The AMA Alliance is an affiliate of the American Medical Association founded nearly 100 years ago to serve the physician family, from training to retirement. Like many organizations, they found an in-person annual meeting to be impractical this year, and pursued virtual options to accommodate their more than 150 registered attendees.
This was not a simple “cookie cutter” online meeting. Many attendees are retired healthcare professionals who volunteer their time. A survey found they are not necessarily connected to social media or familiar with popular meeting platforms like Zoom or GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar. So it was important that accessing the virtual meeting be as simple as possible.
Being an official business meeting with budget approvals and the election of officers, privacy was important. This eliminated many mainstream channels like Facebook Live, YouTube Live, or Vimeo.
Ultimately Molten Audio selected a private content delivery network (CDN) to facilitate the RTMP streaming and created a private webpage to embed the video. Attendees each received a custom URL which allowed them to view the webcast on essentially any device with no software to install.
Another challenge was the content itself. The 2-hour program involved 24 individuals from around the country, including the AMA President who joined in through their studio in Atlanta. Each had to present annual reports, accept awards, or be sworn in as new officers.
To accomplish this, Molten Audio set up a virtual broadcast studio with a virtual “backstage area”. As the program progressed, participants could share their camera and screen through a simple browser-based application. Each source was available as a virtual camera,
“I spent a lot of time refining the process, and it paid off significantly. More than once the agenda was modified, and I could
The stream was encoded at five bandwidth levels to try to reach . (In fact, about 20% of attendees ended up supporting just 400kbps.)