To better serve distance learners, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education (DCE) built a home-grown education platform with OpenCast.
However, Gabe Russell wanted to kick the platform up another notch with HD dual-channel recording and streaming capabilities, and make each feature accessible to students.
As a result, the university invested in Epiphan Video’s Pearl solution.
“We needed to find a capture system that could do dual-channel capture and live streaming, which we couldn’t do in standard definition with our Legacy systems,” says Russell, Video Systems and Software Engineer at Harvard DCE. “We ended up looking at the Epiphan Pearl, [and]…struck an interesting deal with them where they gave us some sort of low level access to the devices so we can install some of our own software on them.”
After receiving the solution in October 2014, Russell and his team had a prototype running in November of 2014. Harvard DCE then purchased more Pearls in December of 2014 and had the system running for the Spring 2015 semester.
Now, the school has 24 Pearls in production, and will have 28 by the end of January 2016.
How It Works
Once put in place, Pearl takes images from cameras, computers or switchers; once that content is captured, end users can manipulate, record and stream it to students.
Within its capture capabilities, Pearl has four inputs through which end users can simultaneously capture up to four HD inputs.
David Kirk, VP of Epiphan Video, says users can create different layouts for each input, combine multiple inputs into one stream, and stream certain sources as they come in.
He also says users can incorporate their own images, branding, and other customizations to it, and then record it.
“In Harvard’s case, they aren’t switching sources on the Pearl,” Kirk says. “They’ve got a camera on a lecture and they’ve got slides. They capture both of those separately and record them separately, but at the same time, create a single live stream of those and send it to their lecture management system, which is OpenCast. From there, students can access these lectures online from anywhere.”
Even though Harvard DCE is also not utilizing Pearl’s live switching features, Kirk says other colleges can use these to send live feeds of specific items, alongside live presentations, to students.
“Say if a professor wanted to have a live video feed from a microscope; they can do live presentations of microscope slides, documentation cameras, white boards, etc.,” he says. “Pearl allows you to bring all those sources in and live switch them so you can show what you have, both locally in the room and what’s being recorded and streamed out.”
Impact
Since installing Pearl, Russell says his team has received positive feedback from the university, especially on the upgraded quality of streamed videos.
“The video quality is definitely better than the other hi-definition hardware we tested,” he says. “[Fall] semester is the semester where we’ve run OpenCast with the Epiphan Pearls as the primary system…Now that it’s a primary, there are more eyes on it. We’re starting to get feedback and it’s all been really positive.”
Russell says he’s also building more systems with Pearl, which will be implemented into individual classrooms.
While those projects are in the construction phase, Russell is creating a mobile solution to meet instructors’ and students’ needs.
“I’m starting to get asked to put these systems into different classrooms, and I’m working on a portable system right now that could be wheeled into a classroom and hooked up right before a class,” he says. “It would be nice if this technology was so ubiquitous that you could create your own systems around it, rather than fit what’s out there. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it – I think that’s a general wish for the industry.”
Tips to Implementing Your Video Streaming Solution
1) Test it out
Russell says he was brought on board the OpenCast implementation halfway during testing periods of multiple distance learning products that “were in various stages of not working.”
When Russell stepped in to help, his team set up a test lab to put different products “through their paces” – in other words, testing.
“Unfortunately, video capture and streaming is a little bit of a dark art still,” he says. “We found [testing] valuable, rather than just putting something in the classroom to see if it works and troubleshoot it In the field. You can really hammer on the system in a lab setting, which is invaluable.”
2) Check for remote access and reliability
Kirk says Harvard DCE invested in Pearl because “they wanted a system that was reliable, and could be remotely controlled very easily.”
He says other institutions also look for reliable distance learning products to better serve their distance learning students; reliability ensures those distances learners receive high quality content, and peace of mind for video engineering teams like Russell’s.
“If you’re really looking at this stuff, you need to look at remote management of that box and reliability of that box,” Kirk says. “Make sure it’s supposed to record a lecture, that you never get damaged files, that sort of thing. Reliability is key – you have a small staff to manage this box across the campus, and that reliability and remote management are the key factors they need to look at with these solutions.”
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