Transcript DragonDrop - Home | Drexel University

An Introduction
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Introduction
Logging in from D1
Raison d'être
RSS and Podcasting
DragonDrop is…
What does it do?
Upload
Available Output Format
Output Quality Settings
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Capture
Playlist
Media
Tracking
Options
Search
Under the Hood
Supported Browsers
For more Information…
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DragonDrop is a home-grown, internally
developed Drexel software project.
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Faculty and staff first began using an early
version of the system in 2004.
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First web-based version became available in
2006.
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Presented as a case study in the 2007
Campus Technology “Innovators” issue
http://one.drexel.edu
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This project was developed as a response to the
need to minimize the staff handling time
necessary to encode and publish rich media
destined for web delivery, and to make access to
Drexel’s current archive of web-based ondemand rich media as simple as possible
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It was determined that the first issue could be
addressed by automating the encoding and
publishing process. The second would be
addressed by using modern content syndication
techniques.
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RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is XML data, or
metadata, which describes or contains content
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Podcasting describe a new web broadcasting
paradigm that combines RSS with web-friendly
audio (MP3) and video (MP4) files
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DragonDrop makes syndication and podcasting
easy by publishing media and metadata to the
web, but that’s not all…
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The brainchild of John Morris, the director of
Academic Technology Innovation at IRT
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Aka Rich Media Conversion Project (RMCP)
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Available on-demand only to faculty and staff
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Likely to be offered to partner schools and
external institutions in the near future
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Capture : Author rich media content
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Drop : Upload from the Web application
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Encode : Convert to and from a variety of web
ready formats
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Publish : Push to the web as HTML and RSS
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Play : Access your published content from
anywhere on the web
 Users can select rich
media or text files from
their hard drives to upload
 Users enter metadata that
describes the file being
uploaded
 Users select output
formats to be created
from the input source.
 The output types provided
are optimized formats for
web delivery.
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MP3 (.mp3)
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Popular audio format used for music
and podcasts (iTunes/iPod/iPhone
compatible)
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MP4 (.mp4)
Video format used for music and
podcasts (iTunes/iPod/iPhone
compatible)
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3GPP (.3gp)
Video format optimized for cell
phone delivery
Flash Video (.flv)
Adobe video format—can be played
using DragonDrop Flash player
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Real Media (.rm)
Real Networks streaming video
format
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Window Media (.wmv,
.wma)
Microsoft streaming video and audio
formats—can be played using
DragonDrop Silverlight player
 DragonDrop offers many
encoding possibilities to users,
in terms of outputs and quality
 This chart summarizes available
output encoding formats with the
quality settings used for encoding
 The main elements that contribute
to better quality to be aware of:
 height and width (resolution)
 data rate (bandwidth)
 Users can author content
directly in the DragonDrop
web application.
 The Capture interface hooks
into the video camera and
microphone on a user’s
computer (if available)
 Videos can be recorded
and then automatically
published to a user’s
capture playlist
 Capture videos are
published in Flash Video
(.flv) format
 Playlists are lists of links
 Playlist items can be links to
items created or uploaded
into DragonDrop, or external
links (websites, images, etc)
 Through the Playlist tab
users can create and
manage their Playlists, add,
edit, delete items, re-order
items, and edit metadata
 Playlists are automatically
available to users as HTML
and RSS
 Playlists can be password
protected by their creators
 Rich media content can be
managed in the Media tab
once it's been ingested
 Users can edit:
 media object metadata
 preview their files
 delete files
 add files to playlists
 Media display is sortable by
title, size or format
 Users can track the
progress of media they’ve
uploaded into the system
as it processes
 Once jobs complete, users
receive email notification
with links to the item and
the host playlist
 Items will appear in your
tracking history for 30 days
 In the Options tab users
can manage personal
preferences, including:
 Output templates,
which bundle together
multiple file encoding
outputs for reuse
 Surrogate Users, who
can be designated to
act on a user’s behalf in
DragonDrop
 Users can also manage:
 Notification Email(s)
 Personal Profile
 Registered Phones
 Playlist and Media tabs allow
users to search across
media and playlist content
 Users can only view their
own content, and content
designated as shared by
other authors
 Users can view and add
search results to playlists
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DragonDrop was developed as a composite of
various applications and technologies
including:
▪ ASP.NET 3. 5 (C#), Perl, Flash, XML, JavaScript (AJAX)
▪ Windows Server 2008
▪ IIS 7, SQL Server 2005, Real Helix Server, Flash Media
Sever
▪ Lucene
▪ Sorenson Squeeze, TechSmith Relay, TextAloud,
PDFCamp, VideoCharge, Flash Syndrome
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Update your browser periodically!
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Complex web applications, like DragonDrop
will perform better in newer browsers.
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Best experience in:
▪ Firefox 3
▪ Internet Explorer 7
▪ Safari 3
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For more information, visit the DragonDrop
homepage at:
http://drexel.edu/irt/coursetools/toolList/dragonDrop/
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Email your comments or questions to:
[email protected]
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Visit the Online Learning Team in Korman
Center, or call: 215-895-1224.