NCast Presentation Server User Manual
NCast Presentation Server Reference Manual
NCast Product Documentation
Presentation Server
Reference Manual
Revision 1.1
Software Release 1.3.1-0.5
September 7th, 2012
Copyright © NCast Corporation, 2012
All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents - Presentation Server
1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Purpose.......................................................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Document Overview....................................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 Terms and Definitions..................................................................................................................................... 4
1.4 Server Overview............................................................................................................................................. 6
1.5 Administrative Interface.................................................................................................................................. 6
1.6 Viewer Portal.................................................................................................................................................. 7
1.7 Summary of Operations................................................................................................................................. 7
1.8 Server Configurations.................................................................................................................................... 8
2 Administrative Interface...................................................................................................................................... 10
2.1 Episodes...................................................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.1 Episode Summary ................................................................................................................................. 10
2.1.2 Episode Batch Workflows.......................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.3 Episode Details......................................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Workflows..................................................................................................................................................... 12
2.2.1 Workflow States........................................................................................................................................ 12
2.2.2 Inspect Workflow....................................................................................................................................... 12
2.2.3 Schedule Recording.................................................................................................................................. 13
2.2.4 Upload Recording..................................................................................................................................... 14
2.2.5 Create a Live Streaming Event................................................................................................................. 15
2.2.6 Review/Trim a Recording.......................................................................................................................... 16
2.3 Series........................................................................................................................................................... 16
2.3.1 Add Series ............................................................................................................................................. 17
2.3.2 View Series Info........................................................................................................................................ 18
2.3.3 Edit Series Info.......................................................................................................................................... 19
2.4 Capture Agents............................................................................................................................................ 19
2.5 User Administration...................................................................................................................................... 20
2.5.1 Local Users............................................................................................................................................... 20
2.5.2 External Users........................................................................................................................................... 20
2.6 Statistics....................................................................................................................................................... 21
2.6.1 Server Statistics........................................................................................................................................ 21
2.6.2 Service Statistics....................................................................................................................................... 21
3 Viewer Portal...................................................................................................................................................... 23
3.1 Media Archives............................................................................................................................................. 23
3.1.1 Search Service.......................................................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Video Player................................................................................................................................................. 23
3.2.1 Description................................................................................................................................................ 24
3.2.2 Segments.................................................................................................................................................. 25
3.2.3 Segment Text............................................................................................................................................ 26
3.3 Viewer Controls............................................................................................................................................ 27
3.4 Shortcuts and Options.................................................................................................................................. 29
3.5 Embedded Video Player............................................................................................................................... 29
3.6 RSS/ATOM Feeds........................................................................................................................................ 30
4 Capture Agent Configuration............................................................................................................................... 31
4.1 Capture Agent Modes of Operation.............................................................................................................. 31
4.2 Server Credentials....................................................................................................................................... 31
4.3 Channel Modifications.................................................................................................................................. 32
4.4 Troubleshooting the PS Installation.............................................................................................................. 34
5 Workflows on a Presentation Server................................................................................................................... 35
5.1 Single Operation Workflows......................................................................................................................... 35
5.2 Automated Workflows................................................................................................................................... 35
5.3 Workflow Details........................................................................................................................................... 35
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5.3.1 Upload a Recording.................................................................................................................................. 35
5.3.2 Split an NCast Recording.......................................................................................................................... 36
5.3.3 Preview and Hold-for-Trim a Recording.................................................................................................... 36
5.3.4 Publish...................................................................................................................................................... 36
5.3.5 Retract....................................................................................................................................................... 36
5.3.6 Undo Trim.................................................................................................................................................. 36
5.3.7 Undo Split & Trim...................................................................................................................................... 36
5.3.8 Backup a Recording.................................................................................................................................. 36
6 Dublin Core Metadata......................................................................................................................................... 37
6.1 Metadata for an Episode (a single recording)............................................................................................... 37
6.2 Metadata for a Series (a group of recordings).............................................................................................. 38
6.3 Additional Details on Metadata..................................................................................................................... 39
7 References......................................................................................................................................................... 40
7.1 MPEG Compression.................................................................................................................................... 40
7.2 Packet Transmission.................................................................................................................................... 40
7.3 Multicast....................................................................................................................................................... 40
7.4 Dublin Core Metadata.................................................................................................................................. 40
7.5 RSS/ATOM................................................................................................................................................... 40
7.6 REST............................................................................................................................................................ 40
7.7 XML.............................................................................................................................................................. 40
8 Revision History.................................................................................................................................................. 41
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1 Introduction
1.1 PURPOSE
The NCast Presentation Server is an advanced video and presentation-recording content management system.
