Behind the Scenes: SURFnet Video Portal The next generation of streaming video services for research and higher education in The Netherlands Egon Verharen Innovation manager Advanced Services

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet The national computer network for higher education and research in the Netherlands –150 member institutions (universities, colleges, research centres, academic hospitals and scientific libraries) –approx users (students, employees) –SURFnet is a subsidiary company of the SURF Foundation

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet 5: advanced wide area network Backbone: 2x 10 Gbit/s Client connections: up to 1 Gbit/s Multicast enabled Native IPv4/IPv6

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Not only sufficient bandwidth towards the institutions students Mbit/s at home in fiber-to- the-dormitory initiatives Growing amount of wide open ADSL users at home (SurfSnel ADSL): 2-8 Mbit/s GEth sw-eth

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Where it started Dutch ADSL Trial – technical pilot in Amsterdam appr residential users (20 % student) –KPN Telecom, NOB Interactive, SURFnet –early adopters, heavy internet-users –fast Internet and video- and audio-on-demand services all based on internet-protocols News on demand Edutainment Polygoon (NIBG) Weather on demand Clips Public television (live & delayTV) Film trailers Events

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Where it started and sometimes stopped….: SURFnet NOB (SNOB) pilot Only for member institutions > 8Mbit/s delayTV (watch TV one week in return) Live Ned 1, 2 en 3 (Dutch Public Televison) First experiments with DVD quality (MPEG-2) Service had to stop because of rights management of assets! but….. returned in 2003 with FirstMileTV (supported by all public broadcasting companies)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop low-end streaming service for member institutions RealMedia, Windows Media and MPEG-1 through Xing Streamworks and Bitcast plugin for Real, Xing mp3 URL clickable streams (can be added to webpages) 500 MB free storage live broadcasting (on request) Where it started: SURFnet Audio- and Videohosting service

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Where it started: pilot (2001) first educational streaming pilot University Groningen (RUG), Netherlands Institute of Sound and Visions (NIBG) and SURFnet 120 hr streaming video and 60 hr audio selected by RUG, provided by NIBG and streamed by SURFnet AV hosting service used for education Themes/courses: disaster journalism, political propaganda in movies, radio and television, and historical movie-analyses Integration in Blackboard Video editing tools (virtuele snijmachine) URL:

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Conclusions pilot Streaming makes available educational content easier and more efficiently Streaming technology and internet network infrastructures are ready for educational usage of streaming Order and delivery process needs improvement Multi-disciplinary approach is essential Teachers and students need new skills and support Follow up (2003): DAVIDEON project (1000 hr) development of educational scenarios

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Collaboration Projects and knowledge exchange in Webstroom group

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Webstroom projects Round 2 ( ) 5 selected projects –Faculty on human movement science (VU Amterdam) –Video reflection for student ( graduate school on teaching and learning UvA) – Video registration of competences (Small Bussines and Retail INHolland) – Cultural Antropology (Leiden University) – Social Law (Tilburg University) more emphasis on evaluation of educational aspects

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop And much more projects Davideon (Groningen University, Windesheim, VU Amsterdam, NIBG) Digiclass ( NHL, Institute Education & Communication (IEC),University of Groningen, Universitary centre for teacher training college (UCLO) Digital language classroom (Groningen, Leiden, Utrecht and Tilburg Universities) ……. and much more

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet Video Portal: since 2003 Combining the results of projects and other initiatives in a next generation streaming video environment –Production –Distribution –Information retrieval –Online video editing and conversion tools –Manuals and instructional content, workshop –Community (forum)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet guide/manual for producing streaming video Manual in PDF format –UvA, VU and UVT –Production aspects (storyboards, recording and editing audio and video) –Publishing and distribution (on the internet) –Copyright issues –Examples Workshops

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Workshop

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SVP distribution: Storage of streaming files Windows Media Real media Quicktime MPEG streaming server: Kasenna Mediabase XMP –MPEG-1 –MPEG-2 –(ISMA) MPEG-4 1 GB storage for free/institute SURFnet streaming servers with file management environment

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Information retrieval: Search and browse facilities Not easy to find streaming files Solution: attach metadata tag with descriptive information to streaming file based on Qualified Dublin Core standard

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SVP Metadata model Title Title.Alternative Creator Subject Description Description.Abstract Publisher Contributor Language Relation Coverage.Spatial Coverage.Temporal Rights Date.Created Date.Valid Date.Available Date.Issued Type Format.Extent Format.Medium Identifier Source Element printed in green are required fields

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Information retrieval: Search engine organization Y organization X SURFnet Search engine streaming server Metadata input

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Information retrieval: end user web interface

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop File protection Authentication layer to make streaming files only available to selective user group: Hostname based authentication (no need to distribute username – password to end-users) 1.File is only available to one or more organizations that are part of the SURFnet community. 2.File is available to all SURFnet member organizations 3.File is publicly available (no file protection)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop File protection: Admin interface

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Example of file protection end user screen

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet media conversie service AVI MPEG-2 MPEG-1 MPEG-4 Real WMV /ASF Quicktime input formatsoutput formats Convert source file to streaming media file types through web application

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Transcoding tool: interface

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Editing tool: selection Virtual Cutting Machine Developed by Andre Rosendaal (Groningen University) Select part of file Reference to the selection in the original file Fragment

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Editing tool: playlists Combine several streaming fragments into one stream File Y selection 2 playlist A File X selection 1 File Z selection 3

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Editing tool: interface /s/surfnet/real/tnc2003.rm

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Editing tool: interface

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SVP asset management

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SURFnet Video Portal website

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Enhancements: SVP2 Person and Realm based access control –Through institutes authentication services Presentation tools More mediatypes Improvements in batch upload, batch asset mgt

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Person-based access control Using RADIUS infrastructure or A-Select (authentication selection infrastructure)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Person based access control

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SVP2 mediafile protection

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop SVP2 asset management

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Batch mgt

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop International Terena TF-Netcast Task Force Creation of a portal for live-streaming announcements Terena TF-stream Task Force streaming recommendations for audio/video streaming and conferencing over the Internet (ended 2002) JISC and ALT (new streaming pilots) Internet2 (super high quality streaming)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Related topics (not discussed here) videoconferencing (also part of the Webstroom community); VC has its own dynamics SURFnet TV, education TV, TV channels Live streaming of events (conferences, seminars, lectures)

©2004 SURFnet, SURA/ViDe Digital Video workshop Conclusion/success factors Technology and networks are ready knowledge dissemination inside and between institutions essential Stimulate small scale pilots (technology education) Multi-disciplinary approach essential Building the chain between: Students Teachers Learning technologists Librarians AV specialists Network technologists Content providers NREN