Oregon State University Survey of Lecture Capture Hardware, Software, and Platforms

By Adam Noyes 0 Comment July 14, 2020  Education, education streaming, epiphan, matrox, streaming

One of the most common refrains in any institution’s academic technology department is “What should we use for lecture capture?” The answer to this question, unfortunately, is not at all clear cut, mostly because it’s hard to compare solutions. Features vary wildly from one manufacturer to the next, and implementation of those features can be nuanced (i.e. “Yes, of course my product can do that*” *with considerable development resources and professional services).

Featured hardware from Matrox & Epiphan:

• Monarch HD, Monarch HDX, Monarch LCS
• Manufacturer: Matrox
• Supported transfer: USB, SD Card, CIFS, FTP, SFTP, Kaltura

A reasonable solution for a large scale deployment, Matrox’s Monarch LCS device is small and so affordable as to be nearly disposable. The Monarch LCS has the ability to record or stream two isolated sources. Mix and match to your liking. Streaming options include both RTSP and RTMP. The ability to do two isolated recordings makes the Monarch LCS Open Capture compatible (a standard supported by Kaltura) and also integrates with a number of scheduling solutions, including Kaltura’s. Large institutions with a robust internal support unit will benefit most from this solution as you might find the Monarch LCS needs a lot of babysitting, which is where Matrox’s true killer app comes in handy: Radar, Matrox’s dashboard software, is available for free and installs on a Windows box, allowing you to monitor and administer your fleet in an at-a-glance interface.

• Pearl Mini, Pearl-2, Pearl-2 Rackmount, Pearl-2 Rackmount Twin
• Manufacturer: Epiphan
• Supported transfer: USB, FTP, SFTP, RSync, CIFS, SCP, AWS, WebDav, Kaltura, Panopto

Epiphan offers a premium lecture capture solution. Their devices have a clean, intuitive interface and integrate easily into many ecosystems, including Kaltura, through it’s scheduling and Open Capture protocols. The Pearl devices carry a touchscreen for operating the device, but also doubles as a confidence monitor. But the touchscreen makes the Pearl pricier than its competitors.

Check out this article from Oregon State University to Learn More.