PCVConference Users Manual

Many options are only available to the owner or moderator of the room and may be 'grayed' out or simply not visible. The owner of the room has several options to enable and disable certain functions to suit their individual requirements. Functions that are usually moderator only are highlighted in red.

File Menu - Login, Logout, Exit, Options

Browser Menu - Back, Forward, Stop, Refresh, Home, Synchronize, Save URL as, Add to favorites

Whiteboard Menu - Pencil, Line, Rectangle, Ellipse, Text, Select area, Move selected area, Eraser, Pen style, Brush style, Font Style, Clear paper, Copy to Clipboard, Open, Save as, Capture desktop, Capture area, Capture window

View Menu - Conferences list, Video preview, Audio Controller, Text chat, Status bar

BACKEND CONFIGURATION

USER INTERFACE

File menu:

Logout - Left click to log out of the conference without actually closing the software down altogether.

Options - Left click to open the options menu dialogue box. There are four tabbed boxes called 'General settings', 'User Settings', 'Sounds settings', and 'Hot Key'. Left click on the relevant tab to see each dialogue box.

Under the general settings tab- The first box is where your screen name is input. Screen names can be up to 64 characters in length. The next box is where your moderator password is input if you have one. This can be up to 32 characters in length. In the next section, place a tick in the box if you wish to be automatically re-connected to the main server if you lose your connection at any time. The final option allows you to modify your Internet options.

Under information settings tab- Here you can fill out a user profile and conference configurations. The top two boxes allow you to input your first and last name, the box below is where you can input your regular contact e-mail address. Below that you can type in the URL for your main website if you have one. It is also possible to add a logo in bitmap form. left click on the button to the right of the input box to browse to the location of your image. The large box at the bottom allows for the addition of a brief description to explain your business and introduce yourself. Finally, at the bottom is a check box, placing a tick in this box will allow other users of the room to view these details by using the View details option from the Members menu.

Under sounds settings tab- Here you can choose to enable or disable any of the sounds you hear in the software, such as the sound for when someone enters or leaves the room. All the sounds shown in the list you see here, can be enabled or disabled using the check box.

Under Hot Key tab- Here you can the change your hot key/talk button to what ever F key you like.

Members menu:

Most of these options are only available to if you are the moderator of the room.

Stop speaking - Left click to prevent selected member speaking in the room.

Ban - Left click to remove selected member from the room permanently or until you remove the ban located within your ban list..

Send a file to one or to all - Request Desktop share - One on one feature - Right Click the guest you wish to have a private one on one conversation with, a request is forwarded to the guest to accept the one on one conversation, the guest can accept or decline the request. Either party can terminate this feature as per screen instruction.

Browser menu:

The browser operates in much the same way as Internet Explorer. Note that when you view or change pages in the browser window, only you will see the changes you make. The exception to this is when a moderator uses the synchronize option, in which case the browser content will change for everyone in the room and display the same page that is currently in the moderators browser window.

Add to favorites - Left click to add the current web page URL to your favorites list.

Synchronize - Click on the arrow at the far right of the address bar synchronize the current web page so that it shows in the browser window of all members in the room. If a new member enters the room after you have synchronized the page, you will normally have to click on this again so that the new member sees the new page.

Chat menu:

Copy - Left click to copy any text you have highlighted in the text chat area. To highlight text to copy left click and hold the mouse button at the start of the text you wish to copy, then move the mouse pointer over the text until you have highlighted all the text you want, then let go.

Save as - Left click to save the contents of the text chat area to your hard drive.

Print - Left click to open the print options dialogue box and print the contents of the text chat area.

Options - Left click to open the main text chat area options dialogue box. Here you can select the font style for the text chat area and the colors you wish to have for text and background. Below this there are 4 check boxes, select the options you require by left clicking the box and checking it with a tick. When you have finished making selections click OK to confirm.

Date and time stamps. Check the relevant box to display date, time or both each time you enter text in the chat area.

New window for private message. When this is selected and you get a private message from someone, the message will open in a separate window. Uncheck this setting and the text chat will appear in the general text area but will remain private and not for general view.

