Real-Time Alerts

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 50+ new features and improvements focused primarily on improved LMS integration and sub-system infrastructure improvements including:

1. Implementation of Content Item Messaging for Non-Canvas LMS Platforms – To support LMS-authenticated media viewing – which will enable user-level analytics tracking (among other things) – for content embedded with the YuJa Media Chooser we have implemented the IMS Content Item Message (CIM) protocol.Each major LMS vendor chose to implement CIM differently so we have written up steps on how to embed media via the CIM method for your LMS. For Canvas users, we already implemented CIM last quarter and the workflows are identical to regular media embedding (since Canvas chose to implement CIM in a identical manner as regular Canvas extensions). To get started with CIM, click to view installation and usage instructions for Moodle, D2L Brightspace or Blackboard.
2. Infrastructural Improvements to Support 24/7 Streaming – To better serve some of our event broadcasting scenarios, including 24/7 OTT-type live video streaming, we have improved our sub-system infrastructure to be able to provide more robust 24/7 live streaming capabilities.
3. Updated Video Editor Capabilities – First, we have removed the deprecated Flash-based editor which now makes it easier to go directly into the HTML5 Video Editor via the Edit selection. We also improved the audio waveform synchronization and, lastly, improved the Preview Changes option. We also pushed some more minor improvements.
4. Layout Improvements to Media Player – We improved compatibility of various view types including full-screen, and full-screen-plus-side-by-side with all major web browsers. There are also about a half-dozen smaller layout improvements including resolving some rare rendering issues with certain web browsers.

In the next release, we will be adding some new Video Editor capabilities (such as text and image insertion and more), ability to create custom thumbnail options for non-video objects, a new Moodle LMS Roster Synchronization plugin, new top-bar branding options, new EnterpriseTube capabilities (ability to see Word Clouds, download transcripts, and documents), more robust recording capabilities within the HTML5 Video Conferencing suite and much more.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 70+ new features and improvements including:

1. EnterpriseTube Event Streaming – The new Events tab on the EnterpriseTube enables organizations to live stream to their public-facing EnterpriseTube.
   
2. HTML5 Video Editor Now Supports Video Insertion – The Insert Video feature has been migrated over from the previous legacy editor. We do plan to introduce new video insertion modes in future releases.
   
3. Video Editor Now Allows Cuts and Inserts to be Previewed – The playback experience within the Video Editor now offers the ability to preview the applied cuts and inserts prior to saving the edits.
   
4. In-Progress Video Edits Show Processing Indicator – To make it clear to the user when their edits are being processed and finalized, we now display a thumbnail with a Processing indicator.
   
5. Improved Media Player Layout with Open Sidebar – When the sidebar is opened within the Media Player, the video boxes will shift and resize appropriately. This improves upon the preview “overlay” style.
   
6. HTML5 Video Conferencing Now Offers Participant Management Tools – To facilitate larger video conferencing sessions, meeting owners can now manage and group participants into permission-based roles.
   
7. Enhanced Video Views Report – The views report in the Usage & Analytics suite now Unique Views and Last Views. This makes it easier to identify candidate files for pruning.

In the next release, we have some useful capabilities on-deck including:

• New LMS Extension that supports the Content Item Messaging (CIM) protocol for D2L, Moodle and Blackboard (we implemented Canvas a few months ago). This will enable user-level analytics tracking for embedded video that uses the CIM tool and workflow. Along with this release, we will be publishing a set of Help Guides on how to the CIM workflow works for your LMS.
• Ability to overlay an image or watermark using the HTML5 Video Editor
• New HTML5 Video Conferencing capabilities including improved live chat, whiteboard capabilities, and object durability within the recording
• 24/7 Live Streaming will be added to complement the newly added EnterpriseTube-level Live Streaming

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 65+ new features and improvements including:

1. Media Channel Select All Capability for Easy “Course Copy” – Added a capability to perform a wholesale “Select All” channel copy from one channel to one-or-more channels. The primary use-case is to essentially roll forward a pre-existing channel to an upcoming semester’s channel.
   
2. Multi-Channel Publish Capabilities – Introduced the ability to multi-select channels to publish one-or-more media objects simultaneously to multiple channels. This capability, along with the new Media Channel “Course Copy”, enables the ability to create pre-defined channels that can be copied from semester-to-semester or to multiple sections simultaneously.
   
