Extending Your Reach By Distributing Meeting Recordings Using Adobe Media Player

The ability to make Connect Pro recordings available offline opens up many opportunities to share your recorded meetings and events. When you create an offline file from a Connect Pro recording, you end up with an FLV video file. Having this file is nice, but how do you view the file and also distribute this content to your audience? In this tutorial, we'll show you a few options on viewing and distributing your offline recordings.

Viewing your offline recordings

You might have noticed that FLV( Flash Video) files can be uploaded and shared in a Connect Pro meeting room and with the content library. Uploading files into Connect Pro provides an easy way to view these recordings, but you still need to be connected to the internet in order to view these files. Another, easier option to view these FLV files is to use Adobe Media Player (http://get.adobe.com/amp/). Adobe Media Player is designed to play Flash Video files, along with other content. Once you have installed Adobe Media Player, double clicking on the your offline recording file will prompt the file to play in Adobe Media Player. Once you have played the file, it will get added to your "My Favorites" section (1) under the "My Personal Videos" tab (2). You can always add more videos to this list by clicking on the "Add Video" button (3), or dragging them onto the player. Adobe Media player will keep all the loaded videos in this section unless the files are deleted or moved.

Viewing offline recordings with Adobe Media Player

Distributing your offline recordings

There are several ways to distribute your offline recordings. Again, an easy method it to use Connect Pro's content library. You can upload the FLV file into the content library, but unless users have manage access permissions on that folder or particular piece of content, they won't be able to download the actual file by using the "Download Content" tab. An easy way to get around this restriction is to set the permissions to "Allow public viewing" and then add /output/filename.flv at the end of the URL. For example, I can enable people to download the source video using this URL: http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/videoconf/output/Connect Pro and Video.flv

If you have used Adobe Media Player, you might have noticed that you can subscribe to shows by finding them in the catalog and adding them to your favorites. You can also manually subscribe to shows by adding an RSS feed from the "My Favorites" section. These subscriptions will automatically queue up new episodes of your subscribed shows when they become available. If you have a series of offline Connect Pro recordings, you can use this feature to create a "show" that viewers can subscribe to and watch offline. This method will also load new "episodes" when you send out new recordings.

Creating a show consisting of offline recordings involves a few key steps:

1. First, you will want to host your offline recording in a location that users will be able to download the files from. The content library in Connect Pro is an easy option, but you might also choose to host your file on a internal or external web-share or web server, depending on the scalability and access required.
2. Second, you need to create an RSS feed for the show by creating an XML file. You can read more about creating RSS feeds here (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/mediaplayer/articles/amp_cdk_pt03_03.html#overview_feeds) This RSS feed will also need to be hosted in a method where viewers can access it, much like hosting an HTML page.
   If you are hosting the video through Connect Pro's content library, make sure you append /output/filename.flv to the URL so Adobe Media Player can download the file.
3. Once your RSS feed is available, distribute the link to your users and have them subscribe to your show using the "Add RSS Feed" under the "My Favorites" section in Adobe Media Player.
4. When you have new episodes or recordings available, update the RSS feed with the episode's information and share the FLV file in the same manner as the previous episodes.
5. Users that are subscribed to this feed will automatically see the updated episodes when the RSS feed is updated.

Users will see all episodes that have been updated in the RSS feed.

In summary, once you have made an offline version of your Connect Pro recording, you have the flexibility to distribute your recordings to offline viewers. The RSS feed capability of Adobe Media Player makes it possible to create an automatically updating series of episodes that users can subscribe to. Users will always have the most current episode when they connect to the internet.

To find out more about Adobe Media Player, visit the AMP product page on adobe.com