Hello, Breeze Meeting Presenters and Hosts! I've created this document to help ensure that you have a great experience when using or demonstrating with Breeze Meeting. As with any product, experienced presenters will discover new things as they push the product in new directions—I trust this will become a living document that reflects the things many of us have learned.

This document covers broadcast hardware setup, software preparation, and participant preparation.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Macromedia Breeze

• Try or Buy

Pre-Flight

Preload all of your content into the room and do a full dry run from the exact hardware and network connection that you will use. In some cases a setup works perfectly from your desk, but performs poorly from a conference room or from another office. This could be due to extremely long Ethernet cables, poor wireless signal, and so forth. In short, it's best to test the exact setup.

Setting Up Hardware

For broadcasting, use the fastest machine (in both CPU and network connection) that you can find, particularly if you need to do video and/or screen sharing. The light in the upper right corner of the meeting UI is green, indicating that you have a good connection. If the light is amber or red you are experiencing some latency or bandwidth constraints. Click the light to display current latency and upstream/downstream rates.

Figure 1. Connection Light Display

You can also use the Breeze Meeting connectivity test page to see these statistics. I'll discuss this more in a bit.

If you have the luxury, set up two machines. Present content from one and monitor as a participant from the other; this way, you see what your audience sees, and it helps you pace your presentation. If you notice that your screen is a second or two ahead of your audience, you can adjust your narration to match what your audience sees. The second machine can also serve as a backup machine if problems occur with the first machine.

If you have the luxury, set up two machines. Present content from one and monitor as a participant from the other; this way, you see what your audience sees, and it helps you pace your presentation. If you notice that your screen is a second or two ahead of your audience, you can adjust your narration to match what your audience sees. The second machine can also serve as a backup machine if problems occur with the first machine.

Preparing Content

Upload and verify all content before your meeting. Breeze supports a wide range of content: PPT, SWF, FLV, MP3, and JPG files. However, not all of these files are created equally, and may not work as you expected.

Microsoft PowerPoint Files (PPT)

Breeze Meeting is a little different from Breeze in the way it supports PowerPoint files. Loading a PPT file directly into a meeting room will bring all the animations, quizzes, and inserted Flash content, but will not bring any Breeze audio that was added with the Breeze Presenter Plug-in. Apart from these this difference, Breeze Meeting will convert your PowerPoint content in exactly the same way as it does with Breeze Presenter.

Macromedia Flash SWF Files

Macromedia Flash files (aka SWF files) are very powerful, but can have code inside that may disrupt the Breeze Meeting application. If you load a Flash movie and it fails to play, or your meeting suddenly restarts repeatedly or moves partly off screen, chances are that your Flash movie has some forbidden commands inside of it, and that it is not “safe” to use in Breeze Meeting. If you have access to the source (FLA) file, you can use TechNote 16818: Using embedded Macromedia Flash movies to analyze and correct this issue.

Flash Video Files (FLV)

As a host or presenter, you can upload and then control playback of Flash Video files or FLV files directly from a Breeze Meeting. While using these files, you only need to consider the bit rate in which they are encoded. It is possible to create FLV files in Flash authoring, Sorenson Squeeze, or any of a number of video production tools. Each of these tools offers the ability to create video files with settings that change the quality of audio and video. Unfortunately high quality audio and video require higher encoding rates, which produce larger files. If you present a video file from within a Breeze Meeting, consider the connection bandwidth of your participants to ensure a good experience. Participants on dial-up connections may be unable to view extremely high-quality content that has been encoded for broadband or LAN use.

JPG Files

There are some JPG encoding methods, such as “Progressive JPG”, that are incompatible with Breeze. If your JPG does not convert after being loaded into Breeze, open it in an application such as Macromedia Fireworks or Microsoft Paintbrush and use “Save As…” to save the JPG as a different file. If you have Flash, open the JPG in Flash and publish it as a SWF file for even greater assurance of compatibility.

FlashPaper

Macromedia FlashPaper 2 files are incredibly useful in Breeze Meetings. Use FlashPaper 2 to share any printable document. FlashPaper 2 is one of the best ways to provide virtual handouts for your audience—a participant can print a copy of any document you share with them. To create FlashPaper 2 documents that work properly with Breeze, you must install the Macromedia FlashPaper 2 print driver available from the Breeze Getting Started page linked from your Breeze Home page. Once you have installed FlashPaper, just print your document to FlashPaper format save the resulting SWF file, and load it in your meeting room. As a presenter or host, you can navigate to any page, zoom, pan, and search documents along with your audience. If you click the Synch button at the bottom of the FlashPaper Pod in your Breeze Meeting, participants can independently zoom, pan, search and print documents.

Preparing the Participants

For users to participate and view a Breeze Meeting requires that participants install Macromedia Flash Player version 6.079 or above. However, since some participants may have older Flash Player versions, you should ensure that participants upgrade prior to the meeting; while upgrading only takes a minute or two, failing to do so may delay the participants' entry into the meeting unnecessarily. Also, some of the participants may be behind extremely strict firewalls or proxy servers that will either slow their connection down, preventing them from seeing video or screen sharing, or even joining a meeting. To verify your participants' player version and connection speed, ask your participants to visit the Macromedia connectivity test page; it will help participants diagnose and prevent any potential problems, ensure they have the appropriate Flash Player installed, and that they can connect to the Breeze Communication server through their company or organization firewalls. The automated e-mail invitations that Breeze generates include a link to the connectivity test page; however, since you may not be using the automated invitations from within Breeze, be sure to include the link in any correspondence with your participants. Below is an example of the test results.

Figure 2. Breeze Connectivity Test page example

Please note that the “Breeze Player: Not installed” message in Figure 2 refers only to the stand-alone Macromedia Breeze Meeting Addin; it is not required for participants.

I hope that these few tips will help you and your participants have the best experience possible with Breeze Meeting. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any feedback or any tips that you find helpful in your presentations.

Have a great meeting!

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