the avalon media system

The Avalon Media System Jon Dunn, Indiana University Adam Hallett, Northwestern University

Opencast Matterhorn Unconference San Diego, California

January 30, 2013

Matterhorn Unconference 2013 1/30/2013

About Us

• Jon Dunn – Interim Assistant Dean for Library Technologies,

Indiana University Bloomington – Project Director, Avalon

• Adam Hallett – Associate Software Developer, Enterprise Systems,

Northwestern University Libraries

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Agenda

• Project overview and status • Demo • Release 1 • Technical and metadata architectures • Plans beyond Release 1 • How to participate

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Project Objectives Goal: Create an open source system to enable libraries and archives to provide online access to video and audio collections

• Digital audio/video management and delivery system, focused on needs of libraries and archives

• Follow an agile, open source development model • Leverage existing technologies, where feasible • Communicate and market the project broadly to

increase awareness and grow the community of users and developers

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Project Overview

• Funded in part by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services

• Original name: Variations on Video

• Planning grant: – August 2010 – July 2011

• Implementation grant: – September 2011 – October 2014

• Partnership between libraries at Indiana University and

Northwestern University

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Project Partners and Collaborators

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What needs are we trying to serve? • Libraries and archives (and museums?) • Wide variety of audio/video collections, uses, and

access needs – Licensed educational video collections – Video/audio e-reserves – Archival collections – Open access collections

• Research and teaching & learning use • Long-term management and access • Tie-in with preservation


Existing Solutions Insufficient • Institutional and digital library repositories

– DSpace, Fedora, Digital Commons, ContentDM • Web video services

– YouTube, Vimeo • Classroom lecture capture

– Echo360, Mediasite, Opencast Matterhorn • Online video environments

– Kaltura, Brightcove • Streaming servers

– Flash Media Server, Real Helix, Wowza, Red5 • Digital asset management systems

– OpenText, NetXposure


Project Progress

• Development team hired • Trained on agile development (Scrum) • Community demo releases:

– Release 0, July 2012 – Release 0.5, October 2012

• New name: Avalon • Participation in Hydra and Matterhorn

communities 9

http://www.projecthydra.org/

http://www.opencast.org/


Development Team

Northwestern University • Stu Baker, project director • Steve DiDomenico, scrum master • Stefan Elnabli, metadata/preservation

specialist • Adam Hallett, developer • Michael Klein, lead developer • Karen Miller, metadata analyst • Julie Rudder, product owner • Claire Stewart, product owner/director • Andrea Zielke, project assistant

Indiana University • Jon Dunn, project director • Chris Colvard, lead developer • Phuong Dinh, developer • Julie Hardesty, metadata analyst • Brianna Marshall, project assistant • Mark Notess, product owner/manager • Nathan Rogers, developer

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Demo

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Release 1

• Expected in February 2013 • Goal is to support installation and piloting by

partners • Functionality

• File upload, transcoding & descriptive metadata: manual or batch • Batch loading via dropbox and tabular data file • Authentication and authorization – optional integration would require use

of LDAP or some minor programming • Red5 and Adobe Flash media server support • Discovery via Blacklight faceted search & browse • Playback on desktop browsers & mobile devices (iOS & Android)

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Release 1 Pilot Support

• Distribution packages • Both source distribution and some form of preconfigured

package, e.g. VM image • Installation & configuration documentation • Email support • Advice on hardware & software requirements in Feb

• Goal: Small pilots/tests can be run on one server or VM; larger scale use may require distributing functions across multiple machines

• Content & metadata from pilots can be migrated forward to future versions

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R1 Architecture

Avalon Media System

Archival Storage Solution

AuthN

LMS, websites

ILS

Hydrant Rails App

Hydra Head

Black- light

Ruby- horn

Media Player (Matterhorn Engage)

Fedora Solr Matterhorn

Media Server (Red5, Flash)

All

Desktop, Mobile

Browser, Drop box

Search, browse, view media

Ingest (batch or manual): video, audio, metadata

Integrations Users

Collection Manager

Can-Can

Omni-Auth

AuthZ

after R1 Avalon code

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Architecture and Matterhorn Integration • Matterhorn configured for Avalon and run via

Felixwrapper. • Custom workflow and encoding profiles • Rubyhorn service creates media package and

receives thumbnail and poster images


Engage Player • Calls episode and series service but doesn't really use anything

except the mediapackage • 1) Our code is at https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-

engage • 2) Flash player changes: fixes for dynamic initialization to allow

stream switching, debranding, tweaks, and bug fixes • See https://github.com/variations-on-

video/matterhorn/compare/5455b5e...5d9644b • 3) Player page changes include: taking out generic css styling,

dynamic player initialization allowing stream and player switching (HTML5 vs flash), debranding, bug fixes

• See https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-engage/commits/master/public

https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-engage

https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-engage

https://github.com/variations-on-video/matterhorn/compare/5455b5e...5d9644b

https://github.com/variations-on-video/matterhorn/compare/5455b5e...5d9644b

https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-engage/commits/master/public

https://github.com/variations-on-video/hydrant-engage/commits/master/public


Developer Concerns

• Is there a path to integrating our changes back into Matterhorn?

• Will there be a re-write for the engage player? • Can we make the install process simpler for

adopters?


Metadata for R1

• Descriptive metadata • MODS

• Technical and Structural metadata • Will be a focus after R1

• Still looking at PBCore, for technical metadata and/or as an export format

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Beyond R1 • Releases every three months • Workflow & batch loading improvements • Authorization improvements • Structural metadata for navigation • Playlists and clip making • Easy player embedding • Transcripts • Publishing out to other systems • More optimization for mobile • Focused accessibility work

• We want to know what potential adopters’ priorities are.

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Participation

• Try out release 0.5 http://pawpaw.dlib.indiana.edu/

• Try out release 1.0 in February • See what we’re up to via the project website

and Wiki: http://avalonmediasystem.org/

• Watch bi-weekly demos: https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/x/NxKKHg

• Browse user stories, tasks & bugs in Jira: https://bugs.dlib.indiana.edu/browse/VOV

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http://pawpaw.dlib.indiana.edu/

http://avalonmediasystem.org/

https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/x/NxKKHg

https://bugs.dlib.indiana.edu/browse/VOV


Other areas of interest

• Contributing code changes/additions • Can Engage become a more general purpose player for

higher ed? • Best practices for Matterhorn deployment and

management? • Potential need for Avalon to work in non-Matterhorn

environments – Support for other transcoding solutions – Calls from Engage Player

• Other use cases for Avalon-Matterhorn interaction


For more information • http://avalonmediasystem.org/ • IRC: chat.freenode.net #projectvov • Avalon e-mail list:

E-mail [email protected] to subscribe

@avalonmediasys facebook.com/avalonmediasys

• Jon Dunn: [email protected] • Adam Hallett: [email protected]

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http://avalonmediasystem.org/

mailto:[email protected]

http://twitter.com/avalonmediasys



the avalon media system

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