Since non-IT folks carry the stigma of not being particularly computer literate, try to imagine a random person behind a TV joining a debate with a TV talk show’s host via a web video conference. Now add a properly working headset and a webcam to this picture and think again. I was sceptical at first and vigorously held my breath when the first guest joined in the show through an ISL Groop’s video conference … and fell down with relief after seeing a normal video stream and hearing a perfect voice. Now, let’s go back to the beginning.

Last Tuesday’s TV talk show gave us a glimpse at what the web conferencing software ISL Groop software is capable of. ISL Groop brought normal everyday people, the actual audience behind TVs, to the talk show by opening the Internet door. While people were glued to the first episode of the new TV talk show called Triangle broadcasted live in the prime time on a Slovenian national television, the hosts invited their viewers to join in the show through a web video conference. The latter was enabled by a customized ISL Groop application focused on providing on-demand video conferencing through the Internet for various events.

The viewers who wanted to participate in a lively debate, visited the talk show’s website, clicked the video conference link, plugged in their headset and webcam, and waited for the director’s signal. Just to be on the safe side, our technical guys rechecked their audio and video settings prior to going live. Here are a few clips of last Tuesday show with the participating audience:

You are welcome to view the whole show here.

Although everything seemed normal on the TV, the recording at the studio must have been hilarious but on the other hand a dreadful experience for our technical guys who helped around the ISL Groop software. Nobody in the world can imagine where things can go wrong at video conferences broadcasted live in prime time on a national television. The most stressful situation arose only a few minutes before going live, when the web participant’s video started adding a terrible delay. As you can imagine, our technician’s pulse skyrocketed and then jumped even some more when the TV host started to announce a newly joined web participant. After a nerve-wracking minute they found the guilty party – the participant’s teenage son, who significantly slowed down the Internet connection by starting to download torrent files.

Anyway, ISL Groop managed to bridge all hiccups along the way and delivered a high quality live video conference with a web audience to the TV show. We are going to talk some more on the customized ISL Groop next week, so stay tuned!