3. Ability to Add Pre-Defined Responses During Live Streams – Building on the existing capabilities of pre-defined commenting capabilities, we added the ability to insert comments from a pre-defined Comment Bank within a live stream session (previously it was just available for recorded media).
   
4. Migrated Insert Slide Capability to HTML5 Video Editor – The Insert Slide capability, which enables users to upload a PowerPoint slide to override a particular video stream, has been migrated to the HTML5 Video Editor.
   
5. Improve Keyboard Shortcuts to HTML5 Video Editor – Added eight keyboard hotkey (shortcuts) for video editing sequences. For more information on this, please review the related help documentation.
6. Improved Media Player Compatibility with Safari – To improve compatibility with Safari 11.1.2 and 11.0.3 versions, we now take advantage of the built-in HLS auto-streaming.
7. Added New Live Streaming Audience Engagement Capabilities – In addition to integrated live chat capabilities, we have now added the ability to send emojis (visual icons) as part of the integrated live stream chat. This capability mirrors the chat capabilities of popular social media platforms.
   
8. HTML5 Video Conferencing Supports Larger Files – Increased the maximum per-document file size to 50MB to support larger slide decks and documents.

We also resolved a number of issues. A few notable issues include:

• Resolved an issue where, in some cases, an embedded video’s Loading event could trigger a view count increment instead of the Play event.
• Improved Media Player rendering on small device screens including both portrait and landscape mode on iOS.
• Resolved issue on iOS devices which could result in the Media Player failing to playback an MP3 file.
• Improved error notification in instances where an invalid Adobe Presenter file is selected for ingestion.

In the next release, we’ll be rolling out new capabilities including migration of the Insert Video capability to the HTML5 Video Editor, improved Media Player Sidebar “pinning”, new admin report showing infrequently used content, and much more.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release is mostly a maintenance update that includes over 40+ new features and improvements including:

1. Crisp Sub-Channel Visualization and Improved LMS Integration – For those users using sub-channels within their course Media Channels, we’ve changed to a tab-style interface that is easier to navigate.
   
2. Keyboard-Only Tab Navigation Improvements – We have an ongoing project to review our keyboard-only navigation and ensure that all screens are a smooth navigation experience. We’ve reviewed many of the screens and this effort continues.
3. Better Media Channel Layout – To better use the top-region of the Media Channel, we’ve move away from a 3-video layout and introduced a 7-video layout (where space allows). This is a better use of the available screen (see screenshot above).
4. New Visualization of Word Clouds, Transcripts, and Tags – Along the same theme of better use of space, rather than a linear down-the-page style, we’ve moved each of the AI-powered video cognition attributes to individual tabs. See screenshot below.
   
5. Bulk Download Now Integrated With Date Search – We’ve integrated the existing date-based media searching with the ability to use the Bulk Download capabilities. This enables users to refine their search to identify which media to bulk download.
   
6. General Platform Improvements – In addition, we also made some general Platform improvements:
   • Changed Blackboard Media Chooser Extension to use the actual zone-specific embed code rather than the generic Platform URL. This ensures that use of an embedded video with a Single-Sign-On is directed to the organization’s SSO.
   • Identified rare issues within the Media Player that could cause the geographic restrictions to fail for specific network types. Also resolved rare issues related to Blackboard media embedding within self-hosted instances.
   • Improvements to the HTML5 Video Editor in handling very large caption files
   • Improved overall Platform compatibility with older versions of Internet Explorer (the predecessor to Edge)
   • Improved HTML5-based Editor’s multi-stream sync when editing large media files.
7. Limited Release of Zoom Connector – We’ve finished deploying all the backend infrastructure for the Zoom Connector and those organizations that had expressed interest in using it should be able to. In a few weeks, we’ll open this up to all organizations to try out.

