The first question they’ll ask, “What platform is Monarch LCS compatible with?” The good news: the device is compatible with most Video Management Systems (VMSs) – including Kaltura, Presentations2Go, Streamitup and Ubicast, as well as Learning Management Systems (LMSs)/Virtual Learning environments (VLEs), including Moodle, Blackboard, Brightspace and Canvas. What does this mean? Monarch LCS is ready to integrate seamlessly into almost any existing infrastructure. Furthermore, with its compact size, the encoder makes it an ideal fit for any storage rack that can be installed discreetly within the classroom. Its metal frame also makes it extremely hard-wearing.

Education Technology

The Monarch LCS gives you multiple destination options when streaming or recording. When the device is set to record, an encoding channel captures H.264 content in MOV or MP4 files, meaning that your video files will play on virtually any player. You can also record files locally to an SD card or USB attached storage and transfer those files over the network or via FTP/sFTP at a later time, thus reducing network congestion during peak times, or worse, the potential of losing files in transit due to connectivity issues. Alternatively, you can record lectures to USB drives, SD cards, or network-mapped drives and have them made available immediately to your school’s virtual management system (VMS). For streaming purposes, the encoders use either RTMP or RTSP protocol to deliver live streams to local media servers or cloud-based CDNs.

Education Technology

Final verdict: the Monarch LCS lecture capture appliance will comfortably cover all your bases when it comes to recording and streaming content anywhere, anytime — and with exemplary sound and picture quality.

Education Technology

Check out the full review here!

Learn more about Matrox here!

Part of the Vans US Open of Surfing held from July 27 until August 4 in Huntington Beach, California, the Vans Showdown featured some of the best-of-the-best skaters competing at one of the biggest skateboarding events of the year. Meanwhile, during the competition, fans used their smart devices and desktops to head to the Vans US Open of Surfing’s official website and watch the B Live interactive user interface’s live streams of the action at the skate park.

Giving viewers total control

In order to give fans a seamless viewing experience, New York City-based live event production company, B Live needed an encoder that could accept four discrete SDI inputs and deliver a stream as a single quad-split composition. Before B Live purchased its Monarch EDGE encoder, its user interface did not allow viewers to watch multi-camera video with continuity. Instead, the player would need to buffer each new camera angle selected by the user before the video would become available for viewing.

“Before we got the Monarch EDGE, we were doing things ‘the old way,’”said Jay Kopelman, Director of Digital Engineering for B Live. “That is to say, every time the viewer switches camera angles, it loads a new independent stream. Because we can now do quad-HD streams with Monarch EDGE, it has enabled us to feed a single 4K stream into the player. That is why it seamlessly switches on the B Live interface.”

During the competition, viewers could watch live feeds of their favorite skaters by visiting the Vans US Open of Surfing official website. The B Live user interface gave fans the chance to feel as if they were on their own decks alongside their favorite skaters at the Vans Showdown by allowing them to select from and switch between three different isolated camera angles of the athletes or the director’s cut – all thanks to the robust and dynamic H.264 encoding capabilities of Monarch EDGE.

Monarch EDGE Carves Up Live Webcasts

B Live’s camera crew captured each competing skater separately. Four 1080p30 video streams, including three isolated views of skaters and one director’s cut produced on-site by a different team, were sent back to the B Live office. There, Monarch EDGE received the three isolated feeds and director’s cut, and encoded these feeds into a single 4K, 20-Mbps stream that was then sent to the B Live platform. On the B Live user interface embedded in the Vans Open of Surfing official website, fans were able to easily decide which skater they wanted to view from the three isolated feeds available in addition to the director’s cut – all from their smart devices or desktops.

The ultimate no-fail, no-bail encoder

With Monarch EDGE’s ability to encode four 1080p30 video feeds together into one 4K stream has made B Live’s work of bringing best-in-class, live, multi-camera event footage to viewers around the world more feasible than ever. During the Vans Showdown, viewers of B Live’s interactive user interface enjoyed seamless switching between views of their favorite skaters without all the buffering required from outdated methods of displaying multi-camera content. Thanks to Monarch EDGE, fans saw every ollie, kick flip, and more from this year’s elite competition without missing a beat.

Kopelman said that B Live is also looking forward to leveraging Monarch EDGE’s upcoming closed captioning support capabilities in addition to continuing to use the device for live events with demanding quad-stream requirements. “One thing I haven’t seen on anything except Monarch EDGE is the 4:2:2 10-bit encoding. It is a hardened platform,” he said. “You know it’s going to keep working.”

Finalists at the Vans Showdown women’s competition, encoded with Matrox Monarch EDGE

Matrox Monarch EDGE will be in action at ISE 2020 (booth 11-D120) and NAB 2020 (SL 5616).

Check out the full article HERE

Learn more about Matrox HERE

Click here to watch on YouTube.

The set-up consisted of four PTZ cameras located throughout the sanctuary, allowing every event to be shot from multiple angles and capture unique aspects of every ceremony. The cameras feed into a switcher located in an adjacent computer room, where a deacon or volunteer can pan, tilt, and zoom each camera, and switch to provide the best shot for the viewer. The output of this switcher is sent to a nearby encoder, which was intended to easily push the video to the web.

However, due to disruptions in the video caused by switching, the video encoder would freeze and stall, causing streaming to fail. There were also complications around streaming protocols, preventing them from using multiple platforms, and limited them in reaching more people. With Easter—a major holiday in the Coptic calendar—approaching, the church decided that they needed a better, more reliable solution after a year of working around their current limitations.

