have yet to catch up. JW Player has an HTML5 + Javascript version but I don't know if they've implemented SMIL etc. in it yet.
At the moment, what's really needed is an effective efficient tool for capturing and editing slide transition data because the solutions that I've seen so far require some fiddly, difficult, time consuming editing of SMIL and/or other text files, that most lecturers, speakers, and presenters are unwilling to get involved with.
So, it's a whole system rather than a single plugin or technology and it's the presentation capture technology that needs further development, not the presentation synchronisation technology itself. Project Matterhorn is a free and open source project to address capture and synchronisation in educational contexts and, as you'll see from the issues that it addresses, a systemic solution is needed to make lecture/presentation capture (with and without media servers) feasible: http://opencast.org/matterhorn/ I think if anything, Moodle integration should start here.
You can check out what others are already doing with it in Moodle here: https://www.google.com/search?as_q=moodle&as_sitesearch=http://opencast.org/
Just my €0.02!
Happy holidays!