• April 27, 2019

    Canadian and European Union Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190419 Released

    Uncategorized

    We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in Canada and the European Union. For a summary of the release, please refer to the corresponding tag for United States zones.

  • April 16, 2019

    United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190419 Released

    United States Zone

    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 and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 120+ new features and improvements.

    1. Improved In-Depth User-Level Analytics Within an Integrated View
      We introduced an improved user-level analytics view that shows Platform accesses, total play length, and usage summary for each video. The content can also be downloaded as a spreadsheet within this view.
    2. New Video Player Overlay Style Mirroring Popular Entertainment Video Streaming Platforms
      In addition to the Fixed Play Bar style, we are introducing a new Overlay Play Bar style that is activated on hover and displays the Play Bar controls against a translucent background. This mirrors popular video entertainment streaming platforms such as YouTube and Netflix that your users are familiar with.
    3. Improved Fault Tolerance of Live Stream Player in Intermittent Bandwidth Scenarios
      The Live Stream Player and related infrastructure will now perform better in low-bandwidth and intermittent-bandwidth scenarios. This includes auto-recovery logic if the connection degrades and then subsequently recovers.
    4. Storage Analytics View Loads Data Points More Quickly
      The Storage sub-panel within the Analytics’s Overview now loads 3x faster with an optimized algorithm for dataset retrieval.
    5. Media Ingested by Watch Point Now Performs HLS Transcoding
      The same HLS transcoding capabilities performed for all other media ingestion workflows is now also available for media uploaded via Watch Point.
    6. Multi-Level Captioning Workflows Now Integrated with Media Choosers
      In a previous release we introduced the ability to have multiple caption providers with different permission groups. This capability’s breadth has now been extended to the Media Chooser plugins.
    7. Multi-Select Roster Deletion Clean-up Workflow
      We improved a previously cumbersome workflow of bulk deletion of users with a new capability to bulk-select users, as well as bulk transfer those user’s assets to an Administrator’s account.
    8. Improved Organization of Accessibility Tab’s Status of External Captioning Table
      The external captioning table is now better organized chronologically with more clear column headers.
    9. Improved 21st Century Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) Support with Enhanced Customization of Closed Captioning Bar
      We now provide Administrators with the ability to customize the visual aesthetics of the Caption Bar including color, font size, font opacity, and background opacity. As well, we provide viewers the ability to adjust this, based on their personal preferences, right inside the Media Player.
    10. Ability to Add Closed Captioning Files to Videos Via Drag-and-Drop
      Within the Media Details panel, we now support the ability to ingest external caption files via drag-and-drop.
    11. New In-Video Commenting Style
      To better accommodate smaller screen-sizes – such as when a video is embedded directly into an LMS Assignment – we refined the Create Comment dialog into a more modern and compact widget that sits alongside the appropriate location on the video timeline.
    12. Beta Support for Video Conferencing on iOS and Android Devices
      Our beta Video Conferencing application now supports WebRTC-enabled mobile devices for both iOS and Android devices.
    13. Additional API-Level Support including Rate Limiting, Branding, and Replace Video
      Customers using our APIs can request the new capability set which includes additional video management facilities, as well as security improvements such as rate limiting.
    14. Delcom Button Color Customization
      Organizations using the Software Capture’s Delcom button integration can now customize which status colors should be used for each event.
    15. Infrastructural Aspects of End-User Audit Tracking
      We also wanted to provide a preview of some infrastructural aspect that are going into production throughout the quarter. This will give administrators a Birdseye View of the activities going on within their Platform instance. The core infrastructure for customer-visible audit tracking is now in place and we are now in the process of instrumenting all applications and devices accordingly. Below is an early preview of the functionality for a Software Capture recording.
  • April 11, 2019

    Updated Android App with New Upload Management and Improved Recording Capabilities

    Uncategorized

    We have released a new version of our YuJa Mobile application for Android phones and tablets that is compatible with zones in all geographies. Mirroring our recently updated iOS application, this new application version features:

