Notes for Ensemble Demo April 26, 2016

Presenters – Scott Nadzan from http://www.ensemblevideo.com

 

Accounts & Access

  • Supports LDAP, AD and CAS
  • User Roles
    • Institution Admin (Top-level “Middlebury”)
    • Org Admin (e.g. Biology, Communications)
    • Contributor (e.g. faculty)
  • Everyone can see the navigation across the top of Institution>Organization>Library; view/manage others depending on user role
  • LDAP Group Support(100k groups; rep will check support or suggest to limit group exposure)
  • Authentication and user management
    • CAS(supported in self hosted not cloud hosted) or Shibboleth.
    • Can Ensemble read user attribute from CAS or Shibboleth?

 

Storage

  • Deployment Options: http://www.ensemblevideo.com/video-platform/deployment.aspx
    • Self-Hosted
    • Cloud-Hosted
      • CAS is not available for this option
      • Cloud hosting: Option starts at 200GB, Level II 500 GB, Level III 1 TB, monthly streaming quote for level we choose
      • Cloud Infrastructure:
        • -3 sites, Scale Matrix CA, TX & Amazon. Headed to Amazon or Azure
    • Hybrid-Hosted (2 options – primary on-campus w/ cloud caching OR primary in cloud w/local caching)
      • -Hybrid Deployment: Software as a service and local hosted options, both recommended. Manual transition from one deployment to the other.
    • Multi-Tenant
  • -tech and security information available

 

Accessibility

  • ‘Responsive Interface’, size adjustable and resizable
  • Adaptive Streaming: yes – Client type(computer, tablet, phone) and bandwidth automatically identified and quality adjusted
  • Annotation, clickable searchable annotation on video
  • Use their captioning utility or caption, upload caption file, can submit to caption editor, can create caption track, searchable, currently only support one caption, next player will support multiple tracks
  • Search includes captions

 

Canvas/Moodle/Wordpress

  • Video embed through using button in WYSIWYG.
  • Playlist can be embedded
    • Playlist stored with Ensemble
    • Is automatically updated as videos are added
  • Videos can be added with attachments of associated files (ppt, pdf, etc.)
  • Can record video, audio and screen

 

Content Management

  • Upload Workflow’s 4 options
  • Download, Embed, Permalink & Share options can be enabled or disabled (permission at institution level possible)
  • Embed codes, iframe and java
  • Can use named urls
  • Playlists, can enable downloading
  • Shared Library, video’s shared to you (Restricted/Licensed Content)
    • Can restrict streams per video
  • Preview image of video
  • Can deploy a snippet of a video

 

Other

  • Pricing:
    • Self Hosted based on FTE, Midd’s Carnegie # 3,300
    • Cloud based upon capacity (storage and streaming)
      • -Set default and/or custom quotas at the institution, organization, and library levels
    • Ala carte model
      • Ensemble Live
      • Live Stream
      • Live Capture
      • Ensemble Studio
  • Exit Strategy/Large Scale Video Extraction:
    • MPEG4 download available, one by one
    • FTP download available
    • Or hard drive
  • Editing:
    • -Minimal: trim, start & stop
    • -more with screen capture

 

Overall Questions:

  • Per class libraries vs per user: either depending on use case
  • Record from mobile? Yes. (Recording requires separately-licensed app on mobile or desktop)
  • Can you manage the video before the upload is complete? No, but you can after the upload but before the processing is complete.
  • What’s the student view like? Some places use a public or student “portal” like the YouTube homepage with recommended videos, but it’s mostly expected that students will view/interact with videos primarily through Canvas. Admin interface is for admins.
  • Annotations? Text only; editor only (not students, though rep will investigate “team” features for group collaboration).
  • Unicode support – yes; RTL – need to check