Ishak learned about the new Monarch LCS, a dedicated H.264 encoder originally designed for lecture capture, offering high quality streaming, and production capabilities. The Monarch’s built-in frame synchronizers allowed it to correct the signal issues due to switching, ensuring uninterrupted streaming. Working with the existing HDMI switcher, the LCS also offered the freedom to transition to an SDI input if needed….[continue reading]

Empowering the lecture capture revolution, Monarch LCS enriches its feature set with tight integration of Kaltura Video Platform

MONTREAL — April 25, 2017 — In a continuing effort to offer affordable lecture capture to every classroom, Matrox is today announcing enhanced integration of the Matrox Monarch LCS with the Kaltura Lecture Capture system and broader Kaltura Video Platform, one of education’s fastest growing video management solutions. Immediately available as part of a Monarch LCS firmware update, college and university IT managers have greater freedom to integrate budget-friendly, stress-free lecture recording in even more classrooms.

From the Monarch LCS Command Centre, users can now directly add their Monarch devices to their network of Kaltura managed classrooms. Immediately, the Monarch device is available for scheduling and management from the Kaltura Lecture Capture interface, tying together scheduling and publication of materials to the relevant viewers.

“Schools are increasingly leaning on video as a crucial feature of their educational toolkit,” said Zohar Babin, Vice President; VPaaS, Ecosystem and Community at Kaltura. “At Kaltura, we are focused on providing the most current educational tools through partnerships with companies like Matrox, who are dedicated to providing affordable lecture capture devices to schools—everywhere.”

The Kaltura platform also provides a dedicated multi-stream player, ideal for playing two synchronized video files, such as those captured by the Monarch LCS. This unique feature of the Monarch LCS appliance and the Kaltura video player enables viewers to switch seamlessly between their preferred layout during playback while maintaining perfectly synced audio and video—putting control in their hands.

“It’s important for us to offer our customers amazing yet easy to use user experiences,” said Wayne Andrews, product manager, Matrox. “Being part of the Kaltura Partner Network allows us to impact schools everywhere. At a one-time purchase of $2495, the Monarch LCS enables all classrooms to be lecture capture classrooms.”

Availability
Matrox Monarch LCS is available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers. The latest Monarch LCS firmware with Kaltura integration is now available to registered users as a free download from the Matrox website.

About Kaltura
Kaltura’s mission is to power any video experience. A recognized leader in the OTT TV (Over-the-top TV), OVP (Online Video Platform), EdVP (Education Video Platform), and EVP (Enterprise Video Platform) markets, Kaltura has emerged as the fastest growing video platform, and as the one with the widest use-case and appeal. Kaltura is deployed globally in thousands of enterprises, media companies, service providers, and educational institutions and engages hundreds of millions of viewers at home, at work, and in school. The company is committed to its core values of openness, flexibility, and collaboration, and is the initiator and backer of the world’s leading open-source video-management project, which is home to more than 100,000 community members. For more information, visitwww.kaltura.com

Matrox takes the pain out of lecture recording

The Monarch LCS is networkable and ready for action as soon as you take it out of the box and connect to your establishment’s network.

Configuring the device couldn’t be easier. As soon as you attach to your network, the device presents you with an IP address. Key this into your browser and the command centre (a simple three-page intuitive UI) pops up, is ready to be configured, and you’re ready to go.

There are straightforward drop down menus for ease of selection with enough choice to cover very low rate streaming all the way up to HD recording. And layout picture options that you simply click on, to choose how the video will be viewed.

Within the Save/Load page, there is a drop down menu for ‘Profiles’ allowing multiple lecturers/teachers to save their individual settings for their lectures and hardware negating the need to set up each time they want to stream or record a lecture.

The device comes with a choice of modes to suit most, if not all, student viewing requirements, the most powerful of these being the dual isolated mode. This allows the student to view using multi-stream players where they can effectively choose their own viewing mode; fantastic if, as a student, you need to concentrate on a particular element or section of the lecture.

It includes dual inputs/outputs H.264 encoding for video through HDMI and SDI for any establishments that may have broadcast standard equipment at their disposal. There is also a HDMI input for computers (for lecture content/presentations) as well as analog audio in and out.

This is a dual channel device, which can be run as single or dual channel, and can be configured to stream on both channels, record on both channels (or one of each at the same time) or solo. Great if you want to livestream at a lower bit rate but record at a higher bit rate so as to make the recording available later for VOD, or stream to two different streaming platforms that have different streaming rates.

Click here to read the full article from RedShark News

Review: Matrox Monarch LCS

The Matrox Monarch LCS is an inexpensive dual-input lecture capture solution with two output channels that can be independently set for recording and/or streaming.

At $2,495, the Matrox Monarch LCS is an inexpensive dual-input lecture capture solution with two output channels that can be independently set for recording and/or streaming. You control the unit via a standard browser, and you can connect a monitor for setup or monitoring. There’s an application programming interface (API) for integration with learning management and similar programs. The unit is based upon the proven Monarch hardware and software, and it performed well in our tests, though rough edges in the software remain from previous reviews.

Hardware I/O
Physically, the unit is about 6″ front to back, 8.5″ wide, and 2 inches high, about the size of a 300-page hardback novel (Figure 1, below). As you can see in Figure 1, the unit has two HDMI inputs, one for a camera and the other for computer input. If you’re working with an older computer that doesn’t have HDMI output, you can buy a VGA- or DVI-to-HDMI adapter for under $10. There’s also a single SDI input for video, and HDMI/SDI outputs to a preview monitor, which isn’t essential but I found very useful. The unit accepts up to 1080p output in either NTSC or PAL rates, but goes no higher, so if you’re looking for a 4K solution, this isn’t it. [Continue Reading…]