    1. New Manage Uploads – This new tab enables users to view the real-time upload status of both captures and uploaded media as they are transferred to their cloud-managed YuJa account.
    2. Improved Recording Robustness – Now screen locks or situations where the application becomes inactive does not impede an active recording. Further, recordings are also stored into your Photos section as an added safety measure.
    3. New Color Scheme – The previous green color scheme has been refreshed with a more modern blue scheme which is also consistent with our web-based Platform.
    4. Minor Fixes and Improvements – In addition, we improved compatibility across iOS versions, as well as resolved about a dozen or so smaller issues.
  • March 30, 2019

    Canadian and European Union Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190322 Released

    Canada Zone European Union Zone

    We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in Canada and the European Union. For a summary of the release, please refer to the corresponding tag for United States zones.

  • March 22, 2019

    United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190322 Released

    United States Zone

    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 and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 120+ new features and improvements.

    1. Video Editor Supports Telestrations Diagraming Overlays
      Inspired by Sunday football, we incorporated freehand telestrations capabilities into the video editor. This features multi-color pen selection with the ability to annotate freehand on top of a video source. As we observe how users take advantage of this capability, we’ll continue to incorporate further capabilities.
    2. Media Chooser for Moodle Extension Now Supports Video Quiz Insertion and Multi-Column Gradebook Integration
      Similar to the Canvas, Blackboard and D2L Brightspace implementations introduced in the last few releases, we have rolled out Moodle support for Video Quiz insertion within the Media Chooser. This includes deeper native LMS-specific integration for Video Quizzes that expand upon the more limited LTI-based Gradebook integration (which we still support). The result is that users can create video quizzes, insert them virtually anywhere in the LMS and better track the results with multi-column gradebook integration.
    3. Video Quiz Insertion Improvements
      To ensure a video quiz can be used for multiple assessments simultaneously or sequentially – and at the same time export as multi-column gradebook for each course – we enhanced our native API integration for each of LMS. We also incorporated about a dozen smaller fixes and improvements including an improved overlay mode layout when viewing four-or-more response options.
    4. Improved 4k and 2k Video Support Processing Support
      As more organizations generate ultra resolution quality, we have added improved capabilities to manually adjust between various resolution types. Further, our transcoding and transmuxing sub-system will now more quickly process 2k and 4k content.
    5. Video Conferencing Improvements in Intermittent Bandwidth Scenarios
      We released and improved fault tolerance in intermittent bandwidth scenarios, as well as recovery mechanisms. We’re aiming to release Android (tablet and phone) browser support for video conferencing in the next major update.
    6. Video Quiz Overlay Style Now the Default for Tighter LMS Locations
      We now show the overlay style by default within the LMS, as well as incorporated a View External button. This button enables quiz-taker to view the video quiz in an external browser with the video and questions shown in a side-by-side layout. This serves the ability to show video quizzes in more confined spaces, while still providing the end-user with a variety of viewing options.
  • March 21, 2019

    Updated Apple iOS App with New Upload Management and Improved Recording Capabilities

    Uncategorized

    We have released a new version of our YuJa Mobile iOS application for phones and tablets that is compatible with zones in all geographies. This new application version features:

    1. New Manage Uploads – This new tab enables users to view the real-time upload status of both captures and uploaded media as they are transferred to their cloud-managed YuJa account.

    2. Improved Recording Robustness – Now screen locks or situations where the application becomes inactive does not impede an active recording. Further, recordings are also stored into your Photos section as an added safety measure.

    3. New Color Scheme – The previous green color scheme has been refreshed with a more modern blue scheme which is also consistent with our web-based Platform.

    4. Minor Fixes and Improvements – In addition, we improved compatibility across iOS versions, as well as resolved about a dozen or so smaller issues.

  • March 16, 2019

    Canadian and European Union Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190308 Released

    Canada Zone European Union Zone

    We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in Canada and the European Union. For a summary of the release, please refer to the corresponding tag for United States zones.

