Posted by Derrick on April 15, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | 
Kaltura, Inc., developer of the first open source online video platform announced it will provide full support for Microsoft Silverlight to its existing customers and future prospects. The Silverlight-based player and Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming will be available with Kaltura’s hosted and self-hosted editions.
“Kaltura’s video platform will offer all major video technologies, including Silverlight, Adobe Flash, and HTML5. The addition of Silverlight enables rich new functionalities and provides greater flexibility to our users,” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman and CEO. “Silverlight is a great enhancement to our developer community as it enables developers who are fluent in the Microsoft developer platform to participate and build new applications that provide unique value to Silverlight publishers.”
“Microsoft is excited to see Kaltura invest support for Silverlight and Microsoft developer platform on its open source online video platform,” said Brian Goldfarb, director of the developer platform group at Microsoft Corp. “As online video development continues to grow, Web developers will be truly benefit from the tools offered by Kaltura.”
Posted by Derrick on April 2, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Amidst the format wars being waged in the press, on the web and mobile devices – open video, and the HTML5 video standard, continue to gain traction in the market. Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 9 will support HTML5
and native playback of H.264 video within the next version of the browser. Both YouTube and Vimeo also recently announced support of HTML5, which enables publishers to serve video directly into compatible browsers without the need of an external plug-in, using the simple “video” tag. While H.264 is emerging as a possible encoding standard for online video, the Open Video Alliance is pushing the free and open video cdec Ogg Theora.
Open source video platform Kaltura, together with the Wikimedia Foundation, the Open Video Alliance and other partners, unveiled new initiatives to promote the HTML5 video standard, including two new websites – Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia and HTML5video.org. Both sites serve as community and industry resources and have been launched as part of a mass campaign to bring video to Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation believes that two things need to change for video on the web: video needs to break out of the Flash container and it needs to be in a free format without paying licensing fees. Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia provides simple instructions on how to convert and upload video to Wikipedia.
Kaltura launched HTML5video.org as an industry resource for all things HTML5 video-related, including news, technology demos and more. In addition, Kaltura has released its HTML5 Media Library – already in use by Wikipedia – that works in all major browsers and includes a full set of HTML5 video tools – video and audio players, uploader and editor.
Posted by Derrick on February 28, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
German streaming and media hosting provider nacamar GmbH, is installing Kaltura’s open source video platform at its own data 
center in Frankfurt and will offer a hosted video management solution to broadcasters, publishers, content providers, multimedia agencies, enterprises and educational institutions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Kaltura is the only OVP currently offering a self-hosted platform in addition to a SaaS product, giving users the option of a build vs. buy solution unique to the market. Kaltura offers three options for self-hosting, a free, community supported version, an Enterprise Edition under a commercial license, and an OEM Edition, which is similar to the Enterprise Edition, but for providers that will be offering their own deployment of the Kaltura hosted video platform.
nacamar will recast its online video service medianac® as version 2.0 at the CeBIT 2010 tradeshow in Hamburg next week. The company says the new site offers state-of-the-art content upload, transcoding, metadata management, player and playlist or channel management, ad-integration, detailed usage statistics, community functions, and players which customers can integrate into their websites. The “medianac® powered by Kaltura” solution will be part of nacamar’s strategic market approach in the realm of online media applications.
“The European Market for online media solutions is growing fast,” said Uwe Schnepf, nacamar’s managing director. “(Kaltura) complements our open system approach, that is, defined interfaces with existing content management systems as well as individual players and front-end design by multimedia partners and agencies. Together with Kaltura, we will be able to offer one of the best and most flexible online video services in Europe.”
nacamar is one of the leading German providers of live and on demand streaming, podcasting and vodcasting, video-on-demand solutions and shared media hosting; it also offers integration of payment systems and digital rights management. It counts as customers several media and broadcasting companies such as ZDF, 3sat, and SWR. Since 2007. It’s a subsidiary of the ecotel group.
Read more: http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/kaltura-teams-germanys-nacamar-expanded-online-video-offering/2010-02-22#ixzz0gtFwH8Mo
Posted by Derrick on February 10, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression |
Kaltura has released video extensions for both Moodle, an open source course management system, and Joomla, an open source content management platform. The extensions allow site-builders for either application to manipulate video and other rich media on their sites, including content management, syndication, monetization, transcoding, uploading, importing, and editing.
Using the Kaltura video extension for Moodle, faculty can upload and manage rich-media content, such as full lectures in an online course. Students can post video comments, ask questions, and create a face-to-face discussion recorded directly from their webcam or other sources.
The extension also includes Kaltura’s Video-PowerPoint Widget, which presents a video and a slideshow in full synchronization. Presenters can upload their videos and slides and then select the key points to synchronize their presentations. Students can view the presentation, scroll through the slides, and be presented with the relevant video footage for each slide.
The Joomla extension allows site builders to play video from any page in the Web site. They can also import videos, images, and audio files from MySpace, Flickr, and other social networking sites. The user can delete, tag, and moderate content; view statistics and reports; customize player design; and create playlists.
The video extensions are available in two forms: a free, community-supported video platform extension that’s self-hosted by the publisher and a video extension based on Kaltura’s software-as-a-service platform, which includes support, hosting and streaming, transcoding, syndication, advertising, and security. The extension is available for download on the Kaltura site.
“The demand for and use of learning management systems is on the rise, and open source Moodle is leading the charge” said Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura chairman and CEO. “Powered with Kaltura’s robust rich-media capabilities, the online learning experience comes to life with videos and photos, creating an environment that resembles that of a physical classroom. Top-notch education can now be delivered to remote doorsteps, everywhere. This is the power of the Web at its best!”
Tags: content management, Flickr, Joomla, Kaltura, monetization, Moodle, MySpace, streaming, syndication, transcoding, Video-PowerPoint Widget