From start to finish the server may be used to schedule presentation or lecture captures, accepts these recording
for indexing and storage, processes the files through automated workflows, distributes the files to the required
publishing points and provides a video portal for playback of recorded material.
1.2 DOCUMENT OVERVIEW
This document is divided into two main sections. There is a description of the administrative interface to the server
and there is a description of the viewer's video portal.
1.3 TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
A complete discussion of network protocols, Internet streaming, webcasting and related topics is beyond the
scope of this document. Other sources cover this material in great detail. The following are brief definitions of
some of the terms used throughout this manual. Skip this section, it's boring.
AAC – Advanced Audio Coding, a wideband audio encoding and compression algorithm.
AD – Active Directory, an LDAP-like system used on Microsoft servers
ADA – Americans with Disability Act, which covers standards for accessible design.
API – Application programming interface, an interface between two software systems
Atom – The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds.
Authentication – A process by which you verify that someone is who they claim they are.
Authorization – The function of specifying access rights to resources, such as videos.
Capture Agent – A device which records/streams captured audio/video/graphics signals
CAS – The Central Authentication Service (CAS) is a single sign-on protocol for the web.
Confidence Monitoring – Methods for verifying that video and graphics capture are correct.
Distribute – Placement of video and audio media where it will be accessible to viewers
Dublin Core – A digital metadata/catalog system frequently used by digital libraries
Engage Player – A term used to describe the technology for the multi-stream player.
Episode – A single recording, quite frequently in a group or series of related recordings.
H.264 – An advanced method for compressing video or graphics data in the creation of an MP4.
HLS – A streaming protocol designed by Apple: HTTP Live Streaming.
HTTP – The industry standard protocol for website access.
HTTPS – The industry standard protocol for secure website access.
IETF – Internet Engineering Task Force, the standards body for Internet protocols.
ISO – International Standards Organization
Job – A discrete, atomic, processing step within a workflow.
JSON – JavaScript Object Notation is a lightweight data-interchange format.
Latency – The end-to-end time delay between a change in the source image and the
corresponding change in the remotely displayed image.
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LDAP – Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, used for authentication and authorization of users.
Lip-sync – The synchronization of independent audio and video streams at a receiving decoder so
that the presentation is in the same time relationship as the source.
LMS – A Learning Management System is a software application for the administration,
documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events.
LTI – Learning Tools Interoperability provides a single framework for integrating rich learning
applications -- in LTI called Tools -- with platforms like learning management systems or portals.
Matterhorn – An open-source server platform and architecture for video content management.
Mediapackage – A data object containing media files and metadata to be processed by the server.
Moodle – A popular open-source learning management system (LMS).
MPEG Compression – MPEG is an acronym for Motion Picture Experts Group, an industry-wide
committee that has defined a series of standards for the compression of audio and video source
material.
MTU – The maximum transmission unit is the maximum number of bytes permitted in a
transmitted packet.
Multicast – A family of computer transmission protocols where multiple receivers access a single
transmitted packet stream.
N-Way – An NCast proprietary term for the company's content management products.
OAuth – OAuth (Open Authorization) is an open standard for authorization.
OCR – Optical Character Recognition, a method of extracting text from graphical images
Opencast – A community of users interested in developing and using lecture capture systems.
OSGI – A technology for Java™ utilizing a dynamic module system for creating a service platform.
Progressive Download – A method for playback of video archives without requiring use of a
streaming server or specialized streaming protocols such as RTSP, RTMP or HLS.
Publish – A workflow step where descriptive text is placed into the server's search engines.
REST – Representational state transfer, a method of exchanging data within the server.
RFC – Request for Comments, an Internet protocol standard.
Role – A descriptive tag for a user to allow or disallow access to server media and resources.
RSS – Really Simple Syndication, a method and protocol for exchanging web news feeds.
RTMP – Real Time Messaging Protocol, a proprietary streaming protocol promoted by Adobe.
RTSP – Real-Time Streaming Protocol is an IETF approved protocol for control of real-time
streaming on the Internet.
Sakai – A popular open-source learning management system (LMS).
Segmentation – A workflow step used to detect scene transitions in media files.
Series – A sequence of related recordings or episodes used to manage viewing rights.
Services – Discrete processing activities within a server or server cluster.
Spring Framework – A open-source Java library and code used in implementation of the server.
Telnet – An IP network based protocol, which was originally used to connect remote consoles and
terminals to mainframes, but is now used as a general, bi-directional, byte oriented
communications facility. See RFC’s 854 and 855.
Unicast – Refers to a point-to-point connection between two Internet host machines.
