October 2019 Mediasite Administrator Update(Archive)

Mediasite Maintenance Fall Break October 10 and 11

Fall Break is Thursday, Oct. 10 and Friday, Oct. 11. There could be disruptions to Mediasite service at any time during this maintenance window. 

There’s never a perfect time for system maintenance, but it must be done (Windows server updates, etc.) and we schedule them for times when any down time will impact the fewest number of students possible. From the SysNews post:

Thursday, Oct. 10, DELTA staff will be performing maintenance on Moodle, Mediasite, and infrastructure. Short outages of 10-15 minutes can be expected for both Moodle and Mediasite. There may also be some brief periods of increased latency due to the infrastructure updates. Check SysNews for updates.

Mediasite Server Successfully Updated Friday, Sept. 20

The Mediasite server was updated to 7.2.2 Build 3474 on Friday, Sept. 20. Work was completed by 8:40 a.m. There were no service disruptions and no problems were reported. 

New Closed Captioning Convenience Contract

As noted in the September update, we have a new closed captioning contract with lower prices. The new contract is Contract 63-JGD10298. Vendors and rates are listed in it. 

Both 3Play Media and Automatic Sync confirmed that existing NC State accounts automatically started getting the new rates on Sept. 1. Double-check September closed captioning invoices to ensure you’re receiving the new rates.

New Apple OS and My Mediasite

Apple released Mac OS version 10.15, which is named Catalina, on Monday, October 7. Catalina will not support 32 bit applications. The Mediasite Desktop Recorder (MDR) is a 32 bit application. It won’t work on a Mac running Catalina.

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. 

The upshot is anyone who wishes to keep using the MDR on a Mac laptop or desktop computer should wait to upgrade to the Catalina OS until the 64 bit MDR is available. We’ll inform the Mediasite Admin Google Group when the 64 bit MDR 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. 

The student My Mediasite instance has been retired and all My Mediasite accounts now use the same URL: https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/MyMediasite 

This has eliminated access problems some teaching grad students had & consolidates everything on mediasite.wolfware.

MSX 2019

The annual Mediasite conference, MSX 2019, takes place Monday, Oct. 28 – Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in downtown Austin, Texas. 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. Here is the MSX 2019 Agenda. We’ve recently been informed that the Monday bootcamps are Avixia certified.

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 should have the new naming convention, which is below. 

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

• Mediasite.wolfware server version: 7.2.2 Build 3474
• Recorder disc image 7.3.2
• Recorder version 7.3.2 Build 1915

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 7.3.3 Build 2981

SOFO most recent release

• Server version: 7.2.2, Build 3474
• Recorder disc image 7.3.2
• Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2981

Testing Your Production Workflow

• Test server: 7.2.2, Build 3474
• Recorder disc image 7.3.2
• Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2981
• 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/

More Information

For any Mediasite information or to send Mediasite help requests, email mediasite-help@ncsu.edu.

Mediasite maintenance windows and any enterprise-wide issues are posted on Sysnews: https://sysnews.ncsu.edu/ 

DELTA Updates and Maintenance Schedule: https://wolfware.ncsu.edu/updates-maintenance/

Sonic Foundry contact information

General information mediasite@sonicfoundry.com. 

Customer Support website: Mediasite Customer Assurance Portal 

Customer Support phone: 877.783.7987