Kaltura Updates Open Source Video Management App
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 12/14/10
Kaltura has updated its open source online video content management application. Version 3.0 of the Kaltura Video Platform Community Edition adds a new cloud-based deployment and offers transcoding options specifically for mobile devices.
The Community Edition of the software provides the ability for organizations to manage, publish, and syndicate their videos and run analytics and do audience measurement. Colleges and universities can integrate it into their learning management system or a campus video portal through community-built extensions. This version can be hosted by the customer or hosted in a cloud environment. An "On-Prem" edition that has a license fee associated with it provides Kaltura support and maintenance.
With the cloud-based deployment features, publishers can start an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance of the content management platform, according to the company, in less than 15 minutes. Kaltura said it expected to support additional cloud environments soon.
Version 3.0 includes H.264 and 3GP video transcoding flavors optimized for mobile devices, to let users view videos on Nokia, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry handsets.
The new release integrates the open source Sphinx search server to speed up searching and also lets publishers bolster their video metadata with customized fields. A code generator helps developers select specific API services and actions from within the Kaltura Test Console to generate the relevant code for them to copy and paste into their work.
The company claims 6,000 developers for its video application, which is used by Cornell University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia, among others.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.