Workflow – A series of processing steps on ingested media to ready it for final disposition.
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XML – Extensible Markup Language, a set of rules for encoding human and machine readable
documents. Used extensively to implement the server's REST API's.
1.4 SERVER OVERVIEW
The Presentation Server is an open-standards, open-architecture video and media Content Management System
designed especially to handle the capture and streaming of presentations and lectures given at Universities,
research laboratories, seminars, trade shows and conferences and any other setting where a knowledge expert's
presentation and discussion will be recorded and streamed over internet networks.
Unlike other video content management systems, the Presentation Server (PS) has facilities for dealing with both
the video aspects of a presentation (e.g. a camera shot of the presenter) and the graphical aspects of a
presentation (capture of computer screens, PowerPoints, Keynotes and similar demonstration materials used by
the presenter).
The separate identification and handling of these three components (video, audio and graphics) separates the PS
from its video-only CMS peers.
1.5 ADMINISTRATIVE INTERFACE
The server presents two different graphical user interfaces to the world, one being the administrative interface and
the second being a viewer portal for discovery and viewing of content.
The administrator controls a large number of functions related to acquiring content for the server, identifying and
indexing the material, verifying viewing rights and planning the proper distribution and publishing of the final
media.
As will be discussed later in this manual, administration tasks include:
Scheduling capture of lectures and seminars
Manually uploading files to the server if required
Assigning appropriate processing steps (workflows) to incoming media
Review and approval of incoming presentation material
Defining series of presentations
Verifying the timely progress of media through the system
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Adding closed-caption titles to the media
Managing user and administrative roles
Assessing server performance and load
For a large system there may be hundreds of captured lectures or presentations each day, so all the steps noted
above must be highly automated and must not require any significant amount of administrator intervention.
1.6 VIEWER PORTAL
Once presentation content is properly filed and indexed within the server, authenticated and authorized viewers of
that content must be able to find it in the system and view it at a convenient time and place and on playback
devices which might range from large screens in an auditorium to mobile phones and tablets on the go.
Thus, the viewer portal has an open-ended set of requirements which might vary by the needs of the institution or
organization using the portal:
Authentication of viewers or provision for anonymous viewing
Authorization of viewers for access to different recorded media
Search facilities to provide for access and discovery of videos to be viewed
Integration with and notification to Learning Management Systems about the arrival of new content
Flexibility of playback on different media players and devices
Playback of closed-captions as required
Capture of viewing statistics and user load
Publishing and push of media to external systems
The open-standard, open-architecture nature of the PS allows for easy expansion and modular growth of features
related to building a viewer portal tailored exactly to the needs of the organization.
1.7 WORKFLOWS
The PS is ideally tailored to provide automated, customizable workflows to be applied to each new incoming
presentation. As mentioned earlier, with the potential acquisition of hundreds of new archives each day, the work
required to process each incoming presentation must be minimal.
A workflow is a specification for a sequence of discrete processing steps to be applied to incoming media, and it is
possible to define a large set of different workflows within a PS.
Common steps within a workflow include:
Scheduling – The plan to capture new media via an encoder (CA) at a given time and place
Inspection – Identification of the audio and video tracks in a media file
Composition – Transcoding the media to different formats and resolutions
Trimming – Editing steps required to finish the video
Imaging – Creation of thumbnail and preview images for the media players
Segmentation – Detection of significant scene changes or slide transitions in the media
Text Extraction – OCR analysis of discrete scenes within the presentation to capture text content
Distribution – Pushing the content to the available output channels and locations
Streaming – Delivering the content to the local streaming server
Archiving – Delivery of original and reformatted media to the storage system
Publication – Handoff of associated text to the server's search engines
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Cleanup – Disposal of any intermediate files or unneeded media
The open-architecture of PS allows the administrator to tailor workflows to the exact needs of the organization.
1.8 SERVER CONFIGURATIONS
The architecture of PS allows for easy scalability of the server for use by small departments and very large
organizations. In general, three different configurations of the server will fit the needs of most organizations:
All-in-One – One machine carries the load of administration, processing and playback
Cluster – Two or more machines share the administration, processing and playback tasks
Cloud – The server components (All-in-One or Cluster) are instantiated by cloud services
An organization can start with an All-in-One configuration in the beginning and then expand to multiple machines
as the processing requirements and load grows within the user community.
Cloud-based implementations are ideal for situations where the IT infrastructure needs to be outsourced or where
the local network capacity is not capable of handling the required load.
Each configuration has its benefits and drawbacks, and NCast will work with potential customers to find the best
fit for the requirements.
