Streaming Media - December 2007/January 2008 - (Page 38) Morris reports that Drexel’s primary media server is a Real Helix Full Mobile server farm, which enables them to serve up a variety of formats, not just Real. In fact, Ted Leonard, general manager of technical products and solutions at RealNetworks, says that unlike in corporations, you can’t dictate format to a college audience, which is why it developed a product like the Helix server in the first place. “I think flexibility around format is important, especially in the educational space, which historically I’ve seen as a heterogeneous environment where you have people accessing all kinds of clients,” Leonard says. While colleges struggle with formats, Flash has emerged as a way of delivering streaming video content without worrying about players and operating systems. Almost every machine in the world has the Flash player, and Morris sees this as an up-and-coming format in spite of the fact that it may not offer the same quality as some of the other choices. “Flash in the long run is going to be the preferential media mainly because it’s much more ubiquitous potentially across platforms. You don’t get into the Real vs. Windows war. It sneaks around the side of it. It’s very, very rich already in what you can do with it.” Morris adds, “Quality in Flash is up there. It may not be digital TV quality, but it is more than enough for what we do in academia.” Tony Klenja, director of educational technology and distance learning at Daemon College in Buffalo, N.Y., has been serving streaming video for years. Klenja has stuck for the most part with Windows Media encoding, but he also sees Flash as a viable alternative in the future. “I’m doing a secondary encode into Flash— secondary for now, but as we move further down the road, it will be predominantly in Flash unless there is some compelling reason to use Windows Media for high-def or whatever,” Klenja says. streaming video goes to college This is a wired classroom at Duquesne University School of Nursing. The object on the desk is the mobile version of Sonic Foundry Mediasite, the Mediasite ML Recorder. Photo Credit: Joseph Seidel, Videographer/Instructional Technology Specialist, Duquesne University School of Nursing. “An academic institution is typically the Wild West,” says Drexel University’s John Morris. “If we were to enforce a specific format we would probably get an awful lot of flack.” This “Drexel Digest” video is delivered in QuickTime. What Do Students Want? Format is often driven by what students want. For video administrators like Klenja, students have been fine with Windows Media at his school, but he can see that changing as students raised on the simplicity of 38 STREAMING MEDIA December 2007/January 2008 YouTube begin to enter school. “I think with incoming classes that really don’t know all that much about it, maybe Flash is an easier way to go because it doesn’t require downloads, and if it does, it downloads in the background and they never even know it.” He adds, “With Flash—particularly on YouTube—you click once
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