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Video training in remote offices

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bob1000

IS-IT--Management
Jan 19, 2003
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Hello- we have a requirement for online training videos to be available to remote offices with 256k connectivity. Is there a Citrix product that can do this? Or how does anyone else out there manage this sort of request? Thanks in advance...
 
You can use it, but Citrix is not ideal for video/audio - you're way better off setting up alternatives. For example, setting up a cron/at/whatever job that transfers the video files to a server/workstation at the remote location after hours. There are other products out there eg but you still have to be careful to set them up so that they don't kill your wan during office hours....

Cheers
 
I agree with Beergood, copy the files locally and run a scheduler of some sort to keep them updated.
Just think of the bandwidth you would need for even 10 users! Even at 56k video speed that would be over 5mb! ( assuming they all connect at the same time.)
If local files are not an option, I suggest using one of those web video servers, like the one from Real.


Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)
 
oh, and of course and and and and and and ..... well, there's quite a few. If you want to conduct live training, then there's all sorts of other gear out there from places such as Cisco, PictureTel/Polycom that will work over a wan. Again, you need to make sure you can properly manage the network usage as streaming video can be a killer.

In fact, many companies host video files with external companies so remote offices view them via their own (if they have them) local internet link (or even at home after hours via their own ISP) rather than over the corporate network.

Personally, I found it less complex to setup a local server at each location and arrange to transfer the files overnight.... or if they're too big for that, burn 'em to CD and put them in the overnight mail. Usually can have much higher quality video/audio that way as well....

Cheers
 
Hi- thanks for the info. We are completely terminal based environment, so no 'fat' pc's or servers will be allowed at the remote sites which we have many of. The users logon onto a large terminal server farm. So I guess we can't do anything easy...
 
What sort of terminals are going to be out there? Maybe there's something that can be done.....

Cheers
 
The terminals are a mix of Wyse and other vendors...
 
n'kay.... if they, for example, have (for example) NT embedded then it's possible they support streaming video natively eg Wyse Winterm 8630LE ( Mix of vendors doesn't help, of course. Maybe it's a case of setting up a dedicated "training terminal" at any location that doesn't have suitable equipment? Shouldn't cost the earth to do, and could be made to be fairly bulletproof (eg with a hard drive whacked into it to store the videos). Depends on how many people may need to view the videos at any remote location at the same time, of course.....

Otherwise you can always try running the videos under Citrix, but don't be too surprised if the performance, well, sucks. Not Citrix's fault really - it just is not designed for it. Aside from the different way the client software compresses video compared with dedicated video codecs such as Mpeg4, you lose out on other things. For example, if you have a streaming video server that can broadcast a video over the wan, you can have one stream serving multiple clients. If you have ten remote clients viewing the same stream via Citrix, then effectively ten times the amount of data may be transferred over the wan.

Cheers
 
I heard a rumour that Citrix are doing something about the performance of multimedia over ICA in the next Feature Release - anyone know if it's true?

 
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