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April 25, 2020
Canadian and European Union Instances – Enterprise Video Platform RC20200424 Released
Analytics Canadian Zones European Union Zones General Platform HTML5 Video Conferencing Video Editor Video QuizzesWe have successfully released an update of the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to all instances in the European Union and Canada. A corresponding release will be deployed to United States instances in one week.
- Video Lifecycle Management with New Data Retention and Data Policy Management Tools
Administrators have new tools to manage data retention including the ability to create data policies. Policies can be created with customizable rules including identifying unused data, older content, and specific content types. When executing policies, Administrators can review matching data, preview content, purge content, as well as aggregate it into an Archive Folder. In future releases, we intend to provide tools to offload Archive Folders onto offsite or AWS-side storage locations. We encourage you to try your data management workflows and provide us with feedback on future improvements you would like to see.
- New Auto-Captioning Engine with Better Accuracy and Room Acoustic Models
The Video Platform now provides a new auto-captioning engine that offers higher-quality auto-captioning. This auto-captioning engine also operates better in larger lecture halls and in situations where the microphone may be further away from the speaker. We encourage you to enable Model A in your organization’s Admin Panel and try it out for yourself.
- Video Editor Now Provides Clearer Indication of Trimmed Captions
The Video Editor provides an easier interface to edit captions while simultaneously making trims and cuts to the video (which naturally affects the caption time-points). The new Video Editor interface includes a color indicator showing which caption entries will be removed, which will have an invalid timestamp (post edit), and which ones will remain valid.
- Increased the Maximum Video Size to 1TB
By default, all Video Platform instances now have a maximum single file size of 1TB. For a basis of comparison, that’s about the combined size of two hundred and fifty, full-length HD movies.
- User Interface Improvements to Browser Capture Studio
Updates to the Browser-based Capture Studio include improvements to the compatibility across web browsers, minor improvements to the capture workflow, and better messaging once a recording is complete. - New Media Chooser Behavior for Blackboard and Moodle Students
The Media Chooser is once again useable by student roles. Following changes to Blackboard and Moodle’s security model, student roles were unable to embed content. Now, the Video Platform will detect the role and place a permitted link into the chosen LMS region. - Sub-Organization Now Supports Auto-Provisioning of Shared Folders
Organization Management capabilities now include the ability for sub-organization creation to automatically create a Shared Folder matching the hierarchy of the Sub-Organization structure. - Performance Improvements to UI Screens Displaying and Filtering Large Volumes of Users
Several web application screens which had slightly sluggish behavior when filtering against ten-of-thousands of users has been improved. This included the Link Users within the Zoom Enterprise Connector and the Admin Panel’s Overview and Roster tabs. - Pre-Quiz Error Messaging to Quiz Takers with Browser Settings That Prevent LMS Gradebook Sync
Users who are likely to have browsers or browser settings – such as disabling third-party cookies – that could prevent LMS Gradebook synchronization of quiz results will now see an in-context LMS message preventing quiz entry. This is aimed at reducing the chances that a student takes an LMS-embedded quiz without being able to transmit the resulting quiz grade to the LMS Gradebook.
- HTML5 Video Conference Now Has Improved Screen-Reader Support
A minor update to the Video Conference web application interface addressed a number of screen-reader issues related to missing alt-text for UI components.
- Video Lifecycle Management with New Data Retention and Data Policy Management Tools
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April 16, 2020
Update to HTML5 Video Conferencing System Released to United States Zone
HTML5 Video Conferencing United States ZonesThe HTML5 Video Conferencing product was upgraded to provide improved recording stability across a variety of situations. This should improve HTML5 Video Conference recording reliability and stability for future recordings. We are continuing to work through some additional “edge cases” for the upcoming release.
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April 1, 2020
Upgrade to HTML5 Video Conferencing System Released to United States Zone
Fixed HTML5 Video Conferencing United States ZonesA new Video Conferencing release is now available that provides the following infrastructural improvements:
- Infrastructural Improvements
- #171884613 – Resolved issue which could prevent the screenshare from being activated on the latest Firefox browser.
