When to Use a Dedicated Appliance for Lecture Capture: 5 Learning Environments where a Dedicated Appliance works Best
By Adam Noyes
The Matrox Monarch streaming encoders are great solutions for education streaming, particularly the Monarch LCS. Monarchs fit nicely in lecture capture, remote learning, and school events. They are easy to use, and are fairly set it and forget it. In addition, they have direct integration with third party softwares like Kaltura, to allow teachers to focus on what’s really important- teaching.
Matrox recently released a great guide on their website, detailing five great uses for a Matrox Monarch encoder in an education setting.
Check out some highlights from that article, below.
Where dedicated lecture capture appliances should be considered in the education market
Lecture capture in schools has been common for the better part of a decade, certainly since video as an instructive classroom tool has seen steady rise in educational institutions. Many video platforms and lecture capture systems exist on the market, offering universities a range of deployment options. Educational institutions are tremendously diverse, varying in terms of class size, pedagogy, physical layout, technical infrastructure, and academic budget. “Today, everyone from community colleges to prestigious universities are looking to future-proof themselves for a digital learning environment. And even though in-class instruction isn’t going away anytime soon, creating online resources for students is becoming a must for higher education institutions.” With a flexible lecture capture solution, schools can record lectures and events, capture student presentations, provide opportunities for experiential learning through simulation labs or training facilities—all that is needed is to click “record”. The market is rife with a wide range of hardware and software options for lecture capture. As such, the question remains: What options exist for lecture capture and which solution is best for any given classroom? This brief details five common scenarios in which a dedicated lecture-capture hardware appliance is the ideal solution. Read on as we outline fundamental questions and illustrate the pros, cons, and considerations for next-generation lecture capture solutions.
How do typical lecture capture installations look?
Lecture capture systems are designed specifically for capture and management of classroom content. They emerged to address the needs of educational institutions to record and archive content, compiling not just audio and video, but also PowerPoint® presentations, PDF files, Flash animations, video clips, web content, and other rich media into composite files. A typical lecture capture installation comprises certain main components:
- Cameras and microphones installed in classrooms, which capture video/audio sources (e.g., document cameras, microphones, presenter laptop) and transfer these signals to the recording platform
- A presentation platform that drives the PowerPoint presentation and/or other multimedia content
- A lecture capture system to record all assets and serve as the lynchpin of the installation
- A video management system (VMS) which processes and stores the lecture content, adding categories, metadata, and tags
- A learning management system (LMS) that functions as a portal through which students communicate with staff, view grades, and access lectures from the VMS
Schools require open, flexible video platforms that permit tailoring solutions to fit infrastructure needs and allow for easy growth over time. In most educational institutions, the process of establishing lecture capture capabilities begins with the selection of the VMS and LMS. Typically, the LMS and/or VMS are the initial foray of the educational institution into digital interfaces; they are chosen based on deployment options (e.g., cloud-based deployment or self-hosted), pricing models (e.g., open source, free, or paid licensing), level of support available, and a range of other considerations unique to each school environment. With VMS and LMS in place, schools can then explore options for how to expand the capabilities of their lecture capture installation. One easy method is through the addition of a hardware-based lecture capture appliance
What options exist for lecture capture?
In broad terms, lecture capture hardware is a system that is physically installed in the classroom, lecture hall, or training lab. The system is typically small enough to conceal within a lectern or desk, and offer a range of inputs for accommodating SDI and/or HDMI connections. The hardware itself can take one of two forms. One configuration is a general-purpose system, comprising a PC, I/O card, operating system (OS), lecture capture software, as well as other software applications.