November/December 2019 Mediasite Administrator (Archive)

November 21, 2019 Peter T Watson

MUG Meeting December 12, 2019

Save the date! The next MUG will be Thursday, December 12 from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. in Park Shops 130. Sonic Foundry will provide donuts and coffee at 9 a.m., and we will kick off the meeting around 9:15 a.m.

MSX 2019 Online

The annual Mediasite conference was October 27 – 30. Many sessions 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:

When deleting a presentation, a popup should confirm the deletion, and then the presentation will be permanently deleted.

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.

Sonic Foundry hopes to have the 64 bit MDR “by November.” 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 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

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

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

Mediasite.wolfware server version: 7.2.2 Build 3474
Recorder disc image 7.3.3
Recorder version 7.3.23 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/