December 2019 Mediasite Administrator Update(Archive)
December 12, 2019 Mediasite User Group Follow-Up
This follow-up information was sent via email to the Mediasite Admin Google Group, but for some reason Gmail flagged it as “spam” for a number of recipients. In the interest of keeping everyone informed, the information is included below.
We had a great turnout for the Mediasite User Group meeting on Thursday, December 12. We know it’s a busy time of year, so thanks to those of you who could make it. For those of you who couldn’t attend, we understand the many demands on your time; all pertinent links are below.
Let me reiterate what I said in our meeting: You all do a great job supporting academic technologies at NC State! Your work benefits thousands of people in the attainment of their educational goals, which is no small thing. As I said, it may sound corny, but if you wonder whether your work makes a difference, the answer is yes, it makes an incredible difference.
Correction: When discussing PlayPosit, I said it only took a plain vanilla MP4 and wouldn’t play a Mediasite presentation. It does work with full Mediasite presentations, but if it’s dual video, you can only play one video stream at a time. You can switch between them, but can only see one at a time.
The 12-12-19 MUG slide presentation is here.
The meeting recording is here:
Title: NC State Mediasite User Group – December 12, 2019
Date: Thursday, December 12, 2019
Time: 9 AM EST
Duration: 1:04:06
Link: https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/Play/3dae0a516b3c4a3988c16d6847599d5d1d
The 12-11-2019 Sonic Foundry product roadmap webinar is below:
https://mug.mediasite.com/Mediasite/Play/377bbd25053c4363803182a3c8c49f641d
Lecture Capture “Opt-in”
The ‘Our Mediasite Classroom’ opt in portal is open for the Spring 2020 term.
For instructors, the opt-in portal is available at the following URL: https://apps.delta.ncsu.edu/our_mediasite/
MSX 2019 Sessions are Online
The annual Mediasite conference was October 27 – 30. It was a good conference. There have been a lot of changes at Sonic Foundry in 2019, including a new CEO and other changes in the SOFO management structure. You can watch the keynote by CEO Michael Norregard and many other sessions that were recorded and are now available online. Here’s how to access the content:
- Go to the MSX 2019 Online portal
- Sign in with your Sonic Foundry Support/Community username and password.
- Reset your password if you’ve forgotten it (note that this will reset your password for the SOFO Support Portal & Community Forums).
No Mediasite YouTube Channel
Please go to https://learn.mediasite.com/ for all Mediasite training materials. The Mediasite YouTube channel no longer exists. Makes sense for a streaming media company to host its own training materials, doesn’t it?
Newest Recorder Build Eliminates Recycle Bin from Recorders
This is an early “heads-up” regarding a significant change in how recordings are deleted from recorders in Mediasite recorder software version 7.3.3 Build 2981.
This recorder version is not available on mediasite.wolfware and is not on any production recorders. It is in the testing environment and has not been cleared for production. You will not encounter this change on any recorder version prior to 7.3.3 Build 2981.
There is no Recycle Bin in recorder build 7.3.3, 2981. Note that this does not do anything to the Recycle Bin in the Management Portal. This only affects recorders, and only from that build onward.
We asked Sonic Foundry about the change. Here is the response:
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When deleting a presentation, a popup should confirm the deletion, and then the presentation will be permanently deleted.
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Here is the rationale for the change, as explained to us in the SOFO help ticket:
“…items that were still in the recycle bin (before they got purged by Windows) were not being deleted in time for some use cases, and recorders would run out of space, and older presentations that perhaps weren’t intended to be deleted were then deleted once the threshold in the Recorder Application > Disk Management area (which is by default 25gbs) was reached.”
Please note again that this pertains only to presentations intentionally deleted from recorders, and that this version is not available on mediasite.wolfware.
The recorder disk management threshold function remains the same, and we recommend that recordings not be immediately deleted from recorders upon publishing, which is an option (a check box) in the Recorder Application > Disk Management area.
We recommend setting the threshold and letting recordings fall off as new recordings are made.
New Closed Captioning Convenience Contract
As of September 1, a new closed captioning contract has been negotiated and captioning prices have dropped. 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 invoices to make sure you’re receiving the new rates.
New Apple OS and My Mediasite
As we’ve noted for several months, the newest Apple Mac OS, Catalina, does not support 32 bit applications. The Mediasite Desktop Recorder (MDR) is a 32 bit application.
We’ll notify the Mediasite Admin Google group when a 64 bit MDR is available.
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
As we’ve noted for several months, the student My Mediasite instance has been retired and ALL My Mediasite accounts will now use the same URL: https://mediasite.wolfware.ncsu.edu/online/MyMediasite
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 Mediasite University
Sonic Foundry Moodle/Mediasite videos
My Mediasite Version 7.2 videos
Sonic Foundry Technical Support website (requires login based on support contract)
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 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
- Mediasite.wolfware server version: 7.2.2 Build 3474
- Recorder disc image 7.3.3
- Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2990
- Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5.1193
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 7.3.3
- Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2990
- Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1193
SOFO most recent release
- Server version: 7.2.2, Build 3196
- Recorder disc image 7.3.3
- Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2981
- Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1193
Testing Your Production Workflow
- Test server: 7.2.2, Build 3474
- Recorder disc image 7.3.3
- Recorder version 7.3.3 Build 2990
- Mediasite Desktop Recorder 2.5 Build 1193
- 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
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