United States Zone – Semi-Monthly RC20190913 Released

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 200+ new features and improvements.

  1. 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).
  2. 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.

  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.