News

2008-04-30 15:25:25

MediaMatrix 2.30 has been released. A detailed Changelog is available here.

Other than numerous bugfixes and internal reorganization, the most prominent new future is full Unicode support. Many of you have tried to add files with foreign characters in the file names or descriptions, with varying degrees of success.

MediaMatrix is now multibyte-character-clean the whole way through, which means that whatever you can paste into the entry fields under Edit File should be stored in the database correctly, and retrieved correctly.

This includes file names. If you want to name a file:

‘АБВГДЕЖЗИ’ “丐 丑 丒 专 且 丕 世 丗 丘 丙 业 丛 东 丝”'unicode—test'.flv

then feel free.

You can also search with those characters as well. Be careful what you search for, however. For instance it makes sense to search for 专 and find only files with that character in the description or title or filename. However, our database collates characters that are “modified” with their original character. This means that when searching, o = ó = ö = ò = õ, for example.

RSS feeds are now working properly as well, thanks to the full Unicode compliance.

Other new features:

2008-02-28 17:47:18

MediaMatrix v2.25 has been released. Many things have been added since our last release, a detailed Changelog is available here.

New features include:

2008-02-25 17:46:50

MediaMatrix v2.01 has been released. This is a hotfix release fixing a bug that occurs with some newer Camtasia 5 Flash Export packages. We’ve also added a note in the Edit File screen about our maximum file/package upload size, which is currently 1GB. If you need to upload larger files, please contact us via Request Support and we’ll make arrangements with you.

2007-04-03 17:45:57

MediaMatrix v2.0 has been released. Many things have been added since our last release, a detailed Changelog is available here.

2006-10-26 17:43:53

MediaMatrix v1.45 has been released. Many things have been added since our last release, a detailed Changelog is available here. The new features include support for Camtasia 4 and a redesigned contact form. Now that downloadable files are available, we have added a major feature that builds on this:

RSS Generator

Generates Podcast-compliant RSS streams in four (4) different ways:

?published_file_id= per qualifying stream.
?file_id= all qualifying streams attached if file, recursively if directory.
?username= all qualifying streams under username's home directory.
?campus_id=,
?semester_id=,
?subject_id=,
?course_id=,
?section_id= 		all qualifying streams published to whatever course sections are specified. Only one of the five fields is need to activate this mode – blank fields act as wildcards.

A stream qualifies if it is marked downloadable, which requires that the content be either owner copyright or public domain.

http://mediamatrix.tamu.edu/generate_rss.php?username=homelandsecurity
All streams published by Homeland Security
http://mediamatrix.tamu.edu/generate_rss.php?campus_id=1&semester_id=2006C&subject_id=CHEM&course_id=697&section_id=606
All streams published to CHEM 697.606, College Station campus, Fall 2006
http://mediamatrix.tamu.edu/generate_rss.php?subject_id=CHEM
All streams published to any CHEM class, any campus, any semester

Plus, if you thought that you couldn't podcast something to a specific course section because of the authentication required, think again! We have integrated HTTP authentication with the Mediamatrix/SIMS database. This means that if you publish something to CHEM 697.606 and mark it downloadable, someone can load this link into iTunes (or another RSS reader):

http://mediamatrix.tamu.edu/generate_rss.php?campus_id=1&semester_id=2006C&subject_id=CHEM&course_id=697&section_id=606

and they will be asked for their NetID/password. After this is entered successfully, and they are registered with the specified class, they will have access to download any downloadable streams published to that section.

Most RSS readers (including iTunes) will periodically check this feed for updates. This means that next time you publish something to this section, the student will get it without changing the URL! This also goes for feeds that are based on a username or a directory/file id.

The URLs are a bit complicated to piece together by hand, so we've created links throughout the site to help. Every time you see this icon: RSS, you have a shortcut to the RSS feed that it references. Simply copy the shortcut and paste it into WebCT or email it to your students.

As far as the SIMS-directed RSS feeds, you'll see those next to your course schedule below.

You may see RSS icons next to something that result in a podcast with no items in it. This can mean either:

  1. The file/directory/SIMS section does not have any qualifying (i.e. downloadable non-third party copyright) streams published. That's ok, as soon as a qualifying stream is published, it will appear. This way a URL can be given out in say a syllabus, before content is actually available.
  2. The file that the stream ultimately refers to may not be in a format that your RSS reader supports. We allow podcasting of all file types, and a full-featured RSS newsreader should support passing the link to the appropriate application. However some readers do not. In particular, iTunes will completely ignore the stream unless it's in MP4, MOV, MP3, AIFF, WAV, AAC or other Quicktime-supported formats.

2006-09-08 17:40:08

MediaMatrix v1.41 has been released. Changelog is available here. This update patch adds an oft-requested feature, the ability to mark streams as downloadable. The next major version (2.0) is a large development project, and we didn't want to make people wait until then for this feature. Only streams that are not third-party copyright may be marked downloadable. A link to the download will be presented in the stream viewer interface.

Several security measures have been added while implementing this, in order to make sure that third-party copyright-protected content is not leaked. Because of this, the copyright type must be set on a file before it can be published. We've made an effort to go through the database and mark the appropriate copyright type for any files that were missing it; however if it is missing and you try to view a published stream you will receive a warning about it being deactivated. You will not be able to publish new links or edit old links on the files until the copyright status is cleared up. You may, however, delete the old links.

Also, Mediamatrix supports several file types that cannot be streamed in a copyright-protected manner. An example of this would be a Camtasia Flash presentation. This is fine unless it happens to be third-party copyright, in which case these streams will be deactivated as well.

2006-08-15 17:39:29

We've updated our file storage to a new 3TB disk array, up from our previous 800GB. We are currently using 774GB of storage.

2006-08-02 17:38:57

MediaMatrix v1.4 has been released. This will be the last release of the v1 series, except possibly for emergency patches. All further major development effort is going towards v2.0. Changelog is available here. Highlights include:

2006-05-17 17:38:28

MediaMatrix v1.36p4 has been released. This emergency bugfix takes care of a problem with Internet Explorer's ability to download files through SSL.

2006-04-25 17:37:41

MediaMatrix v1.36p3 has been released. Changelog is available here.

2006-04-20 17:37:22

MediaMatrix v1.36p2 has been released. This is just a quick patch to take care of a NetID authentication issue.

2006-04-13 17:36:56

MediaMatrix v1.36p1 has been released. Changelog is available here. Highlights include:

2006-04-07 17:36:26

MediaMatrix v1.36 has been released. Changelog is available here. Highlights include:

2006-03-07 17:36:04

MediaMatrix v1.35p1 emergency patch has been released. This patch fixes some bugs that involved proxies publishing files for other users.

2006-03-06 17:35:27

MediaMatrix v1.35 has been released. Changelog is available here.

2006-02-27 17:34:53

MediaMatrix v1.31p1 emergency patch been released. The type information being returned from the CIS LDAP servers changed, which caused problems for students watching SIMS-published streams. This patch addresses this issue as well as add SSL support throughout the entire site.

2006-01-27 17:34:18

MediaMatrix v1.31 has been released.

2006-01-19 17:31:40

MediaMatrix v1.3 has been released. Highlights include:

2005-09-21 17:30:27

MediaMatrix v1.2 has been released. Highlights include:

2005-01-25 17:28:27

MediaMatrix v1.15 has been released. Highlights include:

2005-01-14 17:26:54

MediaMatrix v1.1 has been released. Highlights include:
 
Printing status messages.