These Release Notes contain a summary of changes made for the August 11-12, 2020 release of EchoVideo. For changes made in previous deployments, see the other Release Notes articles located in this Topic group, or contact support@echo360.com.
Upcoming Deployment Schedule
To accommodate the US Labor Day holiday, our typical two-week deployment schedule will skip the release that would otherwise be slated for the week of September 7, 2020.
Our deployment dates for the upcoming releases are as follows:
- August 11-12 (this one)
- August 25-26
- September 22-23 (four weeks from previous)
New Features
Embedded Polling and Interactive Media is here!
EchoVideo now allows instructors to take videos or audio media and embed polling questions into them. These embedded polls “gate” the media for student viewers, requiring the students to respond to the poll before they can continue viewing.
See Embedded Polling and Interactive Media – Overview as well as Polls and Polling Questions - Overview for more information.
For this first release of embedded polling, the interactive video media with embedded polls can only be published through your LMS/VLE. Instructors can embed interactive media into content windows the same way they embed videos now, through the EchoVideo easy embed button.
See Publishing Interactive Media for Student Viewing for more information.
EchoVideo has a new player for externally posted media that includes a transcript panel
EchoVideo now shows transcripts for video and audio media, including interactive media, when posted outside of EchoVideo. This means that if you publish a link or embed your media into your institution website or your LMS/VLE, and the media has a transcript associated with it, those transcripts are visible with the media and can even be downloaded.
See Viewing Content Outside of EchoVideo for details on the new video player.
Zoom Integration now allows Instructors to launch Zoom meetings from within EchoVideo
Institutions who configure a Zoom integration will now see a Zoom Meeting option in the Create menu for instructors. This allows them to automatically launch an instant Zoom meeting and have the session recorded and automatically posted to their Library.
See Launching a Zoom Meeting from EchoVideo.
Two Important Notes:
- If an institution has an existing integration, a Zoom Administrator must REINSTALL the current EchoVideo App from their Zoom account using the existing configuration token in EchoVideo.
See Upgrading your Zoom Integration for instructions. - If an instructor has selected to “opt out” of automatic ingestion of their Zoom recordings, they will NOT see the Zoom Meetings option. EchoVideo cannot provide automated access to launching Zoom if the recordings will not also be automatically ingested.
See Zoom Settings for your Account.
Enhancements
Adaptive Bitrate for Live Streams is here!
Live Streamed Classes now have adaptive bitrate playback (ABR) of content by default. The player will automatically monitor and dynamically adjust the quality of the live stream depending on the viewer’s connection speed.
“Opt In” for Zoom meeting auto-ingestion is now available to be set for institutions upon request
Currently, when an institution sets up a Zoom integration for EchoVideo, the default is that all meetings recorded to the cloud using a Zoom account that matches the user’s EchoVideo account are automatically copied from the Zoom cloud to the user’s EchoVideo Library. Instructors have the ability to Opt Out of this automatic ingestion if they want to through their Account Settings page.
EchoVideo now has the ability to SWITCH that default for institutions upon request. This change would mean that Zoom meetings are NOT automatically ingested unless the Instructor selects to Opt IN via their Account Settings page. Institutions must contact EchoVideo Support at support@echo360.com and request this change. See Default Opt In/Opt Out Settings for Automatic Zoom Ingestion.
Device Software Update: 6.0.696733390
NOTE: The Device Software Update entry is only included when an update is being deployed; the legacy software version is NOT likely to change often, and it is not included if no updates are being deployed.
Fixes
- If an instructor changes the correct answer marked on an activity slide/poll after students have already responded, we now update the correct/incorrect analytics of the existing responses to accurately reflect the newly added/changed correct answer.
- Resolved an issue instigated by a Zoom change that caused problems with new system registration. This was deployed as a hotfix.
- Resolved an issue with AutoPlay/AutoMute for embedded videos so that those settings are again being respected on playback.
- Resolve an issue where CSV imports or API generation of recurring schedules would fail if the Start Date was in the past, even if the end date was in the future.
- Made a change to the Medias API so that the createdAt and updatedAt fields now return properly formatted timestamps.
- Resolved an iOS app display issue surrounding the video upload screen when “dark mode” is selected for the system. NOTE that this fix is pending approval and release of the updated iOS App to the App Store.
- Some adjustments have been made to the bandwidth limiter on the Pro, Pod, and Universal Capture (UC) on the Mac so that we now allow for captures to generate unusually large files rather than failing an input or the capture altogether. This helps to ensure we successfully record "noisy" video signals successfully without dropping the input.
- Resolved an issue with connecting to open WiFi networks on the Pod.
- Resolved an issue with HDMI inputs potentially dropping on the Pro.
- Resolved an issue where audio was not being captured correctly when using an IP Camera as an audio source.
- Resolved an issue where the estimated time until a live stream is available could potentially increase in the UC UI.
- The Universal Capture UI now accurately displays the name of an IP Camera if it had been edited on the IP Camera Configurations page.
- Resolved an issue where some UC captures were failing to process successfully.
- Content generated from MS Streams (.webm files) now upload and process successfully.
- Resolved an issue with the cursor not being captured in UC.
Note: Resolving this issue required us to revert a previous fix listed in the 7/14 Release Notes where the cursor was not being captured correctly from Adobe Acrobat Reader. Universal Capture now captures your cursor during regular use but will capture it as a black box when using Acrobat. We are continuing to work on a permanent fix for the Acrobat issue.