Desktop video conferencing for remote presentations and file collaboration.
Adobe connect is a relatively high-end video conferencing and collaboration tool, that actually comes in two versions: free and pro. Although the free version (Adobe Connect Now) is great if you only want basic facilities like a simple meeting room for up to three participants, we’ll concentrate on the more feature-rich Adobe Connect Pro. Features Adobe Connect Pro has most of the same features of both Webex and Live Meeting including the following: The admin for setting up meetings and ontrolling participants is done through Adobe’s web-based system which is fairly clear. Inside you can manage meetings, and set up events. You can also schedule training events, as well as view any reports or results of polls that have been conducted during the meeting. There’s so much in the admin section here that it’s easy to get confused. For one thing, Adobe separates seminars from meetings, which could easily cause confusion if you didn’t know. A meeting room can be opened from the admin site, and the client is entirely web based. This means you can use it on any computer that’s running one of the main browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox). The opening screen for Adobe Connect Pro gives you three options – share your screen, open a whiteboard or collaborate on documents. The left hand side of the meeting room shows you participants, the chat window and notes. It’s really easy to invite participants, and they’ll receive a very basic email saying “please click on this link”, and from there the console will load in your participant’s browser. Easy! In larger meetings, participants can use the ‘raise a hand’ feature which can be used during a Q&A session, or if a participant is having trouble in the meeting – Live Meeting also has this feature. As soon as the video and voice is connected, a little box comes up in the corner to show the person speaking.In our trial, we only got one way video to work. If you want a participant to be given the chance to speak in a meeting, they must be granted microphone rights. Useful for large meetings, but fiddly for small ones. For e-learning, Adobe Connect is also pretty strong with a ‘learner tracker’ system. This means you can teach and assess students, uploading relevant course materials and tracking their progress. Faciliate discussions between students, and record meetings for future use (or for those students who couldn’t attend the live session). You can also set up ’self-paced’ training – effectively offering students a list of pre-recorded meetings to watch, and the possibility of answering a quiz at the end. Much like Live Meeting you can set pass/fail rates for those quizzes to help you manage students better. Overall, Adobe Connect Pro is a very nice-looking piece of kit and loads quickly. It is however, a little tricky to get going although we were impressed by the clear emails that are sent as invitations to participants. Good e-learning features, and a lightweight web-based interface make this a good choice for e-learning.
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Adobe’s solution isn’t the cheapest, but it does pack a considerable amount of features into the web-based interface. It stands out especially for e-learning, where a number of interesting features allow you to create quite advanced courses. Also there’s the ability to monitor students’ performance with quizzes. For webinars, Adobe has the largest capacity (80,000) which is unrivalled. However, it’s far from the easiest to use. It took us a long time to get any video at all, and we could only manage one-way. Setting permissions for each individual attendee is a pain for small, quick meetings. Ease of Use: 2/5 Features: 5/5 Number of users : 5/5 Value for money: 3/5 Compatibility : 5/5 Editors Opinion : 4/5 It’s a shame that Connect Pro is difficult to get up and running, because you can do absolutley anything with this software – from a very basic video conference between two participants to a large-scale conference with 80,000 participants. Having said that, if you’re prepared to figure out how to use it Adobe Connect could prove very rewarding, espcially if you want to run a course or e-learning event. The great ‘reports’ feature is well designed and looks better than the main competitors Live Meeting and Webex. Positives: Negatives: Price : $45 (£32) per seat per month Click to get started with Adobe Contact us for more information
We’ve fallen for DimDim in a big way. It’s simple, but lets you do everything you’re likely to need to do in a small scale meeting. And boy, is it fast! So easy to get up and running, to share PDFs, your screen and video chat. Amazing considering it’s all done through a browser and no installation is required. Ease of Use : 5/5 Features : 4/5 Value for money: 5/5 Compatibility : 5/5 Editor’s Opinion : 4.5/5 Positive: Negative: Overall we’d say DimDim is best for small organisations, professionals, charities and other individuals. It’s unlikely to be used by more demanding customers because it doesn’t have many of the features of Webex or Live Meeting. On the other hand, it’s so amazingly simple to use and is excellent considering everything is managed in a browser. Price: $25 (£16) per month Click to get stared with Dim Dim Contact us for more info about Dim Dim