- #171724885 – Upgraded crytographic support of media streaming sub-system to use DTLS 1.2
- #172025893 – Automatically remove the Poor Connection inline dialog that appears once the connection quality has improved.
- #172028694 – Improved connection stream management algorithms to perform better under high-load scenarios.
- Infrastructural Improvements
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March 30, 2020
Important Capacity Upgrade to HTML5 Video Conferencing System
Fixed HTML5 Video Conferencing United States ZonesA new Video Conferencing release is now available that provides the ability for the Operations Team to dynamically provision additional capacity. At the same time, we tripled the HTML5 Video Conferencing capacity and are now working on making additional improvements this week to improve the scalability.
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March 8, 2020
Video Conferencing Update – March 2020 Release
Canadian Zones European Union Zones HTML5 Video Conferencing United States Zones UpdateA new Video Conferencing release is now available that provides new viewing and localization options, as well as, several smaller improvements and fixes.
- New Views Option to Show Video-Only, Sharing-Only and Everything Views
Users now have more flexible viewing options within a video conferencing including the ability to toggle between the video streams, the sharing panel, and everything-at-once. - French Localization Support of Video Conferencing
As part of an initiative to provide users with dynamic language options across all our products, the Video Conferencing is the first product in our portfolio to be localized. Users can now select from French or English within their My Account settings to see the UI updated to French. Please note: Localizing the Enterprise Video Platform web application in a similar manner is on our roadmap for Summer 2020.
- Smaller fixes and improvements
About a dozen smaller fixes and improvements are also included. Highlights include:- #170680657 – Resolved issue where the meeting title was not properly reflected in the Notification tab of the Video Platform
- #169652427 – Resolved issue where the Invitee URL was not sharable in all cases.
- #169153329 – Resolved a potential race condition that could cause the video stream “loading dots” to remain.
- #162100138 – Notification Bell icon now displays actual meeting title instead of displaying a generic meeting name.
- #171390971 – Resolved issue where attendees who join a meeting before the owner changes the view, the follower and main presenter’s views do not match.
- #171190930 – Resolved issue which caused some video conference recordings to remain in a “stuck” status despite being complete.
- New Views Option to Show Video-Only, Sharing-Only and Everything Views
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February 1, 2020
United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20200131 Released
Android App General Platform HTML5 Player HTML5 Video Conferencing Live Streaming Media Management Media Player United States Zones UpdateWe have successfully pushed an update to all instances residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 135+ new features and improvements.
- Full Sub-Administrator Capabilities within Custom-Designed Hierarchies
The Video Platform now provides full capabilities to create hierarchical representations of your organization including Faculties, Departments, Schools, Campuses and Schools. Within this hierarchy, custom-defined Sub-Administrators can be created that can manage specific sets of Users, Courses, Devices, as well as create subsets of functionality. Over the coming months, we will continue to create new Sub-Organization capabilities so your feedback will help shape the future product roadmap of this capability. - Create Sub-Administrators Based on Both Role Scope and Functional Needs
Custom sub-administrator roles can be defined based on virtually any role scope and functional need. Some examples of possible sub-administrator roles you could create include:
- Classroom Device Manager for Medical School
- Closed Captioning Associate for the Department of Earth Sciences
- Full Admin for the Online Campus
- Each Sub-Administrator Role Can Be Assigned a Custom Start Page
Each sub-administrator role can now select the default start page that is shown on login. The options listed in the drop-down will adjust based on the functional capabilities of the sub-admin role. - Support for Upcoming Chrome 80 Version (“The Cookie Crumbling Update”)
In advance of the upcoming – and much anticipated – Chrome 80 release which introduces several breaking changes to most major third-party web applications, we released an update that is compatible with this new browser version. With this change, we believe your users will not be affected when the Chrome 80 browser, that is currently in beta, releases to production. - New Picture-in-Picture Viewing Mode Designed for Tight Spaces
We have introduced a new viewing mode that is designed for tighter embedded viewports such as within an LMS. The Picture-in-Picture mode can also be enabled selectively as an additional viewing option on the primary or secondary Media Player menu. The Picture-and-Picture sources can be swapped and users can also move the embedded picture source within the window to suit their viewing preference.Note: To enable the new Picture-in-Picture capability within the Media Player, within the Admin Panel’s Branding tab, please add this option to your Media Player branding.
