Integrate Review: VBrick VBCorpCast

Priced at $5,495, VBrick''s VBCorpCast is considerably less expensive than a dedicated video presentation product such as Sonic Foundry''s MediaSite.

If you've followed much of video-over-IP technology during the last few years, you are probably familiar with VBrick Systems. The company has been making easy-to-use, television-quality network video appliances, or video “bricks,” for almost a decade. More recently, VBrick has been leveraging that core technology by incorporating it into more focused solutions: specific ways of using the power of video within business or educational communications.

That's exactly the idea behind VBrick's latest product, VBCorpCast. Think of VBCorpCast as a kit, an all-you-need bundle for adding video to business presentations that automatically integrates video with Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentations for live-over-IP or on-demand-over-IP distribution. That means colleagues, students, or associates on the other side of the building or around the world can view not just static slides, but presentations synchronized with audio and video during the entire presentation.

VBrick envisions VBCorpCast as a simple-to-use, one-man presentation product that shouldn't require any significant setup, technical expertise, or anything else beyond a working knowledge of PowerPoint. And for the most part, VBCorpCast delivers on the simplicity. Of course, anytime you start talking about IP configurations, you're bound to lose some people. That's a fate that could plague VBCorpCast, as well. However, VBrick has a clever way to solve even that drawback.

The VBCorpCast kit ($5,495) comes in a single box that includes a VBrick Windows Media encoding appliance, the VBPresenter software (which is really a plug-in for PowerPoint), and a Sony DCR-HC36 camcorder. Plus, there's even a miniature tripod for positioning the camcorder toward the presenter. And, just to make sure it's a product that can be used literally out of the box by even technical novices, VBrick adds a free 60-day license to a streaming server and service.

Like any other VBrick appliance, the Windows Media brick encodes video and audio, in this case from the camcorder, and turns it into IP data for sending out over a network. That network can either be a corporate local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or, because Windows Media is low bandwidth, the Internet itself. There's nothing new about this appliance; in fact, it's very similar to the VB6200 reviewed in Video Systems last fall (see
digitalcontentproducer.com/videoencodvd/revfeat/video_leveraging_ip_networks), except that the brick in the kit encodes to Windows Media rather than MPEG-4.

The VBPresenter software, however, is new. Not a standalone software at all, VBPresenter appears as nothing more than a toolbar within Microsoft PowerPoint — a toolbar with just 10 options, plus a link to online help. The main two are an Online/Offline toggle for going live over the Web with a presentation and Start/Stop for recording a presentation, complete with slide advances and video, to the server. From there, giving a presentation is no different from any other time you'd use PowerPoint, except that the camcorder is capturing the audio and video of the presenter and synchronizing it as the slide advances.

It couldn't be easier, right? Indeed, actually using VBPresenter and VBCorpCast and sending the entire presenter out over IP is literally just using PowerPoint; that is, as long as the presenter doesn't move around too much and stays on camera. Of course, with video-over-IP, there is setup and configuration to be done. And as simple as VBCorpCast is to operate, the average salesperson, CEO, educator, or financial analyst probably won't immediately understand IP-address setup, streaming servers, or even whether his or her video presentation should be sent as a multicast, a unicast stream, or via a reflector server.

For VBCorpCast to work, the VBPresenter needs to convert PowerPoint slides to a series of JPEGs and upload them to a streaming server. Thankfully, one of the buttons in the VBPresenter toolbar handles that automatically with a single touch. Once a presentation starts and the presenter advances slides, VBPresenter automatically sends the VBrick appliance small metadata files that synch points in the video with specific slides. When the video itself reaches the streaming server, it is synchronized there with the JPEG slides and sent as an HTML-framed package to the viewer.

The caveat is that someone needs to configure VBPresenter with the address of the streaming server, the IP address of the VBrick appliance, and the VBrick itself. The VBrick appliance helps by defaulting to DHCP addressing and showing its IP on the front LCD panel. You just need to type that into VBPresenter. But you also need to configure the streaming server address in the VBrick and VBPresenter, and that's probably beyond the technical skills of the average typical presenter — at least without the assistance of an IT department. On the other hand, all of that configuration can be done remotely. The VBrick has a web interface that can be accessed by a remote administrator. And the configuration information in VBPresenter, even on a salesperson's traveling laptop, is just a small file that can be emailed and placed in the proper folder.

VBPresenter offers other clever free options, too. VBCorpCast essentially competes with video presentation products such as Sonic Foundry's MediaSite, but its focus on simplicity begets fewer direct options for including other video sources or integrating other images in addition to slides, or the built-in ability to edit presentations after the fact (although VBrick is working on such an editor). However, VBPresenter does support audience polling or Q&A, and also the ability to identify and link URLs directly into the presentation. In that way, by simply clicking on that link, the viewer can see anything that can be displayed on a Web page, including another video stream from another VBrick somewhere else. The functionality ultimately removes some of the heavy lifting from VBPresenter and leaves it for other more capable tools.

VBPresenter also makes it very easy to inform an audience of an upcoming live or recorded presentation by including an email link in the toolbar. That button opens a new email message, into which you need only add the recipients and salutations. There is already a generic message in the email's body that includes an invitation and link to view the presentation. Another toolbar button opens a file manager of sorts for stored presentations.

VBPresenter is available separately for $295 and can be used with any VBrick appliance, including MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 appliances. And, one certainly does not need to use the humble Sony DV camcorder, the 6in. tripod, or even the 60-day free streaming service. But their inclusion in the VBCorpCast kit is a smart, no-hassle way to get up and running in a very short time (VBrick itself even provides streaming configuration assistance).

At $5,495, VBCorpCast is considerably less expensive than a dedicated video presentation product such as MediaSite. It's not as full-featured, but the ability to add web links opens a lot of doors for referring to other information and media types. It's also much easier for a single presenter to use without the assistance of a techie (assuming configuration has been done).

Company: VBrick Systems
Wallingford, Conn.;
(203) 265-0044
www.vbrick.com

Product: VBCorpCast

Assets: Kit includes VBrick appliance, camcorder, tripod, and 60-day free service; extremely easy to use.

Caveats: Configuring streaming server address and protocols will require IT assistance for most users, but it only has to be done once.

Demographic: Businesspeople or eduational communicators who need a one-man presentation product.

PRICE: $5,495

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