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From: Rob Quigley
Date: Oct 4, 2004 3:42PM

I've been ask to examine a streaming video-like product for a 508
compliant website. I know that alternate content page would need to
be provided for this if it was used. Product description and website
found at bottom of email.

I am very interested in your thoughts -- especially because it has
very specific requirments to be able to run (such as downloading an
active x control, flash 6.0 required, Windows 98 or greater & IE 5.0
or greater and utilizes cookies to store whether the flash file has
already played the flash file).

This product I believe essentially plays in a flash file modified to
play above the browser (just a guess). The upshot is that the product
requires that an indivual be video taped in front of a blue screen,
and then streamed with the flash player to look like they are standing
in front of the web page - that's the "oooh neato effect."

Knowing that it utilitzes such a specific grouping of software - how
would one best set this up to be used on a 508 compliant website and
what would be your top of the list reasons to not consider it at all
(eg - wouldn't streaming video a better way to go because it has
captioning available for the deaf and provided in a media format that
may be much more available to all web users?). Does the fact that the
product automatically starts upon page loading (I'm guessing it does
this) cause a problem with screen readers.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this,

Rob

Product found at http://www.rovion.com

Here's a bit from a website that uses it:

"Rovion BlueStream is essentially a video player. It allows short
video clips of WAVY-TV personalities to be played automatically on
your computer desktop when you visit certain pages with the
technology.Only those people who download Rovion BlueStream will be
able to see these video clips.

Rovion BlueStream is installed as part of your web browser. The
application is a very small piece of software (about 61kb) that
downloads and installs within seconds. We have tested the software
extensively and have found it to be safe and reliable.

The software will place a "cookie" on your computer only to track how
often to play the clip on your computer. For example, if you visit our
homepage several times a day, you probably wouldn't want to see the
clip each time. The cookie contains no personal information about you.

The requirements are:

* Windows 98, 2000, XP
* Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater, AOL
* Flash 6.0 or Greater