Video on demand

Submitted by geverett on July 24, 2009 - 8:55am.

I suspect that commercial services (like Hulu) will be the best way of delivering full-length movies, once THEY become practical. National copyright laws are an issue; there are things which the US Register of Copyright has allowed that are applicable only to Film Studies faculty at non-profit colleges in the US. Yes, international copyright agreements exist; but that does not mean that the DMCA and the TEACH act (and their exceptions) apply overseas. You would be governed by Australian copyright law.

Some literature faculty have created extensive libraries of clips from certain movies, available to their students over iTunesU; as far as I know, YouTube videos cannot be restricted to viewing only by students registered for a course in the same way that iTunesU can. But this is practical, I think, only for clips, not entire movies, because of the length of time it takes to download the video.

Glenn Everett, Stonehill College; geverett@stonehill.edu

Problems of reliance on third-party services

Submitted by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on July 26, 2009 - 8:51pm.

Glenn, thanks for your comment. I'd also like to think that web services was the right platform; but now that we're a couple of years (or more) past the initial buzz/hype around Web 2.0, I'm less confident. Copyright? We don't seem to be much closer in solving that particular bugbear for teaching, learning, and research. Commercial entertainment groups are increasingly savvy about the value of licensing content to make it more available to consumers (hence the upswing in popularity of iTunes, Netflix and the like) but in terms of haggling out what 'fair use' means for education -- well, I think there's some distance still to go. It's funny to think that it's almost a whole year ago since I last posted on hulu.com (29 Aug. 2008) -- pointing out that reliance on third-party and, especially, Web 2.0 services, can create as many problems as it solves. One year on, hulu.com is still not available in Australia. I think it's a telling point.

Live video

Submitted by Johnny Tsao (California State University, Office of the Chancellor) on August 11, 2009 - 12:10pm.

Hello Catherine,

We're in pilot to deploy IP Multicast architecture for our 23 Universities. There are a few drivers for this current project.

1) California Assembly Bill recently pass that requires the Board of Trustees to make available audio for their meetings

2) As the growing trend in students/faculties/culture adopts rich media content base on their time convinience, through their IP enabled devices.

3) Potential future technology integration with VoIP, and Emergency Notification Response System

As the first part of the project enables live media, the media can be archived and have scheduled broadcast. The future road map would naturally be on demand rich media. As with any unicast technology served from a single location, finite resource for this location would be a concern with media that are popular (not if, but when) which spurs global interests. CDN requires geographical diverse path, and multiple dispersed media sources which the local universities unless partnering with university in other geographical locations, simply can not scale.

I would love to see if there are any working groups collaborating within our sector. The CDN technology seems mature, and has been discussed among our collegues. A reference is Professor Larry Peterson from Princeton have written many excellent paper on geo dns and caching algorithms in this regard, however, we currently do not have the resources to implement this.

-JT

CSU - Chancellor's Office.