- Live Streaming Infrastructure Now Scales Elastically with No Practical Limit
As part of a larger-scale project to create elastic scalability in all key sub-systems, the Live Streaming infrastructure can now stream to any-size audience without the need for in-advance provisioning. There are some related capabilities we have planned for future releases to also elastically scale the real-time live stream transcoding sub-system. - New Video Platform Branding Options Enable Customization of the Left Navigation Bar Colors
The Video Platform now includes the ability to customize the colors of the Left Navigation Bar to align with your organization’s brand. - Minor Version Update to YuJa Mobile for Android Native Application
We released a new minor version update to our YuJa Mobile for Android application (2.0.9) that incorporates 15+ smaller bug fixes and video streaming improvements. We are actively working on a new iOS application which matches the current functionality of the Android application. - Improved Video Quiz Integration with LMS Course Copy
To support the use of LMS Course Copy and the creation of Master Course Shells, for LMSs that support Content Item Message-based Course Copy, namely Canvas and Blackboard, previous Video Quizzes can be re-posted to the newly copied course as a new Video Quiz directly within the LMS interface. For Moodle and D2L customers, to take advantage of this capability, please contact your LMS vendor and request a status on the following open feature items: Moodle MDL-66934 and D2L LTI Copy Course Updates.
- New Video Conference Start Meeting Panel
The new Video Conference Start Panel provides quicker access to start an impromptu meeting, schedule meetings, and view the calendar of scheduled meetings.
- New Video Player Capabilities including Click-to-Pause, Improved Multi-stream Mobile Compatibility and More
The Media Player now offers some additional enhancements including the ability when viewing single-stream videos to click the video box to pause and resume the video. For multi-stream videos, there is a new hover effect to swap the primary stream. We also improved multi-stream compatibility on mobile browsers and added a new hover-glow effect for the Media Player icons.
- Support for Canvas Accommodated Groups
To provide specialized video support for designated Accommodated Groups within Canvas, the Video Platform can now interface with the Canvas LMS to pull Accommodated Group rosters and display specific sub-channel content designated only for the Accommodated Group.
- Full Sub-Administrator Capabilities within Custom-Designed Hierarchies
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December 6, 2019
United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20191206 Released
General Platform HTML5 Video Conferencing HTML5 Video Editor Media Management Media Player United States ZonesWe have successfully pushed an update to all instances residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 165+ new features and improvements.
- Easier-to-Use and More Robust Video Uploading Experience
The Platform now integrates a new media uploading experience that’s easier-to-use, more fault-tolerant and faster. The new upload experience now includes:- Faster uploads with auto-queuing capabilities
- Better adaptation to browser capabilities and constraints
- Upload continuation even when navigating between Video Platform pages
- Better user interface with “docking” window controls
- Video Editor Now Shows Captioning Confidence Scores
Users can now highlight words within the captioning that was below a specific Confidence Score. The words that the captioning engine AI was not “sure of” are highlighted to enable a more streamlined editing experience. Users can also hover over any word to see the specific Confidence Score attained when transcribing the given word. Please note this capability is only available for newly auto-captioned content. - Multi-Level Training Dictionary Available for Improved Caption Quality
Both organizations and individuals have new tools to improve the captioning quality of the Platform’s integrated artificial intelligence-based captioning. Organizations can establish an instance-wide dictionary, and users submitting videos for auto-captioning can also include a video-specific custom dictionary. - Create Multiple Media Player Branding “Skins”
Organizations can now create multiple Media Player branding options (often called “skins”) that can be applied organization-wide or to specific videos. Customizations include primary and secondary button placements, colors, and menu option selections. - Improved Media Player User Interface
New iconography and menu style provides a more modern user experience for both instructional and marketing video use-cases alike. These improvements to the Media Player can be utilized in conjunction with the Multiple Player Branding capabilities also released in this update.
