Ed-Tech @ DU

Last month, I participated in a phone interview with the education team at Adobe to talk about how the University of Denver is using Flash Media Server to stream both live and on-demand content across campus and out into the world. The resulting article was recently published on the Adobe Developer Connection website.

Topics covered include our CourseMedia™ system, live events, and various video uses across departments. It’s a fairly quick read and a comprehensive look at what DU is doing with media streaming using the Flash Platform.

Check it out: Q & A with Joseph Labrecque

I’d encourage anyone going to Educause in Denver to stop by the Adobe Booth (#909) for a theater presentation by myself and John Schuman.

Streaming Video for Education
Wednesday, November 4
12:45pm–1:15pm

In this session, you will learn the inner workings of a real-world video solution for higher education based on Adobe Flash technology. Join John Schuman, Adobe education solutions architect, and Joseph Labrecque, senior multimedia application developer at the University of Denver and an Adobe Education Leader, as they take you through the underlying technologies that went into the creation of the amazing video applications of the University of Denver.

The archived presentations from the recent Adobe Education Seminar Series are now available for viewing.

Join Adobe in this three-part seminar series to learn how you can create and stream engaging video on the web.

Session 1: Video Use Cases in Higher Education: Expand your audience through video

Discover new and exciting ways to increase the exposure, enrollment, and fundraising potential of your university through the use of video on your university’s website. From distance learning, to the broadcast of live athletic events and artistic performances, to campus tours and new student orientation, all of this and more can be brought to life on your website, increasing the interest of potential students, keeping alumni engaged in their alma mater, and thereby bringing more revenue to your institution.

Hear from representatives from the University of Denver about their successes with Flash video on their campus!

Presenters:

Joseph Labrecque
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
Adobe Higher Education Leader
University of Denver

Leslie Trumble
Director Visual Media Center
University of Denver

Session 2: From Concept to Distribution: Products that will help you capture, edit, and distribute your video online

Learn about the Adobe video workflow from end-to-end. We will start with authoring content in Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium and follow the process to Adobe Flash® Media Server for secure streaming of video content to your website. John will talk about some of the workflow options that are particularly relevant to educational usage of streaming video including the robust options that are available for Digital Rights Management of Adobe Flash Video.

Presenter:

John Schuman
Solution Architect
Digital Video Solutions
Adobe

Session 3: Making it all happen: A discussion of how to implement a video solution at your institution

In this final session, you will learn how to implement a video solution on your campus, using the tools and technologies previously presented in this series. Nick and John will go deeper into the technology behind a complete video solution, steps for implementation and decisions to be made in your implementation, all the way through getting video live on your website.

Presenters:

John Schuman
Solution Architect
Digital Video Solutions
Adobe

Joseph Labrecque
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
Adobe Higher Education Leader
University of Denver

Nick Hippe
Sales Engineer
Digital Media
Adobe

The CTL has released a new AIR application called LiveStreamer available now via the Adobe AIR Marketplace.

This started as a simple mechanism to display a live RTMP stream from Flash Media Server to a client machine and related projection system in anticipation of an upcoming live, campus-only event. So… not for broadcast over the web- just sending a live stream from one physical location to another.

While developing the application, I came across the need to test an RTMP stream and it was so simple using this app that I decided to expand it. In the current version (0.9.0), it will accept RTMP and HTTP streams- just type in the URL and you can easily test it in order to verify that it is correct before trying to publish anything on a website or whatnot. You can also use it as a fullscreen projection or display mechanism as was originally intended.

If you have some FLVs or MP4s or whatnot on your local machine- you can just drag those into the app to watch them. I’m thinking about adding some playback controls and other options a bit later.

Application for display of video streams via RTMP, HTTP, or local filesystem. Just drag in a file or enter a stream address and away we go!

At the University of Denver, we have built a good number of AIR applications at this point. Some are internal data management tools, others are full, complex, private applications such as the VPS Projection system, and then we have small utility apps like this which others may also find some use for. These we make available to others free of charge as part of our community outreach.