Show hint if form is minimized. When this is selected and you have the conference room minimized on your desktop, you will get a small pop-up from the task bar when someone types something in the room. This is useful if you are busy doing multiple tasks but want to keep an eye on when there is something being typed in the text chat area.

Web Cam menu:

From the Web Cam menu you can configure the settings for the web cam feature, also enable or disable the web cam. chat area.

To keep the voice quality clear and crisp the web cam will turn off once a room has more than 25 people in it.

When you have a web cam connected to your PC and you have this option enabled, you will be able to view the web cam image of the person currently speaking in the room. The person currently speaking will appear at the bottom of the members list and have a small speaker icon to the left of their name. Anyone who tries to speak at the same time will be placed in a queue and their names will appear in order below the current speaker. Your place in the queue is also denoted by a number on the speaker icon next to your name.

"Live Show ( Larger Video) WEBCAM" (approx 11cms x 9cms or 3 x 4 inches) option. Sign into your room as moderator and use the pull down menu on the synchronize button and select "Live Video Show" mode. Your guests in the room will see the larger webcam screen of you the moderator. This feature is designed to operate in DTS mode for a maximum 10 people at this time as is useful for webcasting.

Video Live Show

Above is the address bar. You have the standard back, forward, stop, refresh, and home options. Notice the SYNCHRONIZE button. That contains the moderator presentation modes. There is one more option here called 'Video Live Show' mode. When selecting this mode, the moderator webcam is shown in the browser, in large format.

Mode Selections

Guests will view the Live Video Show mode like this:

View menu:

Help menu:

Home page - Left click to return to the browser home page.
About - About this software.

Whiteboard menu:

The White Board is controlled by MODERATORS only, the contents of the whiteboard can be seen by left clicking on the whiteboard tab in the main work area. All members in the room will be able to see the results of another member using the whiteboard. Below are the main options that you have available when using the whiteboard, plus a brief description of how each option works.

Pencil - Left click to select pencil mode. When selected hold down left mouse button to draw and let go to stop.

Line - Left click to select line mode. When selected hold down left mouse button where you wish to begin the line and move the mouse pointer to where you wish to end the line, then let go.

Rectangle - Left click to select rectangle mode. When selected hold down left mouse button to set one corner of the rectangle, then move the mouse pointer to set adjacent corner position, then let go.

Ellipse - Left click to select ellipse mode. Works similarly to rectangle mode to create an ellipse of required size and shape.

Text - Left click to select text mode. When selected, move mouse pointer to where you wish to insert text and begin typing. Text will appear in the format selected using font style option.

Select area - Left click to enter select area mode. Works similarly to rectangle mode, allowing you to select a given area of the whiteboard.

Move selected area - Left click to enter move selected area mode. Use in conjunction with select area mode to move the selected area to a new location. Left click and hold to grab the selected area and release when positioned in new location.

Eraser - Left click to select eraser mode. Left click and hold the mouse button to erase anything drawn on the whiteboard by moving the mouse pointer over the area you wish to erase, then let go.

Pen style - Left click to select pen mode. From the dialogue box you can change the style of the pen you use.

Brush style - Left click to select brush mode. From the dialogue box you can change the style of the brush you use.

Font style - Left click to change font style. From the dialogue box you can change the size and style of font used in text mode.

Copy to clipboard - Left click to save the current whiteboard contents to the clipboard.

Save as - Left click to save the contents of the clipboard on your hard drive for later use.

Capture desktop - Left click to grab the entire contents of your desktop to display on the whiteboard.

Capture area - Left click to select capture area mode. This option allows you to grab a selected area of the screen to display on the whiteboard. Select an area to capture using the select area option.

Capture window - Left click to select capture window mode. This option allows you to grab a selected open window on your desktop to display on the whiteboard.

Please Note - Only moderators can operate the whiteboard at this time, to turn on whiteboard you MUST be in presentation mode.
eg (not in standard mode)

DeskTop Sharing:

Desktop sharing (DTS) otherwise known as application sharing enables the moderator to share his / her desktop or running application for guests within the room. An example might be a power point presentation, an excel worksheet or some other program.

To operate DTS, log into your room as moderator, select Moderator and pull down menu > select Desktop Sharing Mode.

