Echo360 users

[jlee]

I work at a small west coast institute where we are preparing to install and test an Echo360 capture appliance and server as part of a larger plan to possibly deploy more units on campus. Does anyone here have user information tips on installation, and what type of peripheral equipment that you found works best (cameras, mikes, web and local camera control systems, etc)?

I am also seeking information about the planning processes that led to the approval and installation of Echo360 systems on other campuses, as well as any cost info you might be able to share. Any data or suggestions would be much appreciated!

[Dave]

As far as the peripheral side goes, a lot will depend on the AV assessment of the environment you are attempting to capture. Capture appliances are relying on you to provide good clean AV signals at all the correct levels. The sales blurb can often be misleading in this respect leading the unaware into believing that the system will take care of everything itself, which can then lead to spiraling costs in order to complete the setup.

Another issue to consider here which is often overlooked is that the people to be using the system need to be aware of how to work in an AV environment. If the presenter forgets to change the batteries in their microphone, or wanders back and forth in and out of the camera frame, then the whole capture experience goes downhill rapidly. Most capture systems won't give feedback to a novice presenter to remind them that their microphone is still muted after returning from a rest break.

A big issue I have with a number of these systems is if you need to archive material for any period of time, you need to consider how you are going to migrate any existing content when the time comes to upgrade/replace the system. If you are working with proprietary systems than the chances are the two will be using two entirely different formats both for data and metadata with no easy migration path, possibly locking you into one vendor, who may not provide the features you need further down the line. This is generally not a problem if you are only keeping material for 6 months or so.

Licensing terms can be another issue - I believe Echo360 (in their Apreso days) used to require a licence on a per 'classroom' type basis so if you were planning on switching feeds between multiple venues in the same building, you could find yourself having to purchase additional licence. Also it's worth checking upfront what happens to your content delivery if you don't renew your licence. So, read the small print.

Cost wise, hardware based systems appear to be overly expen$ive for what you actually get, and any which are based on PC's then there is the recurrent replacement cycle costs to consider and whether or not the PCI capture cards you bought today will fit in the PCIexpress machines of tomorrow, or whether you will need to replace it all with a new capture appliance. The first company to bring out a low cost hardware 'black box' type capture appliance is likely to steal the market.

Dave

[jlee]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Dave. We have been working with a Mediasite for the last 2 or 3 years, so I'm familiar with some of the drawbacks (and benefits) of using a hardware-based system. Can I ask what capture systems you've had experience with, and how you used them?

[Dave]

Sounds like you have a solid baseline to measure things against there then. May I ask your reasons for looking at other systems if you already have invested in MediaSite ?

I've been working mainly with Viewcast Niagara and Accordent Capture Station systems, however in a mobile/remote capture scenario rather than a classroom installation.

[bwinney]

Hi JLee,

I'm not sure how appropriate this is, but I thought I would weigh in here. I run Panopto, Inc, (http://www.panopto.com) and we provide a software based solution to Lecture / Meeting capture etc. Via our the Socrates Project we provide the software free of charge to Academic institutions and sell a suite of optional support services.

Dave is right in that the devil is always in the details withe respect to which cameras, mics work with which systems etc. We took the approach of ensuring that our system works with the gamut of device drivers out there and to allow Moore's laws benefits (every increasing CPU horsepower, cheaper and cheaper storage and bandwidth) to accrue to our customers.

You can find more information on our system, the Socrates Project, examples of current use in Higher Ed, and how to use our hosted trial version on our corporate site at http://www.panopto.com.

Sorry for the intrusion and I hope this helps.

Best,

Brad

[Dave]

Brad,

Thanks for this pointer. Panopto looks very interesting for classroom capture applications.

The multiple camera support really hits the spot. Most teaching afterall involves more than just PowerPoint slides and not all whiteboards/flipcharts are interactive or will be.

Handling PowerPoint at object level as oppossed to a screen snapshot is nice. How does it cope with things like embedded video clips and animations which are becoming increasingly common in slide decks.

The ability to capture high quality data on the backend so as it can be reworked at a later date is very useful and sounds like it gets around a lot of content longevity issues.

The online editing ability is a nice feature as this is often overlooked by other products from an enterprise viewpoint. You may only have one capture system but you proably have several 100+ people that want to do post capture edits after using it.

The interactive notes are another plus, especially for feedback/collaborative work.

How does it work with the likes of desktop application capture though, which is a problem when presentations are 1024x768 or 1280x1024 and moving toward 1680x1050 which are just too large for SD video capture. Can it do large video at low frame rate to accommodate this ?

Dave

[rodeostore]

I work at an extremely small branch campus. After checking out the big 4 systems we chose Sonic Foundry with Tegrity a close 1b in the selection process. Some of our experiences are:

We used fixed cameras and microphones. We do not have the resources to have operators bouncing between a bunch of rooms. So we want to schedule and forget.

Electric and drops were an issue in some buildings. Major upgrades to both.

Camera quality is the BIG concern now. Many of our rooms we try to capture the writing area not just a talking head. Dang near impossible!

We wanted live streaming capabilities which is coming in real handy with the H1N1 issues. But can seriously hit your bandwidth.

And their are many other issues we've gotten kicked around by. Which would have happened with any of the solutions. But, one thing to be aware of, it's not the number of potential students using your system you should be concerned about BUT the number of potential faculty members who will use it.

[Dave]

If you look at some of the vids in the Panopto showcase, they are capturing whiteboards. As it has a multiple source capture feature, it means you can have dedicated cameras on whiteboards, flipcharts, experiments, etc and then let the remote viewer choose which stream they want to connect too.

A lot of the classroom systems appear to assume that you are sending everything through a data projector, and that there are only two feeds - the presenter video and the data projector video. This may work well in the larger venues where everything has to be projected so that the people at the back can see it, however for the smaller academic venue, you can sometimes find five or six sources that need to be captured at different frame rates and resolutions.

Forcing presenters to project everything does open up some possibilities for digital ink type technologies though. If you can get your presenters to use a tablet instead of a flipchart or whiteboard, then you can capture it in vector format as digital ink. You can get very high resolution, at a very low bit rate.

Crestron have a nice dual touch presention panel which basically is a control panel, a computer display and a flipchart/overlay panel. Not sure if anyone has considered basing a classroom capture system around it.

The big issue I often see is that the data projector is seldom projecting just five bullet points per slide these days (which can be captured as a sequence of bitmaps and sync'd with the video). Instead there are embedded video clips and animations which require higher resolutions and framerates. There's also desktop sharing, where not only are there highly graphical desktops, but there are applications which require high resolution displays in order to cram all the menu bars in.

I agree with the point about faculty members. The institution may be keen to have all this content captured, but often the staff don't want to have anything to do with it. Unless the people using the system are 100% on board, then most automated classroom capture systems will fail.

Dave

[cinbadthomas]

Interesting article how Purdue University enlisted Echo360:
http://campustechnology.com/articles/200...oints.aspx

[lord_of_the_streams]

any standard audio/video source should work just fine. I can't imagine that Echo would have any special requirements around the types of devices connected to it. On the other hand, one issue with their little appliances is the inability to preview inputs connected to it like a confidence monitor. Winnov makes a system called cbox that connects multiple audio/video/vga sources and you can capture from at the same time. It also has a touch screen interface with a/v preview.