Abstract: A webcasting system and method for presenting multimedia content to viewers over the internet. The user (creator) of the webcast presentation is able to create and send the webcast to viewers using a simple, web-based process. The webcast includes a video presentation and slide presentation. Video and slide presentation files are automatically encoded and uploaded to a media server, without the user needing to understand file formats of the webcast content or how the files are to be compressed for efficient storage and transmission. The synchronization and editing of the video and slide presentations is made efficient by separately storing or buffering the slide file at the viewer's system before the video is streamed to the viewer's system. Slide files prepared in a structured storage format (PowerPoint) are automatically converted to JPG format in order to more efficiently transmit the presentation to the viewer.