Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Paresh Patel

Paul O Warrin

Paul C Poon

Shashank Mohan Parasnis

Brian D Crites

Matthew D Bookspan

Chayaboon Purnaveja

Alice Wang

A system and method for broadcasting a presentation over a computer network to an online audience. The system comprises an integrated environment that leverages many of the features of Microsoft Corporation's NETSHOW&trade; server technology, along with Microsoft Corporation's POWERPOINT 2000&trade; presentation design application program to enable a presenter to broadcast a presentation to an online audience over a computer network, such as an intranet or the Internet. The system enables a live presentation comprising a plurality of presentation slides, and audio and optionally, a visual content to be broadcast to a plurality of receiving computers over a network so that the presentation slides are displayed and the audio and visual content are replicated on the receiving computers synchronized with the presentation slides, just as in the live presentation. Preferably, the plurality of presentation slides are sent as HTML files via the computer network in advance of the start of the presentation. During the presentation, the live audio and visual content is captured and encoded into an advanced server file stream format that is streamed from a local computer (at the presenter's location) or a NETSHOW&trade; server to the receiving computers. The live audio and visual content is then replicated on the receiving computers using a media player. Also, slide display commands produced in conjunction with a display of the presentation slides during the presentation are streamed to the plurality of computers, so that the presentation slides are displayed on the receiving computers in synchrony with the live presentation, by loading the HTML files into a browser application program running on each of the receiving computers, in response to the slide display commands.

Presentation broadcasting

An integrated environment for scheduling a presentation broadcast that allows a user to seamlessly schedule, make changes, replace, and reschedule a presentation broadcast from within a presentation design application program. The system leverages many of the features of Microsoft's OUTLOOK&trade; program to schedule a network presentation broadcast of a presentation broadcast from within the presentation design application program that is used to create or open the presentation. The user enters information concerning the presentation broadcast while within the presentation design application program, which is then automatically inserted into a meeting request message automatically sent to a list of prospective attendees of the presentation broadcast that the user has identified. The meeting request message also contains user-entered scheduling information, which is employed to automatically schedule a presentation broadcast meeting in the electronic calendars of those message recipients who choose to attend the presentation broadcast. The system also automatically schedules the presentation broadcast in the user's electronic calendar, which provides a reminder to the user to start the presentation broadcast a predefined interval before the scheduled time. Additionally, the automated scheduling is implemented for a presentation broadcast that is to originate from an Internet web server.

Scheduling presentation broadcasts in an integrated network environment

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Paresh Patel