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

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

2 Matterhorn Unconference 2013 1/30/2013

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


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

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

Project Partners and Collaborators


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

Matterhorn Unconference 2013 1/30/2013

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

Development Team
Indiana University Northwestern University
• Jon Dunn, project director • Stu Baker, project director
• Chris Colvard, lead developer • Steve DiDomenico, scrum master
• Phuong Dinh, developer • Stefan Elnabli, metadata/preservation
specialist
• Julie Hardesty, metadata analyst
• Adam Hallett, developer
• Brianna Marshall, project assistant
• Michael Klein, lead developer
• Mark Notess, product owner/manager
• Karen Miller, metadata analyst
• Nathan Rogers, developer
• Julie Rudder, product owner
• Claire Stewart, product owner/director
• Andrea Zielke, project assistant


Demo


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)


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

R1 Architecture
Integrations Users

Avalon Media System All
ILS
LMS, Hydrant Rails App Desktop,
websites Media Player Mobile
Omni- (Matterhorn Engage)
AuthN Search, browse,
Auth
view media
AuthZ
Can- Hydra Black- Ruby- Collection
Archival Can Head light horn Manager
Storage
Solution Browser,
Fedora Solr Matterhorn Drop box

Media Server Ingest (batch or
 after R1 (Red5, Flash) manual): video,
 Avalon code audio, metadata

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


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


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.


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


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 avalon-l-subscribe@indiana.edu to subscribe

@avalonmediasys

facebook.com/avalonmediasys

• Jon Dunn: jwd@iu.edu
• Adam Hallett: adam.hallett@northwestern.edu

The Avalon Media System

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