Getting the most from live video for Workplace by Facebook
By Jim Bask
Sharing a tablet or device screen on Workplace
Let’s imagine that I’m a mobile application developer and I want to share my application progress with others at Epiphan. Because we use Workplace, I can do this in just a few quick steps! And I can choose whether I want to share with one person, my team, or my whole company.
First, I connect my tablet or device to AV.io HD. Next, I connect AV.io HD to my laptop and choose it as my video source in my browser. Lastly, in Workplace, I choose where to share and I start a Live video. My colleagues are notified that I’m starting a video chat or that I’m starting a Live video and they can choose to watch while I present live, or to watch on-demand after my event.
One of the best parts of this sharing platform is that stakeholders can watch me present live and can interact with me through comments. They can direct what I should show next in the application, ask me to show a bit of software functionality a second time, or even ask me to delve into something deeper. And those who can’t watch live can watch the on-demand video later and still have the same opportunity to provide feedback and discuss the application flow or features with others on the team.
Of course, live video sharing isn’t limited to just sharing an application demo. You can use it to share any device with a VGA, DVI, HDMI, or SDI video output port. For example, it could be a laptop with slides or a rough cut of a marketing video, or it could be a document camera or high-quality digital camera giving crisp live video feed.
Professional live videos and presentations via Workplace
In my previous example, my laptop is capturing the video with AV.io HD, and my web browser (Chrome) is encoding the video to send to Workplace. If you need more control, better quality, or want to keep your laptop CPU/GPU free to do other things, you can use a dedicated encoder like Webcaster X1, Webcaster X2, or Pearl-2.
In fact, with Pearl-2 and Workplace your sales team can deliver professionally-produced Live video events with multiple cameras and other sources simultaneously to external collaborators, or your CEO can present dynamic live townhall-style meetings to all employees.
Recently, Epiphan’s CEO, Mike Sandler, gave us an all-hands / townhall meeting presentation by broadcasting an RTMP stream from Pearl-2 to our “Corporate Updates” Workplace Group.