Video - Videoconferencing and realtime collaboration in Second Life

This is a simple example of videoconferencing and realtime collaboration in Second Life, which extends and details my previous post Video - Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life, posted last week. Audio in Italian.



This demo has been done using the Shared Media feature of Viewer 2.x and integration with external services. Three participants have a videoconference in Second Life using live video streams from respectively Ustream, Livestream and Justin.tv, and use Google Apps for collaborative work: they watch together a PPT -like presentation available on the web, and edit together a document using the new realtime co-editing feature in Google docs.

The demo shows that some essential videoconferencing, realtime collaboration and co-editing applications features of business and e-learning oriented platforms like Teleplace could, with some tweaking of the platform, be implemented also in Second Life.

Video - Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life

Simple videoconferencing demo in Second Life (audio in Spanish)

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzGqo_NgwY4

Blip.tv: http://giulioprisco.blip.tv/file/3803400/

We were only two participants in this demo, but this should work with up to 10 users. All three major free personal live streaming services can be used. The user on the left is broadcasting video via Ustream. The user on the right is broadcasting video via Justin.tv, and the middle screen is prepared for Livestream.

The best way to do this is broadcasting video only, and using native Second Life voice to talk. The sync lag between video and audio is 3-4 sec with Ustream and Justin.tv, 2-3 sec with Livestream, but for applications like seminars etc. it does not matter that much. Using the higher quality options available with all three major free personal live streaming services, the video quality is good enough for videoconferencing in Second Life.