MSRI currently streams video in two different formats. Most of our older videos are in Real format. Our newer videos are in QuickTime format.

 

Quicktime

If you have a Windows PC or Apple computer, you will need Apple's Quicktime Player version 6.5 or higher to view the latest collection of VMath streaming videos. If you have a Linux computer, please visit www.msri.org/web/msri/static-pages/-/node/63 for information on how to play our QuickTime videos on your computer.

The Quicktime videos range in size from 200MB to 500MB. There are two ways to view our QuickTime videos. You may either stream the video through the Internet, or if you have a slow Internet connection, you may download the video to your computer and watch it locally. To stream the video, go to the Video Streaming section of the page and click on the link that states --- Watch the Video Now Via Streaming Video ---. This will open a separate window and will spawn a QuickTime player where your video will begin to play after a short moment.

To download the QuickTime file, go to the section named Download QuickTime File. There you will see a link to the file. Right-click on the link and "Save as..." to save the file to your computer.

 

Getting Quicktime Video to play in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista

If you are using Internet Explorer on Windows Vista and the videos are not displaying, then IE is blocking the video from showing up, and not giving any errors. You must go to Tools->Internet Options, then in the Security tab in the box labeled "Select a zone to view or change security settings." click on Trusted sites, this will then give you a button named "Sites", click on this, under "Add this website to the zone:" type in:

http://www.msri.org

Then click the Add button, also make sure that the box next to "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone" is unchecked. Hit the close button to close this window, then hit the ok button to close the Internet Options window. When you then try to stream the video, you may get a warning asking if it is ok to run an external program, you need to allow this to view the video. An external QuickTime player should start and the video should play. Please note the video in the browser page with our logo is not the video. The video should be playing in an external QuickTime player.

 

Real Media

In order to view Real media files, you will need RealPlayer which is available for free at this link: http://www.real.com/player/index.html?lang=enEven on standard television screen, a video image of a page of mathematical notation is difficult to read. Here we are dealing not only with a much-reduced screen size, but also with a stream of images that is highly compressed. We have developed an easy-to-use interface for viewing scanned slides and notes as you watch the lecture.

Each talk is launched from a screen that has on its left-hand-side a column of thumbnail-sized images of the lecturer's slides. You simply click in the one you want to see as you follow the lecturer, or you can use the 'next' and 'previous' arrows. Before starting, it is a good idea to look at the first few slides. They will then be cached and will come up quickly while you are watching the lecture. In most cases the slides can be downloaded for local viewing and printing.

Near the top left-hand corner of the screen, there is graphic text that says 'start 56kps video' and/or 'start 28kps video.' Clicking here will launch the real player and begin the lecture at the indicated speed.

Over the stack of thumbnail sketches on the left of the screen, you will see the graphic text 'title page/hide banner.' Clicking on 'title page' takes you back to the title page (no surprise here). 'Hide banner' will increase the amount of usable space on your screen by hiding the top strip that contains the 'start video' button(s). Also your browser has options that enable you to hide the toolbar and menu strips, thereby increasing your real estate even more.

Clicking on a scanned page will change its size between big and small, allowing you to configure your viewing screen to your tastes and to the size of your monitor.

If you are on a Unix or Linux system and you are having problems with lost frames or audio stuttering, check to see if you have zombie processes hogging your CPU. Unix is a very stable operating system, and frequently systems are not rebooted for months or even years. However, this can sometimes result in this "zombie" process problem.