In the next release, we anticipate rolling out some updates to the HTML5 Video Conferencing, Platform performance improvements, new notifications for any media transcoding errors and more.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 90+ new features and improvements including:

1. Improved HTML5 Video Editor – Migrated the caption editing and index editing into the HTML5 video editor tool. We also implemented a synchronized scrubber bar with zoom capabilities. In this release, we also added the ability to edit captions inline underneath the video feeds to provide an easier caption editing experience.
2. General Availability of External RTMP Ingestion – We now offer organizations the ability to use their existing tri-caster or RTMP-based streaming software to live stream at scale. This allows organizations to use their existing hardware and software encoders with our cloud-hosted live streaming infrastructure to create embedded live stream players for events and graduations. This capability was originally available to a limited set of zones, however it is now offered to all organizations.
3. Aesthetic Improvements to Media Player – We improved some of the graphics and play-pause transition changes to the Media Player.
4. HTML5 Video Conferencing (alpha) – We implemented and migrated the group chat capabilities, UI improvements, and smaller improvements to meeting recording capabilities. We expect to exit alpha in the next month-or-so with a limited set of functionality.

In the next release, we anticipate migrating over more of the Flash-based video editor’s capability to the newer HTML5 editor, improved Media Details panel, and more.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 70+ new features and improvements including:

1. Improved In-Video Commenting with Timeline Commenting and Pop-up Comment Bubbles – We improved in-video commenting by enabling the ability to comment directly on the video timeline, see comments on the timeline, and see “pop-up” comments as the video plays. As you’re using the new capabilities, we encourage you to provide feedback on ways you’d like to use this capability so that our Product Team can extend and expand it.
2. In-Video Quiz Suite Now Part of Media – We’ve extended the video quizzing to be integrated more deeply with the Video Platform as a whole. While this will change how users create and access quizzes, we are confident that the improvements will make it even easier to create video-based assessments. Here are some of the details:
   • Top-Bar Take-Quiz Workflow – Quizzes that are available for users to “take” are now linked directly within the top-bar of the Platform (look for a new “Bell” icon). This makes it easier for students to find available quizzes without having to “dig into” the Polls & Quizzes suite.
   • Quizzes Stored in My Account tab – Created text-based and video quizzes are now stored in your My Accounts under a sub-tab called My Assessments.
   • UI Refinements – We also tidied up some naming inconsistencies with the use of the term “poll”, resolved a Unicode oversight that prevented non-English languages from being used for quiz questions, as well as a few other smaller improvements.
   • Supports In-Video Commenting – In-video quizzes can be used in conjunction with in-video commenting.
3. New Tab Orientation for Media Details – To accommodate the new Comments tab within Media Details, our design folks switched the tabs to stack vertically. We will be further refining the user experience within the Media Details sub-tabs in upcoming releases.
4. HTML5 Video Conferencing (alpha) – Our plan to migrate capabilities from the Flash-based Video Classrooms tool to the HTML5-based Video Conferencing continues. In this release, we moved over record-and-replay capabilities. We’re getting there!

Looking ahead, in the next release we’ll be providing some feature updates to the HTML5 Video Editor, providing better self-service Bulk Downloading capabilities, new Live Streaming capabilities, and much more.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes over 80+ new features and improvements including:

1. General Availability of new Media Chooser for Canvas with Analytics Capabilities – We are now offering all customers with more powerful LMS media embedded with the Canvas Media Chooser to track analytics. To take advantage of this, please uninstall the old Canvas Media Chooser and follow the installation documents to install the new one with the revised Paste XML. If you have questions on how to install this, please email us at support@yuja.com.
2. Emebeddable Live Stream Media Player – Administrators can now pre-schedule an embeddable HTML5-based HLS-compliant Live Stream Player. This expands the available use-cases to include guest speakers, events and graduation ceremonies. Through March and April we will be rolling out a number of exciting Live Streaming capabilities that will also move to General Availability.
3. New Live Stream “Waiting Room” Experience – For pre-scheduled Live Stream events, if users try to enter a scheduled Live Stream ahead of time, they will now receive an waiting room UI with a countdown timer. Once the event starts, they will be automatically placed in the live stream.
4. New Media Details Pop-up for Faster Media Organization – When users access the More… option within the Media Library for a particular media object, we now offer a fast-loading inline pop-up rather than having to click to navigate to a new page.
5. Additional Player Branding Options – Administrators can now customize which options they would like to have within their Media Player’s secondary menu. We also did some further refinements to the Media Player playback experience.
6. Minor Aesthenic Improvements for Processing Media – We improves some of the visuals for the ingestion process as well as improved the main menu button. This is part of a longer-term initiative to bring visual and user experience consistency to all suites.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release includes 150 new features and improvements including:

