Unassisted Lecture Recording at Masaryk University

Unassisted Lecture Recording at Masaryk University

Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Unassisted Lecture Recording at Masaryk
University
Petr Holub
[email protected]
CESNET and Masaryk University, Czech Republic
TERENA TF-Media
Trondheim, NO, 2010–10–08
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Talk Overview
Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation (near future)
Concluding Remarks
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Background
● Masaryk Univesity (MU)
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second largest university in the Czech Republic
cca 45.000 students
cca 4.700 employees
9 faculties (Sciences, Medicine, Philosophy, Law, Informatics,
Economy, Social Sciences, Pedagogy, Sport Studies)
● Faculty of Informatics (FI MU)
◾ cca 2.500 students
◾ cca 600 undergrads enrolled each year
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Background
● new Univesity Campus
◾ built during 2006–2010
◾ home of Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, Faculty of
Sport Studies
● university Information System
◾ developed and deployed since 1999
◾ complex support for teaching and e-learning
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Motivation
● Lecture recording
◾ supplementary material fo
◾ first required in 2002 by students of FI MU
◾ inspired by Standford and others
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Motivation
● Classroom merging
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problem with room capacities
max. room capacities are around 200 (FI MU)
feedback needed from the other room(s)
should be distance independent
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Motivation
● Remote teaching
◾ idea of class sharing among universities
◆ students get experiences of teaching methods from other
universities
◆ students get used to remote work
◆ covering special areas
◆ problems with desynchronized semesters
◾ Introduction to High-Performance Computing class
◆ prof. Sterling, “father of Beowulf cluster”
◆ taught from Louisiana State University to MU since 2008
◆ showroom of various technologies (UltraGrid, CoUniverse, also
HD H.323 videoconferencing)
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
0th Generation – Manual Work
● Students attending lectures with cameras on tripod
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since 2002
lot of manual work
unreliable
problems with audio & video quality
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1st Generation – Room Equipment
● 3 largest lecture halls at FI MU
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video & audio matrix (router)
2 independent projections
room control system
3 cameras
● routine recording based on official timetable
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1st Generation – Custom Dedicated Systems
● Workflow – capture
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1st Generation – Custom Dedicated Systems
● Workflow – processing
Media Processing Tools
User Interface
Job Preparation
Media
Analyzer
Distributed
Storage
Media
Splitter
Local Scheduler Interfaces
Job Submission
Media
Processor
Job Monitoring
Media
Merger
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1st Generation – Custom Dedicated Systems
● Workflow – processing
◾ MetaCentrum – Czech national grid infrastructure
◾ uses PBS job scheduling
◾ considering splitting into chunks for X.264
◆ slow merging process
◆ we have enough material to saturate available computing
resources on average
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1st Generation – Custom Dedicated Systems
● Workflow – presentation
◾ publishing for download (Xvid MPEG-4)
◆ based on requirements of our students
◾ automatically gathered metadata (time, room, class)
◾ annotation tools available for students
◾ authentication/authorization bound to our IS
◆ 4 basic levels: for teacher only, for current students of the class,
for all students, for everybody
◆ custom rules possible
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1.5st Generation – Continuous Evolution
● Workflow – capture
◾ Need for higher-quality screen capture
◾ PiP + split-screen solution
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1.5st Generation – Continuous Evolution
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
1.5st Generation – Continuous Evolution
● Workflow – presentation
◾ Flash based pseudo-streaming
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Problems of 1nd Generation Systems
● Closed system, not inter-operable outside the university
● Lack of modularity/easy extensibility
● Can’t be commercially supported
● Still not perfect screen capture quality
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2st Generation – Room Equipment
● 3 types of rooms
● built for interconnections (except for seminar rooms) and
automated recordings
● small seminar rooms
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projection
small local switching system
ceiling/wall mounted camera
whiteboard, Sympodium
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2st Generation – Room Equipment
● medium rooms
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2× projection
at least 2 ceiling/wall mounted cameras
H.323 HD end-point (aka MXP95)
integrated control and switching system
whiteboard, Sympodium
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2st Generation – Room Equipment
● large rooms
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3× projection
at least 3 ceiling/wall mounted cameras
H.323 HD end-point (MXP95 and C40)
integrated control and switching system
used also for other purposes (inaugurations, cinema-like, etc.)
whiteboard, Sympodium
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2nd Generation – H.323 Systems
● Workflow – capture and processing
◾ single room workflow
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2nd Generation – H.323 Systems
● Workflow – capture and processing
◾ virtual room workflow
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
2nd Generation – H.323 Systems
● Workflow – presentation
◾ side-by-side content and video
◾ MPEG-4 for download
◾ Flash for pseudo-download
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Problems of 2nd Generation Systems
● Scalability of the recording systems
◾ mostly price-wise
● Problems with multi-screen capture
◾ multiple content streams are largely unsupported
● Video quality issues for some critical applications
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low-bitrate compression artifacts
capabilities of H.323 unit cameras under complex/low lighting
combination of both
even lower bitrate for recording than for videoconferencing
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
3rd Generation – Mixed H.323 and Dedicated Systems
● Planned till end of 2010
● Modular structure of dedicated systems
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hardware-software platform, open-source software
one or more video grabbers (S-Video/composite/SDI/HD-SDI)
multiple content grabbers (VGA/DVI/HDMI with splitters)
direct compression to avoid storage overload
remote control, embeddable into an automated workflow
starting configuration: 1× video, 2× VGA/DVI
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
3rd Generation – Mixed H.323 and Dedicated Systems
● High-end systems for advanced applications
◾ low to none compression for critical viewing applications (e.g.,
UltraGrid)
◾ large-resolution screens
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
3rd Generation – Mixed H.323 and Dedicated Systems
● More flexible presentation for the users
◾ user-changeable topology of video streams (multiple content
screen, possibly multiple video screens)
● Sharing with others
◾ publication of metadata (aka advertisement)
◾ do we want to go beyond that? (political decision)
● Metadata
◾ maximize amount of metadata generated automatically
◾ users generally don’t enter metadata
◾ users may add comments, thumbs up/down, links and other
“context info”
◾ automatic content extraction (whether it’s called metadata or
not)
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Known Pitfalls & Challenges
● Psychological aspects
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class attendance
adaptation of learning process, both positive and negative
misuse of material by the students
“teacher-empowered” approach
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Known Pitfalls & Challenges
● Technical aspects
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content capturing and presentation – what’s sufficient quality?
“chalk curse”
content indexing and searching
how much unattended do we want the process to be?
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Dedicated Teaching Recordings
● Automated recording will (probably) never be perfect
● Creation of dedicated electronic courses
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. . . overcoming fears of being caught in the middle of an error
adaptation of the lecture structure
complete studio lighting and audio setup
repeated recording
complex editing
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
TF-Media from My Perspective
Do we need services provided for the community?
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
TF-Media from My Perspective
Do we need software provided for the community?
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
TF-Media from My Perspective
Do we need coordination?
(protocols, module interfaces, experiences exchange)
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Motivation and Background
1st Generation
2nd Generation
3rd Generation
Concluding Remarks
Thank you for your attention!
Q?/A!
<[email protected]>
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