Adobe has launched Visual Communicator 3, a video software product that helps educators and students create scripted, television-quality broadcasts. This version will feature live streaming when the product ships in the fall.
Teleprompters with scrolling, all-caps text are now becoming more visual media as well, with software that enables programmers to add pictures and other digital media assets to the broadcast, such as “green screen” and other screen techniques for talking heads.
The latest version takes advantage of Flash media technology and enables broadcast enterprises to deploy live streaming of video from the teleprompter. Adobe is also positioning the product for project-based learning, distance learning and educational “networks” such as campus-wide newscasts.
In this version, Adobe said it’s serving up even more simplification with easier templates and wizards designed to help first-time users create slick video presentations that can be streamed live over the Internet.
It works with Adobe’s Flash Video (FLV) format using Adobe Flash Media Server software and can be output to a projector, television or Channel One Closed-Circuit System.
Other new features include drag-and-drop animated templates and an interactive “Coach” that gets users up and running quickly. The user interface looks like what you’d find in a professional television studio. For example, Adobe officials explained, users can preview up to three cameras at once while recording or presenting live with the mini-switcher feature to create interview-style videos in real time.
Plus, a full-screen teleprompter helps the presenter read scripts from a distance. The release represents a full integration of Adobe’s 2006 acquisition of Serious Magic, which makes video software and communications tools.