		Video on demand Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on July 20, 2009 It seems that video content on the web has never been more ubiquitous. But in terms of education, delivering video content to students is a nut that we've yet to crack. I'm not really talking about the kinds of video content that we commonly produce on campus - records of public lectures, student-directed video projects, and the like. I'm talking about the incorporation of existing rich video resources/content into teaching, and the ways we invite our students to engage with those resources as a part of their overall teaching and learning experience. At present, the way that students generally experience video content outside the educational syllabus (I'm speaking particularly of Australian HE here) far exceeds their experience of it inside. In terms of interface / ease of use, in terms of quality of service, and in terms of how "flexible" the content is (e.g. whether it is available for annotation, re-mixing, re-use). Changing this situation will require grappling with complex issues of licensing and copyright, technology, and of course, cost. I'm thinking about this issue in relation to a new online subject, "Shakespeare: Realism and Romance", that I'm currently helping a faculty member to design. The professor would like to incorporate contemporary film content into the syllabus, and ideally, the best way for us to deliver that to students would be online. At the moment, that solution is simply not possible -- licensing issues alone prevent it. I've heard this is a common problem for media / film studies teaching; in one example I heard of, the lecturer in question had resource to Netflix as a third-party video on demand service. Video on demand services in Australia, however, are still in their infancy - partly due to limiting ISP plans that tend to place heavy constraints on consumer downloading of video content. Recent media stories from Lifehacker and Kotaku have promised a new Microsoft technology that will deliver video on demand via the Xbox platform. That technology will require the creation of partnerships with local ISPs, though, before it becomes a realistic prospect for consumers. What solutions have you used personally, or read about, to deliver video content to students? I'm interested to hear any stories and tips. content delivery \| Digital Video \| Media \| Streaming Media \| Teaching and Learning \| Video \| xbox Catherine's blog Login or register to post comments 295 reads Video on demand Submitted by geverett on July 24, 2009 - 8:55am. I suspect that commercial services (like Hulu) will be the best way of delivering full-length movies, once THEY become practical. National copyright laws are an issue; there are things which the US Register of Copyright has allowed that are applicable only to Film Studies faculty at non-profit colleges in the US. Yes, international copyright agreements exist; but that does not mean that the DMCA and the TEACH act (and their exceptions) apply overseas. You would be governed by Australian copyright law. Some literature faculty have created extensive libraries of clips from certain movies, available to their students over iTunesU; as far as I know, YouTube videos cannot be restricted to viewing only by students registered for a course in the same way that iTunesU can. But this is practical, I think, only for clips, not entire movies, because of the length of time it takes to download the video. Glenn Everett, Stonehill College; geverett@stonehill.edu Login or register to post comments Problems of reliance on third-party services Submitted by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on July 26, 2009 - 8:51pm. Glenn, thanks for your comment. I'd also like to think that web services was the right platform; but now that we're a couple of years (or more) past the initial buzz/hype around Web 2.0, I'm less confident. Copyright? We don't seem to be much closer in solving that particular bugbear for teaching, learning, and research. Commercial entertainment groups are increasingly savvy about the value of licensing content to make it more available to consumers (hence the upswing in popularity of iTunes, Netflix and the like) but in terms of haggling out what 'fair use' means for education -- well, I think there's some distance still to go. It's funny to think that it's almost a whole year ago since I last posted on hulu.com (29 Aug. 2008) -- pointing out that reliance on third-party and, especially, Web 2.0 services, can create as many problems as it solves. One year on, hulu.com is still not available in Australia. I think it's a telling point. Login or register to post comments Live video Submitted by Johnny Tsao (California State University, Office of the Chancellor) on August 11, 2009 - 12:10pm. Hello Catherine, We're in pilot to deploy IP Multicast architecture for our 23 Universities. There are a few drivers for this current project. 1) California Assembly Bill recently pass that requires the Board of Trustees to make available audio for their meetings 2) As the growing trend in students/faculties/culture adopts rich media content base on their time convinience, through their IP enabled devices. 3) Potential future technology integration with VoIP, and Emergency Notification Response System As the first part of the project enables live media, the media can be archived and have scheduled broadcast. The future road map would naturally be on demand rich media. As with any unicast technology served from a single location, finite resource for this location would be a concern with media that are popular (not if, but when) which spurs global interests. CDN requires geographical diverse path, and multiple dispersed media sources which the local universities unless partnering with university in other geographical locations, simply can not scale. I would love to see if there are any working groups collaborating within our sector. The CDN technology seems mature, and has been discussed among our collegues. A reference is Professor Larry Peterson from Princeton have written many excellent paper on geo dns and caching algorithms in this regard, however, we currently do not have the resources to implement this. -JT CSU - Chancellor's Office. Login or register to post comments
		© Copyright 1999-2009 EDUCAUSE Need Help? \| Feedback \| Privacy Policy
	Unless otherwise noted, EDUCAUSE holds the copyright on all materials published by the association, whether in print or electronic form. In certain cases the work remains the intellectual property of the individual author(s) (see Special Circumstances). Content from conference speeches, presentations, blogs, wikis and feeds reflect the opinions of the author, and not necessarily those of EDUCAUSE or its members.