September 2019 Mediasite Administrator Update(Archive)

September 10, 2019 Peter T Watson

New Closed Captioning Convenience Contract

Here’s some good news. As of September 1, a new closed captioning contract has been negotiated and captioning prices have dropped. That’s right, the prices for closed captions under the convenience contract have actually gone down. Kudos to NC State Accessibility Coordinator Crystal Tenan for negotiating lower pricing for closed captions!

The new contract is Contract 63-JGD10298. Vendors and rates are listed in it.

Existing NC State accounts with vendors on the contract, such as Automatic Sync and 3Play Media, should automatically get the new rates. If you have any closed captioning this semester, check your September invoices to make sure you’re receiving the new rates.

New Apple OS and My Mediasite

This fall Apple will release OS 10.15, which goes by the name Catalina. Catalina will not support 32 bit applications. The Mediasite Desktop Recorder (MDR) is a 32 bit application.

Sonic Foundry is writing code to make the MDR 64 bit, but until that work is done, the MDR will not work on a Mac running Catalina. Mac users running Catalina will get a message saying the application isn’t compatible. This is true for any 32 bit application.

Sonic Foundry hopes to have the 64 bit MDR by November. Based on history, Apple will likely release Catalina in late September or October (but no one knows an exact date).

The upshot is anyone using the MDR on a Mac should hold off on the Catalina OS until the 64 bit MDR is available. We will inform the Mediasite Admin email group when it is available for download.

All recorders publish to mediasite.wolfware

All Mediasite recorders should now point to https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/

Please refer to the Mediasite Wolfware Single Instance Transition document for more information.

NC State Endpoint Security Standards

Just a reminder again regarding NC State Endpoint Security. Rather than go through all of it again, please see the July 2019 Mediasite Admin update for details.

My Mediasite Notes

Please note that the My Mediasite URL is: https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/MyMediasite

If a faculty or staff member tries to use the URL starting with mymediasite.online…etc., they will get a 404 or “no access” message, because that URL was retired last year.

Note this change! Student Access now mediasite.wolfware

The student My Mediasite instance is being retired and ALL My Mediasite accounts will now use the same URL: https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/MyMediasite

This will eliminate problems teaching grad students have had and consolidates everything on mediasite.wolfware.

MSX 2019

The annual Mediasite conference (formerly known as “Unleash”) has always been held in Madison, Wisconsin, Sonic Foundry’s (SOFO) home. This year the conference heads to sunnier climes and the unique city of Austin, Texas. MSX 2019 takes place Monday, Oct. 28 – Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in downtown Austin.

For a while the MSX website had incomplete information, but that’s been corrected. The agenda now correctly shows the conference concluding at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, and discounted hotel room rates start Sunday, Oct. 27.

Discount: Very important! If you haven’t registered, make sure to enter the discount coupon code TM200 during the registration process for a $200 discount on the conference fee.

Training: Boot Camps are offered (for an extra $399) on Monday afternoon Oct. 28, from 12:30 – 4:30 p.m. Sonic Foundry is offering Beginner and Intermediate Mediasite Admin “Boot Camps” for those who want a five-hour immersive training experience. The Boot Camps run concurrently.

Beginner Boot Camp will focus on creating content with My Mediasite; Intermediate Boot Camp is for Mediasite Administrators. SOFO offers virtual boot camps throughout the year. The MSX Boot Camps are in person. Go here for Boot Camp descriptions, but note that registering for MSX Bootcamps is done via your MSX registration.

The MSX 2019 Agenda is available. Free Monday activities are also in the afternoon. There are tours of a Dell data center and the UT McCombs School of Business.

Hotel rooms at the conference hotel, the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center are separate from Registration, but use the Travel link through the MSX 2019 website to get the SOFO discounted rate of $199.00 per night. The conference website states: As an MSX attendee, you are responsible for your own lodging. A room block with a discounted rate of $199/night is available until Sept. 27, 2019.

More information from SOFO is below:

Our flagship community conference, Mediasite Experience 2019, is moving to Austin, Texas! This social event of the year in our close-knit Mediasite community is a revamped, ultra-exclusive summit-style two-day event, replacing our Unleash user conference that was held in Madison, Wis. for the past 12 years. Hundreds of customers in healthcare, higher education and the enterprise from all around the world will collaborate in Austin and online to learn how to increase the impact and adoption of video in their organizations. We made a strategic decision to choose Austin as the first new location of MSX, because we wanted a city that shared many of the same attributes as Madison. We’re excited to head south, deep in the heart of Texas, next October and start new traditions.

