Today, in 2010, this audio-visual, high-tech combo meets the market under several different banners: voice-over (VoIP), video/internet conferencing, webinars and webcasting. The major areas of webcasting are not only economical, but require from participants only minimum resources – an internet connection, access to a designated centralized location and, with the development of "computer chat", integrated telephone connections and faxing capabilities, participants at different viewing venues can interact with one another in real "live" time.

The presentation of a webcast can really be quite simple; video and audio presentations from the central meeting location are filmed and recorded. These cam/recorders range from simple, basic, one-size-fits-all models to high-end technical marvels, with bells and whistles galore. The recorded stream of film and voice is then placed, utilizing appropriate code, into any number of network media devices, such as the well-known Windows Media Player. This video is relayed to a streaming server and each of the participating sites connects independently via their select media players to the host server, and then view the video produced and made available by their host.

Obviously, there is little real downside to communication in this form. It has proven economical, and individuals with little or no computer expertise can participate. Such video events in increasingly diverse formats often generate a sense of camaraderie and provide individualized interactions and face-time between management and employees, and enhance other equally-important networking relationships - at community, church, professional, educational, even statewide and national levels.

There are, however, a few drawbacks to this nearly flawless medium of endeavor called webcasting. For now anyway, webcasting relies solely on network facilities, which can experience congestion, unresponsive run-times, as well as slow or delayed transmissions. At the meeting locale, also the site of transmission, someone with generally high technical expertise must be present not only to facilitate the recording, encoding and transmission, but to anticipate and troubleshoot possible problems or ongoing computer glitches. In the world of computers, there are always – always – glitches.

Webcasting technologies continue to develop with more sophistication and variety, and their screen, audio and video captures are consistently more nuanced, more thoroughly defined and finely detailed. What remains constant and unchanging is the foci of the internet as the prime mover and enabler of webcasting and web conferencing. People everywhere can use the basic computer equipment they already have in their own homes to participate, and it is not a long reach from participant to provider and creator of one’s own unique webcast, which, in coming years, will improve and advance in variety, scope, affordability as well as availability. For the average computer user and techno fan, this union of internet and broadcasting - webcasting - has surely been a marriage made in computer heaven.

About the author:

Claire Jarrett runs Marketing By Web and is writing on behalf of Clear Blue Productions who are a corporate video company