- Video Editor Supports Removal of Video Stream While Retaining the Embedded Audio Track
Users who use the capture tools to record a multi-source recording, but then wish to subsequently remove the video source that contains the audio track, can now do so. - New Video Conference Start Panel with Participant and Chat Pane
A new “Start Screen” is now available within the Video Conference that provides the ability for participants to quickly access meeting bridge, participant list, and chat information. - New Participant Panel with “Raise Hand” Capabilities
Video Conference participants now have the ability to perform a virtual “Raise Hands” within a meeting. The meeting owners and presenters receive a notification of the hand-raise as both a notification message and indicator on the Participant Panel.
- Easier-to-Use and More Robust Video Uploading Experience
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November 8, 2019
United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20191108 Released
HTML5 Video Conferencing Media Management Media Player United States ZonesWe have successfully pushed an update to all instances residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 195+ new features and improvements.
- Users Can Now Resume Watching Where They Left Off
Viewers watching content as an authenticated user can now resume watching a video from the place they previously left off. A user’s video resumption history is retained for all videos the user is authorized to view.
- Auto-Captioning Now Offers Advanced Punctuation Capabilities for both Captions and Transcripts
Over the next two releases, we are rolling out some innovative updates to our auto-captioning capabilities. The first of these capabilities is that the captioning engine will now provide advanced punctuation when performing captioning and transcription. - YouTube Media Ingestion to “Deep Import” Content
User wishing to ingest a YouTube video can now specify a link and import the video content into their My Media account. This enables YouTube content to be ingested, auto-captioned and used in accordance with the TEACH ACT.
- New Dark Mode Branding Option for Top Navigation Bar
The Platform offers a new Dark Mode branding option for the Top Navigation Bar that also includes color customization of the top-bar’s color.
- Roster View Displays the LMS and Single Sign Linkage Attribute Information
The Roster tab within the Admin Panel now displays the dual integration parameters. This can be used by Administrators to ensure that the Linkage Attribute is being transferred correctly from the organization’s upstream enterprise systems. - Support for Enabling End-User Downloading at the Media Channel Level
Content Owners can now enable download privileges to an entire course-level Media Channel to viewers.
- Inline Action Menu Support within the List View of My Media
Users managing their content within the List View now have the same inline Action Menu as they do with the Thumbnail View.
- On-Screen Message When an Ad Blocker Could Interfere with Platform Use
With a plethora of browser-based plugins blocking webapp and website capabilities, in a situation where the Platform detects components were blocked, a clear message will be displayed informing the user of this situation. - Added Support for the oEmbed Open Format
To promote easier content exchange with third-party resources, as a content Provider, we have implemented the oEmbed protocol. This makes it easier to share content as embedding blog posts on websites and social platforms such as Twitter. - Better On-Screen Guidance for Uploading Media for the First Time
New users are now greeted with a “Happy Folder” icon that provides a succinct suggestion on how to add content to their My Media account.
- Added Native Integration Option for Microsoft Azure-based SAML
Organizations integrating with Azure ADFS now have a dedicated integration tab rather than using the generic SAML integration tab.
- New Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Between Primary and Secondary Streams
The Media Player now supports faster toggling between sources using the lower-case v key. - Media-Level Player Branding Option to Hide Video Chapters on a Per-Video Basis
As part of a feature spanning multiple releases, we are adding media-level branding options for specific videos. The first of these capabilities is the ability to hide the left-side mini-bar of the Media Player. - Native Support for VTT and XML Caption File Ingestion
The Platform now supports the ability to ingest VTT and XML caption file formats and display them within the Media Player. All existing multi-language and caption capabilities are compatible with the new VTT and XML caption file formats. - Video Conference Now Has Audit Log Capability
To help troubleshoot Video Conferencing issues that arise, the Platform now integrates and audit log capability. Over the coming releases we will continue to add additional events and logs.
