We've been providing teaching webinars using GoToMeeting service. However, we are now trying to automate this process by playing pre-recorded 90 min webinars as a flash video. Our GOAL is that the audience still feels it is a LIVE WEBINAR (otherwise the attendance goes down). Usual attendance is 200-400 viewers simultaneously.
We tried using a streaming server and starting it at the advertised time, ie 6pm PST, BUT that is cost prohibitive.
>> The solution we need to create is to play a flash video based on the time a viewer joined; ie if a person came to that webpage 5 min late, the video would start 5 min in the presentation; if they were 45 min late, the video would start at 45 min in the presentation. That would give an impression of a live event.
One way we think it could be done is - on the webpage where the "live" presentation will be happening, there's a screen where the webinar will be playing with a countdown clock (starting from a few days from the webinar, counting down to the last second before the start).
When a viewer logs into that page, he sees the clock counting down, and at 00:00 the webinar starts.
The webinar (flash movie) should probably download at the beginning and not be streamed - this way we lower the cost of not having a streaming server. However, we need to be able to support a few hundred people downloading it at the time (if that is only constraint we may limit the attendance to 50 or less in that case).
Now, there has to be a code written that will start playing the flash movie based on when the user got to that page. If an user got there at 6:01pm, the webinar will start 1min in the presentation. If an user got there at 7:01pm, the webinar will start at 61min in the presentation. That way, the users/viewers have the experience of a live webinar.
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Thanks
Seems like a simple task. I just need to create a basic player (I'm hoping you'd provide me with a basic sketch or something illustrating what you'd want the player to look like), which navigates to a certain point in the video based on the original time provided by the server or document on your website, and play. Sounds fun. If you can contact me by today I can have it done by today or tomorrow but I'd like to get it done before I head out for the fourth, so if you can't contact me then either choose another bidder or contact me after the fourth! I am flexible on the price. I'm also new to this website but very dependable! I would only need to add an SWF to your website, provided you already have the video file (FLV format) on there already. I have my own scripts to read any type of file on the server with ease, so you don't need to add any extra files to determine the original date and time, or anything unnecessary, it's simple and clean! Thanks for your consideration!