In an academic and research environment like Stanford, content providers have found all sorts of uses for streaming media using ITSS Streaming Media services.
Who's Using It
Today, many Stanford web sites are now providing links to stream course lectures, seminars and conferences to broaden their audience and allow students to review material. Many research sites are providing links to their streamed content as it relates to their projects and results. Department and administrative sites are providing streamed content related to their services as well as training and informational material for staff.
Why Not Do It Yourself?
While anyone with the appropriate hardware and software can probably set up streaming media from their web site, such equipment and applications are not found routinely in Stanford departments. It involves many hours of staff resources, streaming server licensing fees and ongoing server support. Additionally, the amount of media you may want to offer (a few video clips, an hour class, etc.) might not justify such a large amount of staff time and financial investment. For this reason since 1998, ITSS has been providing a centralized streaming service for members of the Stanford community to stream media related to their own web sites. And best of all, it is very easy to get started.
How It Works
ITSS staff will take your content, encode it and stream the encoded file from one of ITSS's streaming servers. Staff will provide you with a URL that you can include as a link on your web site to allow your clients to view your content over the Internet. There are a number of other options that ITSS staff can explain and they can make recommendations depending on your specific use of the technology.
For example, if you'd like to combine various separate media together in a single streamed file (e.g., video with PowerPoint sides, text, graphics, and/or HTML links), you can also have ITSS "author" a streaming file generally known as rich media content. Type or copy this http://vodreal.stanford.edu/genome/040413.smil into your browser and see a presentation related to the Human Genome Project at Stanford. Or you can visit the Stanford Humanities Center and select the Steven Pinker program to see how they are using slides, graphics and video together.
"The Humanities and Human Nature" lecture.
In addition, if you provide media content in which viewers may be interested in several complete programs or only certain parts of the content, you should consider ITSS's Indexing Service. By adding keywords to your audio and video content, you can make your media searchable, which means it will be more useful and easier to use for your viewers.
For example, if you visit the Hebrew at Stanford Multimedia web site, select Search on the top navigation bar, and enter keywords such as: desk, table, people or restaurants. This will return various clip results so you can see how faculty are using streaming media along with Indexed searchable content to teach foreign language to Stanford students.
Another very popular use of ITSS's Indexing service is Silicon Genesis. If you visit their web site and enter keywords such as: moore, processors, fairchild or intel, the clip results you get back are a unique collection of oral history interviews with pioneers of the semiconductor industry.
Why Is It Useful?
The above examples show just a few ways that streaming media offers advantages over the traditional methods of providing content to your viewers. With this in mind, here are some other reasons why streaming is very useful as a media delivery technology:
- Easy access to content: You provide a link on your web page that your clients can easily view at their convenience using free easy-to-download player software.
- Faster content delivery to your audience: Your video and audio starts playing quickly because streamed content doesn't need to be downloaded to the user's computer.
- Improved content quality: The software is designed specifically for delivering audio and video content to users ranging from low to high-speed internet connections.
For More Information
If you would like more information about ITSS Streaming Media services, please contact Jeff Bornstein at 650-723-4026 or visit the ITSS Streaming Media web site at:
