University of Texas at Austin Selects Envivio Mindshare Presentation System to Record Classes and Events
Flexible Plug and Play Features Built on MPEG-4 Standards Convinced Technologist He Made the Right Decision
South San Francisco, CA – July 26, 2005 – Envivio Inc. announced today that its Mindshare™ Presentation system has been selected by two separate organizations at The University of Texas at Austin to record lectures and events. The system's real-time viewing and advanced recording capabilities make it ideal for distance, on-line, and on-demand learning applications. Featuring MPEG-4 technology to minimize bandwidth requirements as well as synchronize presentation elements, the system broadcasts and records rich media presentations over IP networks.
The College of Natural Sciences is using the Envivio® Mindshare Presentation system to capture lectures, while The Applied Computational Engineering & Sciences (A.C.E.S.) Building is using the system to capture special events and presentations as well as produce online content for university entities. Each system has been integrated into the presentation technology of each facility by their designer Kurt Bartelmehs, Ph.D., program manager for A.C.E.S.
"The Mindshare Presentation system has a simple interface that makes it extremely easy to use. The system's ability to provide pixel-perfect VGA capture of the presenter's screen and record it as video instead of freeze-frame JPEG images is unparalleled," said Bartelmehs. "I've compared the different presentation and webcasting systems on the market. Nothing comes close to the quality of playback, ease-of-integration and interoperability of Envivio's system."
For the College of Natural Sciences, Bartelmehs is currently beta testing webcasting lectures to students enrolled in courses meeting in a 500 seat lecture hall and for A.C.E.S., Bartelmehs is webcasting meetings, presentations and special events held throughout the facility to the public. The A.C.E.S. building incorporates cutting-edge technology that supports interdisciplinary research and graduate study in computational science and engineering, mathematical modeling, applied mathematics, software engineering and computer visualization. Each I.T. facility features a standard set of information technologies integrated within a large display and sound system that is operated using a standardized "user-friendly" remote-control system. Many rooms also include automated camera and microphone systems that provide access to a complete range of webcasting and video conferencing technologies. The Mindshare Presentation system records daily interactive classes and events in both of these state-of-the-art facilities, combining audio, video, and graphics into single 1600 x 1200 resolution MPEG-4 files for later interactive viewing.
"Never before has the quality of a recording been better than attending the actual event. After viewing several lectures recorded with Mindshare, I believe viewing the interactive recording is arguably more enriching than watching the live event itself," continued Bartelmehs. "You can pause, rewind, fast forward but you can also independently maximize or zoom in on the video components. It's Envivio's use of MPEG-4 BIFS technology that makes this possible. Other folks with webcasting systems aren't even in the same universe."
The Envivio® Mindshare Presentation system is a highly optimized one-to-many communication system that can deliver interactive media presentations live and on-demand to thousands of viewers over any IP network. The system takes advantage of advanced MPEG-4 compression standards and technology to deliver the key elements of the presentation - video, audio, screen capture, text, and images - as part of a single multi-track MPEG-4 stream. The system overcomes the usual limitations of synchronization, scalability, latency, and reliability found in alternative webcasting systems.
"Both the presenters and the students have found that the system seamlessly blends into the classroom environment. Additionally, when we show the students how simple it is to access the recorded classes over the web they get excited. To them, the ability to interactively review the material presented in class is like watching a DVD and that's a no-brainer," said College of Natural Sciences Associate Dean of I.T., Jeffrey Brumfield, Ph.D.
Using the interactive features of MPEG-4, Envivio has created a presentation system that expands the boundaries of any classroom, conference room or auditorium. With the Mindshare system, the output of any VGA device such as Macs, PCs, electronic whiteboards, document cameras or medical imaging devices can be broadcast along with the video signal of either a live presenter or a pre-recorded video file. Viewers receive the information in a single synchronized high-quality, low bit rate MPEG-4 file and can view the presentation from a PC or Mac. Behind the scenes, the system simultaneously records key elements of the presentation and combines them into one interactive file to create an immediate archive for playback and distribution.
"It's unrealistic to ask our faculty to drive their own camera or require them to wear a tracking apparatus. Consequently, I developed a camera tracking system that I call the Virtual Camera Operator (VCO)," added Bartelmehs. "To the Mindshare Presentation system, the VCO enhances the content captured by the camera source and was therefore easy to integrate. The whole system really rocks and I look forward to increasing its use throughout the campus."
About the University of Texas, Austin
The University of Texas at Austin, the largest component of The University of Texas System, is a major research university and home to more than 48,000 students, 2,700 faculty and 17,000 staff members. From teaching and research to public service, the university's activities support its core purpose - to transform lives for the benefit of society through the core values of learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity and responsibility. The mission of The University of Texas at Austin is to achieve excellence in the interrelated areas of undergraduate education, graduate education, research, and public service. Please visit http://www.utexas.edu for more information.
About Envivio, Inc.
Envivio Inc. is the leading provider of MPEG-4 (including AVC / H.264) systems that power innovative services for revenue generating and bandwidth saving applications in the broadcast, mobile, enterprise and IPTV markets. Customers using Envivio systems can reduce their operational costs by making their existing infrastructure more efficient while offering the highest quality video services at the lowest possible bit rates. Envivio is considered the industry expert in producing and delivering MPEG-4 products and systems. More than a pioneer in the development of MPEG-4 technology, Envivio has created product families that address specific IP and video delivery requirements to enable the creation of new applications and services that were before not possible. Working with leading industry partners, the company's open standards-based technology and systems are used to deliver complete end-to-end solutions that range from mobile video services, digital television over IP, and rich media communications to high definition television. Visit www.envivio.com for more information.
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