Registration for Mediasite Experience 2019, which takes place Oct. 28 to 30, is open now.

Upgrading Recorders

Please note the updated Recorder Upgrade document. There is a new path to the ISO file.

Re-Naming Recorders

All recorders on the mediasite.wolfware instance must be named with the new naming convention this summer, which is below. Please reference the updated

Naming Conflict: In some colleges/departments the naming convention below is already being used by the classroom PC. If that is the case, please name the Mediasite recorder with the suffix -01 (even though there’s only one recorder in the room) to distinguish it from the classroom PC.

New Recorder Naming Convention:

Recorder Owner-BldgRoom

For example: OIT manages the one recorder in Schaub Hall 106

Recorder Name: OIT-SFS106

For multiple recorders in a single room:

Recorder Owner-BuildingRoom-Recorder Number

For example: DELTA manages two recorders in Park Shops 130

1st Recorder Name: DELTA-PS130-01

2nd Recorder Name: DELTA-PS130-02

Current campus building abbreviations can be found here: https://facilities.ofa.ncsu.edu/bldg/buildings/

Mediasite University Training Materials

Sonic Foundry’s Mediasite U has a new look, new materials and a new URL.
The URL is https://learn.mediasite.com/ and SOFO log-in is not required to view the material
Courses are divided into 4 categories, for these roles: Learner, Instructor, Application Administrator and Server Administrator.
Each module has multiple videos. For example “Up and Running with Your Recorder” has 21 separate video “lessons” covering how to set up and connect recorders, with a separate lesson for each recorder hardware version.

There are new training videos for content creators to which you can direct your faculty:

Uploading Your First Video Presentation

https://learn.mediasite.com/course/uploading-your-first-video-presentation/

Sharing Your Mediasite Presentations

https://learn.mediasite.com/course/sharing-your-mediasite-presentations/

Editing Your Video Presentation

https://learn.mediasite.com/course/editing-your-video-presentation/

Recording Your Screen With Mediasite Desktop Recorder

https://learn.mediasite.com/course/recording-your-screen-with-mediasite-desktop-recorder/

Enhancing Your Presentations With Engagement

https://learn.mediasite.com/course/enhancing-your-presentations-with-engagement/

Note from Sonic Foundry

Recorder software images and versions are dot odd numbers, and

Server versions are dot even numbers.

After the 7.1 recorder version series, the next recorder iteration will be 7.3.xx,
The next server version after the 7.2 series will be 7.4.xx.

Links to Resources

Sonic Foundry

Sonic Foundry Mediasite University
Mediasite YouTube channel
Sonic Foundry Moodle/Mediasite videos
My Mediasite Version 7.2 videos
Sonic Foundry Technical Support website (requires login based on support contract)

DELTA

DELTA Knowledge Base Articles
DELTA Mediasite Help Desk: mediasite-help@ncsu.edu
DELTA Mediasite Testing Environment
DELTA Wolfware Maintenance Calendar
DELTA Learntech Help Desk learntech@ncsu.edu

NC State

NC State Help Desk help@ncsu.edu
NC State SysNews https://sysnews.ncsu.edu/
NC State Closed Captioning Contract Information

Current NC State Mediasite Server, Recorder Disc Image and Software Versions

Production – Single Instance

Mediasite.wolfware server version: 7.2.2 Build 3196
Recorder disc image 7.3.2
Recorder version 7.3.2 Build 1915
Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1081

Production – College/Department Instances

Server version: 7.0.30, Build 3808
No recording or publishing to this server. Playback only.

Testing (7.2)

Test server: 7.2.2, Build 3474
Recorder disc image 7.3.2
Recorder version 7.3.2 Build 1923
Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1193

SOFO most recent release

Server version: 7.2.2, Build 3196
Recorder disc image 7.3.2
Recorder version 7.3.2 Build 1923
Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1193

Testing Your Production Workflow

Test server: 7.2.2, Build 3474
Recorder disc image 7.3.2
Recorder version: 7.1.14 Build 5028 (works, but unable to push from Portal)
Recorder version 7.3.2 Build 1923

You have access to the test instance, 24/7.
The URL is https://mediasite-test.delta.ncsu.edu/online/manage
If you experience any difficulties, email mediasite-help@ncsu.edu.

All Sonic Foundry Release Notes, bug fixes and known issues are available on the Sonic Foundry Support website.

Closed Captioning

When working with a captioning provider, always reference the NC State Convenience Contract 63-JGD10298 to ensure you receive the discounted rate. Information about NC State closed captioning is on the OIT Accessibility website: https://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/choosing-a-captioning-company/