How can I broadcast real-time screen capture video to multiple other computers on a network?

July 14, 2006 5:17 PM

How can I broadcast real-time screen capture video to multiple other computers on a network?

I work at a computer summer camp for 7 - 16 year olds. I teach primarily Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Because of the intricacies of the programs, and the specificity that must be taught, I think it's better to show the campers rather then tell them what to do. The obvious choice would be to mirror the computer's image onto a projection screen or TV. Neither of those are an option for various reasons. Rather than have my campers gather around my computer screen to follow my lead, I wanted to find a way for them to watch me in real time.

I'm looking for a way to broadcast video screenshots from my desktop to the screens of the other campers so they could follow along with me. I thought Microsoft's Virtual Desktop software might do the trick, but I haven't been able to find a way to do what I want with it.

I also wanted the campers to have the ability to move or minimize the window which contains the video from my desktop, so they could work on their projects more easily.

Just a note on the computers: they're all on the same network, running Windows XP Pro.

posted by mikespez to computers & internet (9 comments total)

VNC. Just set it up to show you desktop but not alow the lids to control your mouse and keyboard.
posted by orthogonality at 5:28 PM on July 14, 2006

Second VNC. TightVNC probably be best, if you're going to have that many viewers, even on 100bT; you may want to force compression; since they're on the same LAN, it might not compress otherwise.
posted by baylink at 5:30 PM on July 14, 2006

I have found Microsoft's rdesktop and nomachine nx are loads faster than VNC. There's even a *nix version of rdesktop available too.
posted by chrisroberts at 8:59 PM on July 14, 2006

Yes, but can you force rdp clients *at the server end* to a) be unable to use their keyboard and mouse and b) let lots of them connect simultaneously?

That might be possible; I'm not a Windows guru.

Recent builds of TightVNC (okay; the devel build) are actually faster; they're hooked into the GDI better, or something.
posted by baylink at 9:55 PM on July 14, 2006

UltraVNC was, last I checked, the definitive VNC fork. Very fast, very flexible.

Conceivably, if there's some absolutely enormous number of machines, you're going to hit bandwidth limits. In that
case, what you'd want is to somehow ... multicast... vnc...

http://www2.in.tum.de/~ziewer/multicastvnc/
http://wiki.vislab.usyd.edu.au/moinwiki/VNCast

Everyone, take a moment to thank AT&T for open sourcing this code.
posted by effugas at 5:11 AM on July 15, 2006

In one of the links posted by effugas, I noticed a link to TeleTeachingTool, sounds perfect!
posted by PuGZ at 5:49 AM on July 15, 2006

I stumbled across Tiffany Screens about two weeks ago.

It couldn't run video across a wireless (but could certainly run screens). I'm going to try it with a gigabit switch to see if I can push RT video.

No VNC stuff to setup, and Mac/PC compatible.
posted by filmgeek at 7:30 AM on July 15, 2006

Microsoft Netmeeting allows you to share applications with other computers on your network. We use it at work for training sessions all the time.
posted by son of sasquatch at 4:43 PM on July 15, 2006

TightProjector might work pretty well for what you want.
posted by ostranenie at 8:35 PM on June 11, 2007