What’s going to happen?
During the week of May 19th, we plan to upgrade Kaltura to use the vendor’s latest player, the v7 Player, a player with much of the same functionality as the existing player (the v2 player), but a more modern design and some changes in user interface. The vendor has announced that they will deprecate the old player at the end of June; this means that the old player will still work, but they won't perform any additional work on it, not even to fix bugs.
After the upgrade, all Kaltura media in Media Gallery and My Media will play back with the v7 Player. In addition, Kaltura media that has been embedded using the Rich Content Editor in bCourses content (Pages, Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions) will automatically play back using a v7 Player, regardless of how the videos were originally embedded. This includes any videos in content imported from older bCourses sites. (Automatic playback using the new player, however, will not necessarily happen to audio-only embeds; see last section of this article.) In addition, when you embed new content, v7 players will be the only players available for embedding.
What’s new in the v7 Player?
To get a better sense of the differences between the old and new players, see Kaltura’s v7 Comparison Tool page (which compares the v2 player to the v7 Player). The following functionality, however, will not initially be available:
-
Hotspots (pending accessibility fixes)
-
Quizzes (pending accessibility fixes)
-
Share button (for security and privacy)
-
Download button (not generally available*)
If you are the Owner or Co-Editor of any Kaltura media, you can see the v7 video player closer to the way we will implement it here at Berkeley: go to the Edit page (select the pencil icon in My Media); the player shown is a v7 player. (Earlier in Spring semester, we switched to a v7 player in this context because it provided a much easier way for users to download dual-stream videos than had been possible with the v2 player. That Download functionality, however, will not normally be available.*)
*Should you want students to be able to download your media, you can embed that media with the v7 player “with download”. Otherwise the Download button will only be available to Owners and Co-editors.
Optional steps to prepare Summer and Fall bCourses sites that contain embedded Kaltura media
If, prior to the upgrade, you are working on new Summer or Fall bCourses sites that include content with embedded Kaltura media, you may want to embed using a v7 player. And, if you are importing content from an existing bCourses site, you may also want to edit older content, re-embedding with a v7 player. Note that embedding with a v7 player in advance isn’t required, but if you do so, you’ll see what course participants will see after the upgrade. Also, if you create bCourses content that’s a mix of Kaltura media and text, embedding with a v7 player now will result in less excess white space—something we know some of you are disturbed by—than if you let Kaltura play back your older embeds using the new player. (See Embedded Kaltura video examples for screenshots demonstrating this.)
To embed a video (or playlist or audio-only file) using a v7 player, you’ll need to select a v7 player when embedding. (This is a choice you can make when you get to step 3a in our KB article “How do I embed Kaltura media in bCourses using the Rich Content Editor?”.) Assuming that you have not unchecked “Set as my default settings for media type”, the v7 player selected will automatically be used for future embeds of that type of media (video, playlist, or audio).
Special considerations for those working on bCourses sites with embedded Kaltura audio-only content
At this time, Kaltura has not provided a solution for playing back existing v2-embedded audio-only files using a v7 player. Because of this, if, between now and May 19th, you are working on Summer or later bCourses sites, and are creating or reusing bCourses content with Kaltura audio-only media, we recommend that you embed or re-embed audio-only media using the “v7” choice. (See above paragraph for steps.)
The v2 audio-only player will not necessarily stop functioning right away following the upgrade, but if any issues arise with the v2 player, the vendor will not provide support, and you may find yourself doing last minute re-embeds in the midst of the semester.
Questions? Concerns?
Please email kalturahelp@berkeley.edu