[Building Sakai] Videos and Sakai

[Matthew Jones]

I don't see that as the biggest problem, I see re-encoding whatever the
user uploads as a web compatible format to be the biggest problem. They
can't just put in a .wmv, .mov, or a .3gp. Browsers won't play it and users
would have to download it and figure it out. It would also probably be
poorly compressed, leading to that large cost of backup.

Right now you need to convert anything uploaded to both H.264 (Because
that's the only format Internet Explorer plays) and WebM (Because Firefox
won't play H.264, except on Windows, in the newest nightly, if you enable
an option). This conversion isn't possible in Java, Matterhorn has scripts
that do it with ffmpeg or some other tool. Since you have to store 2 video
files (and *possibly* the original for some future day when it can be
re-converted) it further increases the storage requirements. Youtube seems
to store like 10 different versions of the same file in different
resolutions.

If your instructors or support staff properly convert and upload your
videos locally (maybe using Handbrake) in the correct format to Sakai, you
can use the movie player link (Strobe) to play your video from any tool or
from Lessons, but it doesn't do that part for you.

Do you have any ideas of a remote video repository?

- I guess Kaltura hosted and the integration is pretty good but it has a
high cost to it. The Community Source Edition according to this review [1]
just keeps trying to sell you up to the the hosted version and I never had
luck in the past getting it to work (expect at least a few days to a week
of developer time to try to get anything going out of it).
- Octopus Video [2] (mostly a Drupal module) hasn't been updated in over a
year,  isn't straightforward to setup but seemed promising with a little
LTI integration work.
- Matterhorn hasn't had a new release (1.4) in 3 years and is mostly aimed
at automated lecture capture rather than ad-hoc video repository hosting,
though maybe the UCT LTI mods improved upon that.

[1]
http://www.timmmmyboy.com/2013/01/why-im-getting-rid-of-kaltura-and-why-you-should-too/
[2] http://www.octopusvideo.org/


On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 7:30 AM, Adam Marshall <adam.marshall at it.ox.ac.uk>wrote:

> The biggest problem we faced concerning videos in sakai is the cost of
> backups. Disc space these days is cheap but backing up files is not; adding
> the storage of videos would vastly increase disc usage and therefore the
> cost of keeping backup .
>
> Our (as yet unimplemented) idea was to create a clone of the resources
> tool which stores its files in a different location to the regular tool, we
> would then o A vocabulary file not to backup the alternative filestore.
>
> Adam
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [mailto:
> sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Ciellie
> Sent: 28 March 2013 11:17
> To: sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
> Subject: [Building Sakai] Videos and Sakai
>
> We need to address the issue of videos, animations similations etc
> (learning objects). not lecture capturing in sakai, and need your help on
> this.
>
> We're thinking of something like a local "youtube" like implementation for
> this, but need to ask you
>
> 1) Is video within sakai's resources an option? We want to upgrade to sakai
> 2.9.1 in June if not, what kind of software do you recommend.
> 3) What is Matterhorn's limitations if any in providing a service like
> this. We are planing a Matterhorn implimentation pilot for the second half
> on 2013, but this will be for lecture capturing only.
>
>
> Thank you for the help
>
> Ciellie
>
>
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