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2 Administrative Interface
2.1 EPISODES
An episode is a single recording, a single MediaPackage with all the associated media and metadata files. The
Episode Service tracks episodes and archives them for possible reprocessing or reuse.
An important aspect of the Episode Service is its ability to track the distribution and disposition of files in the
system, especially when it is desired remove a file from service. There are two types of removal:
Retraction – The file is “unpublished” and “un-distributed” throughout the system so it is no longer visible to
viewers and no longer takes space in distribution and streaming storage. But the MediaPackage and its
components still exist in the Episode archive and may be submitted once again with any workflow.
Deletion – The MediaPackage and all its parts are permanently removed from storage. Nothing remains.
2.1.1 EPISODE SUMMARY
The Episode panel lists all the MediaPackages in the archive and their current status.
Each line in the table represents a submitted recording. The default display will show the most recently recorded
episodes at the beginning of the table, but the order for any column may be changed by clicking the small arrow in
the header row. Use the search box to find episodes with the specified text in the text fields selected.
The upper right corner of the page contains an icon which may be used to take the viewer to the Media Module
where all episodes may be found for playback. Above the icon is a link to logout of the administrative interface.
On the bottom of the page the administrator may select the number of entries to view at a given time and the
refresh rate of the page.
2.1.2 EPISODE BATCH WORKFLOWS
A workflow is a sequence of processing steps within the server which defines how incoming media and metadata
files will be accepted, transformed and distributed. Workflows may be simple, passing media directly to outgoing
distribution channels, or they may be complex, involving many stages of transcoding, segmentation, text
extraction and distribution to multiple output channels or destinations.
A major benefit of the Presentation Server is the ability to create and define customizable workflows for media
processing.
The Episode Tab allows the application of any workflow defined in the system to any of the episodes/recordings.
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The admin may start a new workflow, such as a “Retract” operation on any package or set of packages by
checking the box in the left column and selecting the workflow from the dropdown menu. Clicking “Apply” will
launch the workflow operations on those mediapackages.
See Chapter 5.3 for complete details on the available workflows in the system.
2.1.3 EPISODE DETAILS
By clicking on the Details link the admin is able to see the current disposition of a MediaPackage and the history
of workflows previously processed on this package.
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2.2 WORKFLOWS
A workflow operates on an incoming “MediaPackage” and launches discrete processing steps called “Jobs”.
There may, at any given time, be hundreds of workflows active in the system in various states of running, waiting
or idle depending on the server resources available.
The “Workflows” tab on the administrative interface gives the administrator a view into current and past workflows
in the system.
This page allows the administrator to view both information about the mediapackage being processed by the
workflow and about the workflow itself.
2.2.1 WORKFLOW STATES
Workflows in the system may be characterized as being in one of several states. The admin may select different
views of workflows in the server:
All – Display all workflows ever processed
Upcoming – View workflows for recordings which have been scheduled for capture
Capturing – View workflows where recording is currently ongoing in a Capture Agent (encoder)
Processing – Workflows that have been received and are undergoing processing
Finished – Workflows that have completed successfully
On Hold – Workflows that are waiting for an administrative step (approval, trimming, etc.)
Failed – Workflows that did not complete correctly.
Information about the MediaPackage associated with the workflow may be seen by clicking on the “View Info”
button. Workflows may be sorted in different sequences by clicking on the small arrows in the title row. The page
will refresh automatically according to the time period specified.
2.2.2 INSPECT WORKFLOW
Clicking on the small gear icon next to the “Finished” text will bring up details of the workflow itself :
Workflow Instance – Information about the workflow used for this processing sequence
MediaPackage – Details of the MediaPackage processed
Operations – Steps used to create Jobs for the workflow
Performance – A chart of processing resource consumed in executing the workflow
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Obviously, if a workflow fails this detail report will be extremely useful to the administrator to understand and
correct whatever issue caused the workflow failure.
2.2.3 SCHEDULE RECORDING
In the upper right corner the “Schedule Recording” button may be used to initiate a new workflow where the
media will be created some time in the future through use of a Capture Agent or encoder to record the
proceedings of a presentation or lecture. Once the encoder has completed the capture the resulting media will be
automatically sent to the server and processed by the workflow selected in the scheduled setup.
The administrator may schedule a single recording or a repeating group of recordings through this interface.
All the fields on this page (including the Additional Description information) should be carefully filled out in
advance to provide the system with as complete and accurate metadata as is possible. The metadata is given to
the server search engines to allow easy discovery of content by the viewers.
Also extremely important is assigning the correct Series to these recordings, as Series determine viewing access
rights to content in the system.
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