Products: SAFARI Montage Live!

Next Generation Interactive Videoconferencing On-Demand at Your Desktop

SAFARI Montage® Live-5! (SML5) represents the next generation of interactive videoconferencing, which enables educators to connect and collaborate with colleagues and students like never before – easily and affordably. SAFARI Montage® Live-5! offers dramatic improvements from the original SAFARI Montage® Live! with great new features such as enhanced screensharing capabilities, higher quality video and audio, the ability to play video recordings from the hosts’ desktop and much more.

This feature-rich, IP-based videoconferencing system utilizes a SAFARI Montage® Live! server, the district's private WAN and the public Internet to facilitate interactive group sessions led by one or many broadcasters. Unlike other videoconferencing systems, SAFARI Montage® Live! requires minimal training and technical support because of its intuitive interface and simple system setup. All a user needs is a camera and a microphone (headset preferred) connected to his or her desktop or laptop computer — that's it!

There are many applications for utilizing SML5, perhaps most important is the immediate use for cost-effective Professional Development for teachers at school or at home. In addition, SML5 is the ideal communication tool that can be used for meetings, job interviews and Superintendent or Principal addresses. From an educational perspective, applications are equally numerous, including distance education for homebound students, virtual field trips and AP classes, all of which can be conducted from school-to-school or school-to-home.

Screen Sharing

Teachers can now share an individual window, application or entire desktop while maintaining the videoconferencing and chat windows, making the system much more collaborative. This feature has been optimized to improve efficiency and provide reduced bandwidth requirements.

On-screen Layout

Choose one of three preset layouts based on your needs — Conference, Chat or Presentation — or adjust the layout just the way you like and save it for future sessions.

Emoticons

Allows users to pictorially express an action or feeling, such as applauding, requesting to speak, etc.

Live Polling

Get immediate feedback on a topic by conducting an online live poll with participants. Now, with SML5, users can e-mail participant data.

Video & Audio Enhancements

High quality video (480x360) and audio (44kbps) that are double the quality of other desktop videoconferencing systems
Fullscreen video
Echo cancellation
Set and fine-tune video quality for broadcasters individually, up to full HD quality
Start and stop other broadcasters
Dramatic ability to play full-motion video from Media Library or YouTube®

Administration

Updated account center with improved navigation and configurable dashboard of scheduled sessions, recordings
Automatic creation of user accounts from invitations
Ability for administrators to impersonate a user for support purposes
Ability to remotely control any participant's desktop (with permission)

Other

Moderated Question & Answer – allows the moderator to review and selectively answer questions
Video Conversion
Pause Recordings
Onscreen connection quality feedback
Customizeable meeting URLs
Session encryption via RTMPE

Natively Supported Files

IMAGE

PNG, GIF, JPG, SWF

VIDEO

FLV, F4V, MP4, M4A, MOV, MP4V, 3GP

AUDIO

F4A, MP3

WEB SOURCES

YouTube®, Flickr®, any URL with a supported filetype (listed above)

Supported Files for Conversion

Is your file not supported natively? If it's one of the filetypes below, you can still upload it to your session. From your SML5 Media Library, one click converts your file so that it can be shared and viewed by all participants.

VIDEO

MPG, MPEG, MP4, MPG4, MOV, MOOV, WMV

AUDIO

AAC

DOCUMENTS

PPT, PPTX, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, TXT, RTF, PDF

Now with SAFARI Montage® v4.0 and later, you can access your SML session recordings directly from your dashboard. SAFARI Montage® v5.3 is required for integration with SML5.

A Cost-Cutting Solution

With SAFARI Montage® Live!, districts can save money with Virtual Field Trips, on Distance Learning and on Professional Development.

Virtual field trips designed by leading national organizations like NASA and Colonial Williamsburg replace costly real field trips, while preserving the essence of the experience for students.
Interactive videoconferencing at the desktop connects remote students with teachers efficiently and economically.
Professional Development costs are reduced or eliminated, including stipends, substitutes, teacher overtime, mileage reimbursements, meals and beverages, and location costs, as well as costs associated with duplicating or replacing hard copy Professional Development programs on VHS and DVD.

This amazing new product allows you to include participants in your SAFARI Montage® Live! conference who are using traditional H.323-based videoconferencing systems, such as those offered by Tandberg^® and Polycom^®.

SAFARI Montage® Live! H.323 Gateway is available as a complement to an existing SAFARI Montage® Live! server and delivered as a dedicated, purpose-built hardware appliance.* Each gateway supports a single H.323 connection to a single SAFARI Montage® Live! conference.

*SAFARI Montage Live! H.323 Gateway requires a SAFARI Montage Live! server that is covered by a current SAFARI Montage® Live! Software Upgrade Plan. SML5 support will be available at a later date.

PARTICIPANTS

The SAFARI Montage® Live! H.323 Gateway allows a district to include an H.323 participant and efficiently broadcast them to SML participants, such as teachers, professors and homebound students. An H.323 participant can view and hear SAFARI Montage® Live! (SML) conferences, speak and be seen by participants, but cannot use any other interactive tools.
The gateway supports one H.323 connection at a time, which may be a direct connection from a single H.323 unit or from an H.323 conferencing bridge capable of supporting multiple participants.

The H.323 participant connected to the gateway views the full SML session window as video on their H.323 unit.
SML participants view the H.323 participant's video as they would any other SML broadcaster. SML participants can text chat, partake in live polling, view and share files, screen share and perform all of the other functions offered by SML features.