The development of virtPresenter Software has stopped! We are concentrating our resources on Opencast Matterhorn Projekt here you can finde many experiences we made by deveolpint virtPresenter.
Installation of the virtPresenter
Complete guide for all modules (23.10.2008)
Preparations
We need 3 Computers:
- Presentation-PC. Preferably a Windows based Notebook with a Microsoft Powerpoint Version XP or latish.
- Recording-Machine. A Desktop-PC with at least one free PCI-Slot for a Hauppauge PVR 150/250/350. At best no operating system should be preinstalled.
- Slide-Conversion-Computer. A Windows (tested with XP, Server 2003 and Vista) based server. On this machine PowerPoint and the Adobe Presenter are required.
For this example we spring from following IP-Addresses: 192.168.0.1 for the Presentation-PC, 192.168.0.2 for the Recording-Machine and 192.168.0.3 for the Slide-Conversion-Computer. The services that are provided for the Recording-Machine can ideally be installed on other computers. Only the service “Videoserver“ has to run on this machine.
The Presentation-PC
We assume that Windows is already installed on this computer.
Additionally the Microsoft .NET Framework in the version 2 or higher has to be installed, as far as it isn’t already in place on the PC (from Vista on at least .NET 3.0 is pre-installed).
A detailed description for the installation of the .NET-Framework you can find here.
Next one should install PowerPoint as predefined in the description of Microsoft. During the installation process please choose the “.NET-Programassistance“ for PowerPoint. If PowerPoint is already installed one can choose “change“ in System Control -> Programs and Functions (Vista) resp. Software (XP) and post-install the .NET-Assistance.
Afterwards download an actual version of the Listener.
Extract the file and start the ListenerGenerator.exe. If an error occurs, please check if .NET and PowerPoint are installed correctly.
Once the program is started choose options and enter 192.168.0.2 at the Recorder URL and if necessary at the VNC-Recorder URL too. At the PowerPoint-Converter inscribe 192.168.0.3 and for the administrator key in 192.168.0.2 again. These settings just need to be adjusted one-off.
For a correct allocation of the recordings and the lectures some settings in the config.xml have to be adapted:
<seminar-id>A unique ID for the seminar has to be set. This same later on appears in the URL where one can find the recordings. Afterwards “demo” is used as seminar-id in this example.<semester>An unsubtle time designation fort he recording.<dozent>The name that occurs as default in the Lecturer-box. It’s possible to alter this field directly in the Listener for every single recording.<rz-kennung>Has got the function to recover the recordings in the untreated format. This identifier is prefixed in front of all Recording-IDs and many file and folder names with the objective of a faster allocation.<titel>The text which appears as default in the title-box. It’s possible to alter this field directly in the Listener for every single recording.
Attention: PowerPoint shouldn’t be running before the Listener is started. The Listener is going to close PowerPoint when he’s shut down.
Advice: Instead of installing the .NET-Programassistance on every machine one can easily copy the "Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.dll" and the "office.dll" into the program folder of the Listener. This one will be usable without any further preparations for every computer where PowerPoint is installed.
Firewall: The Listener has to be allowed to create outgoing connections for FTP (Port 21) and right there for the Ports 2222, 1997 and 1989. Special settings for incoming connections are not necessary.
The Recording-Machine
Ideally a Desktop-PC with a HDD with more than 80 GB disk space and a free PCI-Slot for a Hauppage PVR 150/250 or 350 is required.
Alternatives:' Instead of the Hauppage PCI-Cards also a Hauppage PVR-USB2 Box can be connected via USB. This one facilitates some more possible sources of error, but also functions with the videoserver-service. Just the same there are some more alternatives to the Hauppage-Cards existing. Here is a list of the supported cards.
Now download the Live DVD. Insert the DVD into the device and boot from this one. Choose the item “start or install Ubuntu”, whereupon the computer starts Ubuntu in the Live-Mode.
Choose the item “start or install Ubuntu”, whereupon the computer starts Ubuntu in the Live-Mode. Choose the according Desktop-Icon “Install“. You’ll be asked for a password. Please choose "virtuos". Now install Ubuntu according to your own ideas. You are allowed to set up an own user. Additionally there should always be a user virtuos with the password virtuos existing, even if you try to set up another user virtuos with another password.
After installing the Computer with the Live-DVD please log in as user virtuos with the password virtuos. At first we advise to change the password. Therefore open applications -> terminal -> and type in passwd. Now you’ll be asked for your old password virtuos and two times for a new one. Remember your new password!
If you want to you can search for Updates for your Linux. In addition to that first type sudo apt-get update and afterwards sudo apt-get upgrade in the terminal. If you use sudo you should reckon to confirm the command with your password.
Next the administrator has to be configured. Thereto open the file /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps/virtPresenterVerwalter/config.xml and implicitly change the following entries:
<generator>Settings for the PowerPoint-Slice-Converter<server>change to 192.168.0.
Restart the Tomcat: sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 restart
The Computer should now be ready-to-use.
The PowerPoint-Converter
Install Windows (XP, Server 2003 or Vista), PowerPoint (XP, 2003 or 2007) incl. .NET-Programassistance, the .NET Framework (Version 2 or higher).
Additionally you need the Adobe Presenter (Version 5 (in those days called Breeze), 6 or 7). Version 6.2 unfortunately isn’t supported. An actual test-version of the presenter can be found at Adobe. Just install the presenter as directed.
Afterwards mtasc (http://osflash.org/mtasc) has to be installed. Just download, extract and for our example copy the files into the folder C:\mtasc.
Furthermore the SWF 2 Image library is needed (http://www.bytescout.com/files/SWFToImage.exe). Even in this case just download and install the program.
Install a FTP-Server. In this demo we advise Filezilla.
Configure a user “virtuos” with the password “virtuos”.
Create the folder C:\virtpresenter\data in the Windows-Explorer.
Configure this folder as home-folder for the user virtuos.
Create the folder C:\TMP. Unfortunately this folder isn’t configurable. Here the different log files will be saved.
The PowerPoint-Converter has to be downloaded in the latest version and has to be extracted. Ideally copy the files into the folder C:\virtpresenter\bin.
Next open the prompt:
c: cd \virtpresenter\bin InstallUtil.exe OPT_Generator_Service.exe
Edit the file c:\virtpresenter\bin\config.xml. The following changes have to be done, to get everything running in this demo. It makes sense to change several other settings and passwords.
<slidesFTP><slidesServerAdress>192.168.0.2<slidesServerDir>www<slidesURL>http://192.168.0.2<slidesServerLogin>virtuos<slidesServerPass>virtuos
<programDir>C:\virtpresenter\bin<localDir>C:\virtpresenter\data<matscPath>C:\mtasc
Copy the config.xml from C:\virtpresenter\bin to C:\windows\system32.
After the Recording
Install the player
Connect to the computer that you’ve installed from the LiveCD (192.168.0.2).
In the folder /home/virtuos/www should be a folder with your SeminarID, if everything worked. Now unfortunately the player is missing in this folder.
You can download the current version here and extract it into the folder with the SeminarID or just copy the content of the podcastuniversity folder EXCEPT of the lectures folder into this directory.
The recording should now be available at http://192.168.0.2/<ihre-seminar-id>.