  • March 9, 2019

    United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190308 Released

    United States Zone

    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 and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 20+ improvements.

    1. Performance Enhancements and Minor Improvements
      We also added about a dozen fixes to various stability improvements and edge cases. Highlights of the fixes are noted below:


      #163670023 – Visual Analytics – Set of small consistency fixes across the Content tab focused on correcting data aggregation issues, consistency between tabs, and calculation method for a number of fields. Adjustments made in this ticket will affect calculations going forward.
      #163768811 – Visual Analytics – Improved performance of Contents tab where creation visualizations necessitated calculating large volumes of playback position data.
      #164117963 – Mobile Apps – Improved channel load performance in situations where channels have a large number of videos published to it.
      #164188942 – Admin Panel – Significant performance improvements to Accessibility Dashboard where loading large volumes of internal and external caption requests. Also made the individual caption request lists to be fetched asynchronously.
      #164342266 – Infrastructure – Improved, cloud-hosted media recoverability algorithm to cover some recovery scenarios not previously addressed.
      #161461360 – Video Editor – Made zoom-level warning message less obtrusive.
      #164224624 – Video Editor – Resolved issue where the Play button needed to be pressed twice when commencing a video quiz.

  • March 2, 2019

    Canadian and European Union Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190222 Released

    Canada Zone European Union Zone

    We have successfully pushed an update to all physical zones residing in Canada and the European Union. For a summary of the release, please refer to the corresponding tag for United States zones.

  • February 23, 2019

    United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190222 Released

    United States Zone

    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 and European Union zones next week. This release includes over 80+ new features and improvements.

    1. Media Chooser for D2L Brightspace Extension Now Supports Video Quiz Insertion and Multi-Column Gradebook Integration
      Similar to the Canvas and Blackboard implementations introduced in the last few releases, we have rolled out D2L Brightspace support for Video Quiz insertion within the Media Chooser. This includes deeper native LMS-specific integration for Video Quizzes that expand upon the more limited LTI-based Gradebook integration (which we still support). The result is that users can create video quizzes, insert them virtually anywhere in the LMS and better track the results with multi-column gradebook integration. We’ve implemented it for all LMS’s, however we are releasing it in stages. Now that Canvas, Blackboard, and D2L Brightspace are released, Moodle is next.

    2. Improved Viewability of Embedded Quizzes
      Our new LMS-specific quiz integration released this past quarter with multi-column gradebook integration has created new use-cases around embedding quizzes. To improve the viewability in “tight spaces”, we’ve created a special overlay mode in instances where the side-by-side layout isn’t possible. Note: To take advantage of this new style, the quiz will need to be re-embedded within the LMS.

    3. Improved Performance of Visual Analytics’ Bandwidth Summary and Top Videos
      Improved the query performance for loading the Top Video and Bandwidth Summary analytics data.

    4. New Fast “Initial Thumbnailing” Algorithm Implemented
      We’ve improved the algorithm used to generate thumbnails to generate it very quickly after the video file has uploaded to the Platform. This is part of a new smarter heuristic project we are working on during the month of March to improve job queueing behavior and sub-task execution.

    5. Multi-Caption Account Support for Organizations
      To provide support for organizations using multiple caption accounts – across various departments and hierarchies – organizations can setup integrations with multiple, simultaneous caption vendors and/or accounts.

    6. New In-Progress Recording Indicators within Media Library
      As a precursor to end user-facing audit logging project for non-admin users (also a project this quarter), we are introducing a Processing icon indicator that appears for in-progress (and un-uploaded) captures. Once our end user-facing audit trails are finished, a user will be able to accurately and fully trace the current status of any uploaded or recorded media item. These capabilities will be released in phases through the month of March and April.

    7. Video Editor Now Has Ability to Set the Primary Stream
      For multi-stream recordings, Content Owners can now select which source is the primary source (the one that initially appears as the larger source).

    8. Audio-Only Files Now Generate Audio Waveforms
      The Video Editor has extended support for the audio waveforms to include audio-only media.