1. Easier to Use Main View with Action Buttons for Common Workflows – The Platform user interface has been updated to include the most common tasks as Action Buttons in the top-bar. Users can access media channels, create captures, and manage & uploads media all from the main screen.
2. Refined Media Player with Better Search Visualization and Small-Screen Capabilities – We’re introducing a new Media Player which offers even easier to navigate search-inside-video capabilities, improved embeddability in smaller windows, and better support for mobile devices and tablet screen sizes. We also added some new capabilities including topic highlighting in the auto-scrolling sidebar, better search-inside-video sidebar, and a simplified Play-Bar.
3. Live, Multi-Source Room Preview Snapshots of Active Captures – The latest Software Capture applications for both PC and Apple, as well as the latest Hardware Hub firmware now supports multi-source preview within the Admin Panel’s Devices tab. Administrators can now keep tabs on active room recordings with periodically updating snapshots of actively recording rooms and lecture halls.
4. New Quiz Question Types and Refined Quiz-Taking Interface – The Video Quiz suite now has new question types including Multi-Select, Short Answer and True-False options.
5. Auto-Captioning Support Now Available in Six New Languages – As part of the more powerful Artificial Intelligence-based auto-captioning engine we integrated in the last release, we are now introducing the ability to auto-caption in additional languages including French, Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
6. Improved Support for Legacy Browsers – Our focus was improving support for the deprecated since IE Edge – but still used – Internet Explorer browser.
7. Improved Media Library Performance – We optimized a number of heavily used search and general sub-routines to make them much faster. Our performance tests in various physical zones showed improvements in overall Media Library load time and snappier navigation.
8. Additional Infrastructural Work for HTML5 Video Conferencing – While still in an alpha state, we have continued to bolster the infrastructure, as well as, migrate over functionality from our Flash-based Video Classroom. We expect this suite to enter Beta in the March / early-April timeframe.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian zones next week. This release is largely a maintenance update with about 60 smaller improvements including:

1. Additional Administrative Alerts – Admin Panel’s Overview tab now provide alerts on newly-created automated schedules for hardware and software devices listed on the Devices tab.
2. HTML5 Video Editor (Beta) Improvements – We’ve added further refinements to the UI, added the ability to zoom-in-and-out of the timeline, edit mobile captures, as well as edit uploaded (single-stream) media. We also added editing compatibility with media that has an Audio Description tag. Related to this, we also provided interim clarification on the purpose of each editor type while we work to consolidate them into the HTML5 Editor.
3. Improved Email Filtering and Toggles – We now provide Administrators with toggle on-off capabilities on all emails sent to users. We also added the ability to customize additional email templates including Live Stream invitations.
4. Media Chooser Improvements – Resolved some issues with the LMS Media Extensions related to displaying incorrect thumbnails in some rare cases, as well as, showing media on the EnterpriseTube that cannot be embedded.
5. Small Updates to the Media Player – We refined the placement of a few less frequently used controls including the Indicate Confusion and Toggle Full-Screen buttons to be within the Options sub-menu.

We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. This product release includes:

1. New Admin Panel Overview Cards – We continue to add new administrative and system alerts to the Admin Panel’s Overview tab. We also added new Overview Cards on Views, Live Stream and Video Classroom activity.
2. New Artificial Intelligence Captioning Engine – This new engine is faster and more accurate. With this new engine, during the course of 2018 we will be adding new functionality capabilities. One of those, we included with this release: the ability to automatically redact profanity in captions and transcripts.
3. Improvements to HTML5 Video Editor – As we continue to transition away from our legacy Flash-based Video Editor, we have improved the overall fit of the HTML5 Video Editor including operation within LMS platforms. In our subsequent release, we will be adding improved timeline navigation and zoom capabilities. Our current target is full migration of all capabilities during this quarter and we are currently on-target.
4. Improvement to Network Sensing Algorithm in Media Player – Our original network quality sensing algorithm that detected which bitrate to use was overly pessimistic on initial load when streaming on broadband networks. The new algorithm now makes a more intelligent decision resulting in a better quality initial streaming experience.
5. Improved Server-Side Logging of RESTFul API Calls – For institutions developing custom applications with our RESTFul API, YuJa’s Professional Services team now has enhanced internal logging capabilities to assist customers with any debugging or assistance that their agreement with us includes.

A total of 41 features, improvements, and fixes were released within this update. If you have questions on anything with this release, please do not hesitate to email support@yuja.com.