Wisconsin Community Media



TBNK Can Help You with Video Conferencing Needs for City/County Meetings (And Integration into Our TV Coverage on the TBNK Government Channel and LIVE Web Streaming at TBNKtoGO)As the Corona Virus situation has caused cities’ operations and meeting protocols to continue to evolve, we have had some discussions in the last week or so with a few cities that are asking how they can get set up for video conferencing and get it aired on our cable channels and on the web.As the group that provides the video coverage of your meetings, we are happy to be a resource to you for this need, especially since we want to be sure that it can be integrated well into our production process and onto the channels. So we have been evaluating free Video Conferencing services to get a better handle on which services have the features that we would need for meetings. We also focused on which services look like they would be easiest for our councils/commissions to sign up for/install and to set up and host a meeting. We have completed testing for how best to integrate these types of feeds into our video production process and to inject onto our cable channels and into our LIVE web stream at TBNKtoGO. Here is what we recommend:While the way that we can integrate a video conference into our production equipment probably would work for most of the services that you have available, we would like to initially recommend WebEX. Our second preference would be Microsoft Teams. Below are our initial takes on WebEx, Teams, and several other popular video conferencing services.We can walk you through getting your host computer set up and how to start a meeting and invite attendeesWhen you host a video conference, you will need to invite TBNK to be an attendee so that we can get access to the video conference feed at our computer, then we can connect it into our cable TV channel and into the TBNKtoGO LIVE web video stream.You can share our TBNKtoGO LIVE link and our cable TV channels on your official meeting post and on Facebook (and any other social media) as the method for the public to watch the meetings.If you would like us to help you get set up for video conferencing on our cable channels and for LIVE video streaming, call us (859-261-1300) so we can help you get started. We would also like to coordinate a “dry run” with you before you host your first video conference to confirm that you are all set up.Review of Video Conferencing servicesWebEx (1st choice)Last weekend, WebEx made their FREE version much better for our use, by removing the time length limit (which had been 45 minutes.) This puts them at the top of the list.WebEx has been around for a while and has solid features and one of the more simple interfaces to get started with.It is built for video and audio (phone) conferencing and sharing desktops docs, etc., whereas some other software packages are built to also do other things, like forums and email, etc., which is fine, but makes it a little more complicated.With WebEx only the host has to sign up for an account.And it is a simple procedure to sign up.WebEx seems to be one of the easier services to invite attendees, and for attendees to join meetings.When the host opens the home page in WebEx, you can click the button to start a meeting immediately, or can schedule a meeting for later at a specific time. Then click the camera icon at the bottom of the screen to begin the meeting, then click to invite attendees and then enter email addresses for those that you wish to invite.The attendees receive an e-mail invite that the host sends out, and they simply click on the “Join Meeting” button in the e-mail invite and then can select to join from their browser or select to download and install the WebEx app. (The app is a better experience, but the browser works just fine.)Unlimited length of meetingUnlimited number of meetingsUp to 100 participantsScreen sharingPrivate Chat Rooms can be set up.Record meetingsDesktop and mobile apps work well and are free and easy to install and use.Security is catered for by TLS 1.2 and AES 256-bit encryption, and backed by Cisco's networking know-how means performance is impressive.TEAMS (2nd Choice)Good Free featuresBeing so popular now, that the system crashed last week.Teams is more complicated to set up.You have to set up Teams and add members first and then set up any channels that you want. It is not hard, and provides some extra features for collaborative work teams, but is more complicated to set up for simply video conferencing. Not all council people or staff may want to go through the extra steps and manage it. Once it is set up it is pretty neat.ZOOM (not recommending at this time)Free version is limited to 40 minutes. This is problematic for many meetings, unless you wish to pay for the Pro service.ZOOM does have nice features, a very nice and simple user interface, and displays nicely.Industry reports complain that ZOOM has known security problems related to how they deployed videoMy concern is that known possible security vulnerabilities seem like a non-starter at a government organization.Very popular, but that popularity has resulted in ZOOM being overloaded with all the new users last week and crashing.If these problems are not an issue for you, then the interface is clean and simple and nice, and it is very popular.GOOGLE Hangouts (not recommending)The first problem with Hangouts is that like everything else with Google, it wants to take over your computer, get you into its system and mine every bit of data about you that it can.Also, Hangouts is divided into two versions: Chat and Meetings. Chat is free but limited to 10 participants for video calls (which may be too few for some.) Meetings is not free.The interface was relatively nice and somewhat simple, though you have to tie it into a Google account.Hangouts also forces you to use Chrome browser only, and we found some compatibility issues with our laptops’ microphones, though the service does operate in your android phone well and is supposed to be fine in iPhones (though we have not tested that.)OTHERSMost of the other well-known services, when I last checked, had time limits on their free version or limits on amount of attendees or other features, which made them seem less useable for government meetings.GotoMeeting Did not have a clear free version (just a start for free option, which sounded more like a trial period that would expire.)LifeSize Was more complicated, and seemed more designed to work with video conferencing equipment that you had to buy. UberConference Good interface, butHad a limit of 10 attendees on their free service, which might have been too few with some councils and staff and other attendees. They recently upped it to 50, butThey also mention other surcharges and fees.FreeConferenceLimited to 5 Video Conference Participants.No video recording.The company reported experiencing congestion problems last week.We hope that this information is helpful to our cities/county while everyone is scrambling to adapt. Call me or Jason Dudas with any questions or to get started. TBNK is ready to help. Thanks. ................
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