A
system and method for recording and playback of a live presentation that enables a
reproduction of audio and visual aspects of the live presentation and enables on-demand viewing of the presentation at a later time. A live presentation comprising a plurality of presentation slides, audio content, and optionally, visual content are recorded as a
data stream, so that when the recording of the
data stream is played, the presentation slides are displayed in substantial synchrony with reproduced audio and visual content on a viewer's computer, thereby reproducing the live presentation. The plurality of presentation slides are saved as
HTML files to a predetermined location that is accessible by the viewer's computer over a
computer network, such as
the Internet. During the presentation, the live audio and visual content is captured and encoded into the
data stream, which is in an active streaming format (ASF), and the data
stream is saved to a file. Also, slide display commands produced in conjunction with the display of the presentation slides during the presentation are interleaved into the data
stream. In response to a viewer's request to view the presentation at a later time, the data
stream file is downloaded to the viewer's computer and played back using a media player, which
decodes the data stream file to replicate the live audio and visual content of the presentation. As the slide display commands are encountered during playback of the data stream file, corresponding
HTML slide files are downloaded over the
computer network to the viewer's computer and displayed so that they are substantially synchronized with the reproduced audio and visual content of the presentation.