- Video Conference Has Server-Side Performance Improvements for Improved Scalability
To support additional capacity and improve stability, additional server-side performance and stability improvements were deployed.
- Users Can Now Resume Watching Where They Left Off
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October 9, 2019
United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20191011 Released
Analytics General Platform HTML5 Video Conferencing Media Management Media Player United States Zones Video QuizzesWe have successfully pushed an update to all instances residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 175+ new features and improvements.
- IMS Caliper Analytics 1.1 Certification Achieved
Our big data analytics achieved a major milestone by being awarded IMS Caliper Analytics 1.1 certification. Interested organizations can take advantage of this optional SKU that is available to all Enterprise Video Platform customers. A little more on IMS Caliper: “Caliper Analytics enables institutions to collect learning data from digital resources to better understand and visualize learning activity and product usage data, and present this information to students, instructors, and advisors in meaningful ways to help inform: student recruitment and retention plans, program, curriculum, and course design, student intervention measures”
- New Ad Astra Integration for Integration with Enterprise Scheduling Systems
A new Ad Astra enterprise scheduling integration is now available to all organizations. Room calendars can by synch-ed and then mapped to specific Software Capture and Hardware Hub capture resources. This enables fully automated scheduling, recording, publishing and distribution.
- New Reflective Pause Question Type for Video Quizzes
A new question type called Reflective Pause is now available within Video Quizzes. This question type is designed to re-focus the viewer on the video content through the use of a rhetorical and thought-provoking question. This tool is a new capability to ensure that all video content – including compliance training, security compliance, etc. – receives the focus and attention of the viewer.
- Improved Device Source Preview Window
Improved the view of the Source Preview shown within the Devices tab of Admin Panel. Also, clarified case where there is no active signal to show a status of No Active Signal instead of an error state.
- Deprecated Video Classroom Name within Platform
As we have transitioned fully to an HTML5-based Video Conferencing tool, the old tool’s name (Video Classrooms) has – for the most part – been transitioned-out from the Platform. - New Overlay Style Captioning for Single Stream Videos
A new overlay caption style, similar to Netflix and YouTube, provides viewers with the opportunity to use the full window for viewing the video instead of allocating a significant portion to a fixed caption bar. The same 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA)-compliant user-selectable opacity, color and font settings are also available with this new capability. - Improved Performance for Folders with Pictures
The load-time performance for folders containing a large number of pictures is now considerably better (10x faster).
- Performance Improvements for Change Owner Capability
Improved performance within the Change Owner dialog for institutions with over 25,000 user entries. - Simplified Process to Request Data Backups
Organizations wishing to request a copy of their organization’s Storage may initiate the request directly within the Admin Panel’s Storage Quota tab. Please note that Professional Services may apply to the fulfillments of these requests. - Media Chooser LMS Extension Offers More Clear Action and UI
The available actions within the LMS Media Chooser are now shown more clearly within the Top Bar. This is aimed at improving the user experience for novice users who may be using the video tools to embed their first video or create their first Video Assignment.
- Ability to Watch a Video in Chrome within an Inactive Tab
Users watching video content within one Chrome tab, while actively navigating within another tab, can now continue to listen to the YuJa-hosted video. Previously, due to a recent Chrome update, the video would automatically pause when the Chrome tab became inactive.
- Improved Test Proctoring Workflow for Courses with Multiple Instructors
Courses with multiple instructors co-teaching can now designate where proctored test recordings should go.
- IMS Caliper Analytics 1.1 Certification Achieved
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September 14, 2019
United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190913 Released
General Platform HTML5 Player HTML5 Video Conferencing Media Management United States Zones Video QuizzesWe have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in the United States. Please note that this release will be pushed to Canadian and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 200+ new features and improvements.
- 360°/VR Video Media Player Now Moved to General Availability
By popular request, the Professional Services Team migrated the 360°/VR Video Media Player, a previously custom capability, to a feature available in all instances. The new 360°/VR Video enables the viewing of 360-degree VR content and supports perspective changes via the gyroscope (when viewed on a mobile device).