That's it, guest's in your room will see your desktop by minimizing your conference room. Your "TALK NOW" button will now reside in your tool bar. Guest's also have a "TALK NOW" button available in the upper left side of the screen with a change status option. ? or not available etc.

Remember, when using this DTS mode the speed and performance of this feature is determined by your internet speed and bandwidth and that of all users. Assuming all users within the room have DSL or cable bandwidths, streaming will be quickly recognized, however moderators should allow 3-5 seconds for full pages to load for all users.

NOTE: At this time the DTS feature is available for 10 guests and a moderator, we hope to have additional guests enabled in the near future. DTS requires a minimum internet bandwidth of 128 Kbps down / upstream, for best performance, 512Kbps /264Kbps or higher.

Miscellaneous:

Multiple Rooms may be opened and minimised to your desktop tray: Please remember, the WEBCAM and DESKTOP sharing features will ONLY operate in the 1ST ROOM you open. Let's say you have 3 rooms opened and a visitor arrives in your 2ND room you opened and you want webcam and desktop sharing features operating in this room. Quickly close the 1st and 2nd rooms and re-open the the second room and these features will be available.

Application Sharing - DeskTop Share (DTS) mode is required to run programs such as Excel or Powerpoint to a small group of 10 people or less. Otherwise for larger groups wanting to see powerpoint, please save your powerpoint slides from pps files to html or in other words as web page files. You then neeed to upload these html files to your server. ie: www.yourdomain.com/slide1.html

Password Protect - Yes you can password protect your room as often as you need via the administration panel.

Full Duplex - Another intended development. This will allow small groups of people to all be able to speak at the same time. For those with a reasonable specification of PC and fast connection, multiple web cams may also be possible.

Hints For A Successful Video Conference Presentation

Know The Environment

Acquainted yourself with the video conferencing system. For smooth running of the presentation and to make it effective it is essential know the program and it's capabilities in your environment. You need to know whether you have team member/s who are attending the conference for the first time, ideally they need to be guided and trained in advance. Most importantly in a worst case scenario and the rooms quits due to a micro internet drop out, members need to know to close down the client and re-start the client as if to log back in again.

Presentation Content

The materials that you need during the videoconference should be checked in advance, if you have soft copy of the materials in floppy or CD then load them on the PC and get yourself familiar with its usage. If you have uploaded it on the Internet then download and save it on your data PC. Keep your content simple and not too jazzy.

Arrive on Time

Try to begin your conference on time and before the videoconference start, this ensures you to check all the required peripherals, last minute settling in and checking the materials so required.

All the people who will be attending the conference should be well settled and ready with their prerequisites. Position everyone in a manner so that everyone can be viewed as clearly as possible. Check the microphones and test the sound clarity and quality. If you are connected to the conference then it is advisable to put the microphone on mute if you are settling in so that last minute discussions and shuffling are not transferred on the other side.

Additional advice:

Tip#1

Before beginning a video conference, turn off / close all unnecessary programs that maybe running on your computer. This advice is recommended for both the conference presentors and guests. Any distraction of computer resources such as emails with large attachments or other programs running such as windows updates or antivirus updates, real player, media player and the like will take up valuable bandwidth and CPU resources and could impact on the conference program performance.

Tip#2

If you have an important scheduled conference and a large audience attending, best practice is ensure your room is available about an hour before. Why? Because occasionally like any server, they do require re-booting from time to time and as such, your alert to us allows us the time to organize a re-boot and have your room available in plenty of time. (Fortunately this is not very common)

TIP#3

If you expecting a large group (50+) attending your room, best practice is to request your guests don't log into your meeting all at once, a more staggered entry over 5 -10 minutes is wise as to not overload the queuing process for the servers.

TIP#4

During a conference, it's important to keep your guests attention and by maintaining an interactive approach, asking for responses is the best method and this can be done via the text chat readily. Most importantly, PAUSE, release the TALK NOW button momentarily and then carry on with the presentation. The programs requires regularly pauses, say every 2 -3 minutes just for a second to maintain continuity.

USERS MANUAL

USER INTERFACE: