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Vistacast
Windows Media 9 Series IP-datacasting transforms the distance learning experience
Vistacast packages a Learning Management System that encodes media-rich curricula for students in Windows Media 9 Series
Distance learning has proliferated in the US thanks to widespread internet access, with the online higher education market predicted to rise from $4.5 billion in 2001 to $11 billion by 2005, according to ThinkEquity Partners. Now, using Windows Media® 9 Series for IP-datacasting, it is poised for even greater advances.
Sonoma College's certificate program for "first responders" trains community volunteers, hospital workers, police and other professionals in a national-standard core curriculum prescribed by the US Department of Transportation. The bit rate of the files that are datacast average 5Mbps for stations using High Definition for their programming and 10 Mbps for stations with Standard Definition programming. Since Vistacast delivers files, the files can be HD or SD.
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"The internet is wonderful technology for text, two-way chats and testing, but when you need to deliver big multimedia files to students, it gets clogged up," says Don Maggi. "A lot of people are still on 56K modems."
Maggi is partnered with Chuck Newman and Jose Carrasquillo in Vistacast, a digital datacasting business based in New York City and Dallas, Texas whose primary market is distance learning.
Vistacast packages a Learning Management System (LMS) which encodes media-rich curricula in Windows Media 9 Series and datacasts it to students equipped with a PC, USB box, UHF regular TV antenna and Vistacast software.
"The students need to be within a 60 to 70 mile radius of a digital television station tower for point-to-multipoint downloads," explains Jose Carrasquillo, and the FCC has mandated that all stations are digital by 2006. "Once the courses are cached in Vistacast Central Server (VCS), they are transcoded into Windows Media 9 Series for enhanced bandwidth conservation and encapsulated in the digital television station signal. Then the files are broadcast at very high data rates directly to the students' PCs, which are equipped with inexpensive Vistacast Digital Receivers (VDR). The files are cached locally in the PC for easy access when the student is ready to study the course. In networked locations, several PCs have access to the courses by utilizing the multi-user receiver/server."
With Vistacast's LMS, students are subject to a more robust and entertaining learning experience. "Because we're sending full-screen files, instead of 2x2 postage-stamp screens, students get an in-depth view of what they need to see and that significantly enhances the distance-learning experience," says Maggi.
Vistacast client Sonoma College, with campuses in San Francisco and Petaluma, California, is about to begin datacasting some of its courses to students.
"We see other schools shoveling a lot of text material onto the computer screen, maybe adding pictures or illustrations to make it livelier," says Sonoma College president Dr John Stalcup. "But with the advent of datacasting, you can take hours and hours of video and animation and robustly create a curriculum that's head and shoulders above what you get in the classroom."
The college offers two-year associate degrees and certificates through a mix of online courseware and on-campus teaching. It is the first college in the country to offer a degree in Homeland Security in this way. In post-September 11 America, this is a growing field of study, and Sonoma College has 22 courses on the subject.
"There's a lot of video training content available for police, fire, EMS and healthcare workers," Stalcup says. "It would take hours to download this with dial-up, or days to deliver on video tape, but with datacasting we can send it in just a few seconds."
Central to the success of datacasting is making the process seamless for students. "A student has a PC with a Microsoft® operating system with Windows Media 9 Series," says Maggi. "He just plugs in our software to turn on the receiver to get the UHF TV antenna's digital signal, and he's good to go.
"With Windows Media 9 Series, files are smaller to send, they don't take up as much space on the hard drive and the picture quality is much, much better. And we know Windows Media 9 is going to work. That all translates into a better experience for the student."
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