- New Advanced Visual Search Capabilities
The Visual Search capabilities introduced in the last release are now even more powerful with the following new additions that incorporate “fuzzy search”, advanced filtering options and improved performance:- Implementation of a Fuzzy Search algorithm – Established a fuzzy search that will match against a threshold of about 80%. This enables keyword searches such as engineer~ which will, for example, return engineers and engineer.
- Ability to Restrict Searches to the Current Folder – New option within the Advanced Search operations to restrict search matches to media contained in the current folder.
- Ability to Restrict Searches to a Given Channel – New option to restrict search for content to a particular Media Channel by using the channel: attribute. An example is channel:”MATH 235″.
- Searching for YouTube and Vimeo Videos Included – Linked YouTube and Vimeo videos will be searched based on the available metadata fields.
- Support for Prefix Searching – New option to search based on a keyword prefix via keyword* search operator. For instance, entering te* returns results with words starting with te including tell and test.
- Support for Owner Filter – New option to filter searches based on the owner of the media via the owner:”{Your Name}” search option.
- Custom Metadata Schema Search for Non-Videos – Visual Search now will search a custom Metadata Schema applied to non-video assets.
- Speed Improvements with Large Match Sets – When searching for words that are mentioned thousands or tens-of-thousands-of-times in a given folder, the search results will now be returned within seconds instead of over a minute.
- Go Back Folder Quick Link for Faster Folder Traversal
Within My Media’s Action Bar, a new Go Back button enables users to traverse to the parent folder of the current location.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Capabilities Extend to Video Sources Recorded by PC and Apple Software Capture Application
To enhance our Visual Search capabilities, we now will perform a full OCR scan of video sources – not just the screen source – recorded by the Software Capture for PC and Apple applications. - Media Player’s Slide Text Section Supports Multi-Source OCR
Within the Media Player, recordings that have multiple sources with OCR results for the same time point – which is now possible with the newly introduced multi-source OCR – will now be shown. - HTML5 Video Conferencing Now Offers Breakout Room Capabilities
The Video Conferencing product now includes the ability to create and manage Breakout Sessions with attendees. Future releases will further refine this capability so we certainly welcome your feedback on features and improvements we can make.
- Extended API to Support Automatic Publishing Capabilities When Auto Scheduling
To better support end-to-end automatic scheduling and publishing workflows, the RESTFul API now supports automatic publishing when performing auto-scheduling operations. - Media Player Improvements When Viewed in Portrait Mode on Mobile Devices
This release includes improvements to the Media Player when viewed on mobile devices in portrait mode. A new top-and-bottom viewing capability for multi-stream videos ensures a crisp viewing experience irrespective of the mobile device form-factor or screen orientation.
- Better Notifications for Auto-Scheduled Software Capture Applications
To ensure that Administrators are informed on the status of auto-scheduling events when using the Software Capture applications, the Devices tab within Admin Panel now has a new status called Not Ready, as well as new notifications.The Not Ready status indicates that the Software Capture application is not in a state to record. For example, there could be a firewall issue, device conflict or perhaps the computer is logged out. Further, if an error blocks the use of a particular source, an error message will show up above the affected source. Please note: The full capabilities of this feature will be realized with the upcoming versions of the PC and Apple Software Capture applications that are forthcoming next month.
- Ability to Lock / Override Roles for Users within Specific Courses
To support scenarios where a Student role (such as a “student helper” or “course note-taker”) needs Instructor-level permissions within a given course, we now provide a manual “override” of the role value supplied by the Learning Management System.
- Video Quiz Audit Log Capabilities
To ensure the integrity of the Video Quiz-taking process, Content Creators and Administrators now have an Audit Log capability. This provides granular information on creation, editing, quiz attempts and user submissions.
- Improved Screen Reader Support for Media Player Sidebar
This release improves the screen-reader accessibility support of the Media Player’s Sidebar. Specifically, we applied user-interface changes to ensure that screen-readers can fully narrate the options in a consistent and clear manner.
- 360°/VR Video Media Player Now Moved to General Availability