These Deployment Notes contain a summary of the changes made to the EchoVideo platform for the February 8-9, 2022 production deployments. For changes made in previous deployments, see the other Release/Deployment Notes articles located here in the online resource center, or contact support@echo360.com.
Special Notice
In order to accommodate the President’s Day holiday in the US, EchoVideo will not be deploying an update on February 23-24, 2022, as would ordinarily happen with our standard two-week schedule. The next currently scheduled deployment is March 8-9, 2022.
New and Improved!
Introducing Collections
Groups have become Collections, a better way to organize, share and collaborate with content. With Collections you’ll notice improved membership management and easier access to content in your LMS, with more enhancements coming soon.
For more information, see Collections - Overview
Consolidated Analytics
Our new top-level navigation link for analytics allows you to quickly access analytics for any media in your LMS/VLE course, whether it was added through an EchoVideo section, through the content editor, or through a direct link in your LMS/VLE. Existing instructor dashboard analytics in the EchoVideo section remain the same. The gateway API for your LMS must be configured by an administrator to enable this quick-access link.
For more information, see Viewing Consolidated Media Analytics for LMS/VLE Courses.
See also our API configuration guides for Blackboard, Canvas, and Moodle.
New Question and Answer report in the Reporting API
Our new Question and Answer report in the Reporting API adds history information for each question and answer. Now you can report on edited or deleted questions and answers, in addition to seeing when they were first posted. The original report is also still available – existing API calls to that version of the report remain the same.
New Public API for Custom Thumbnail
This feature adds a second, automated way to include a custom thumbnail image to your video file. The original method of using the Media Editor still remains, and now you can upload custom thumbnail images programmatically. The thumbnail is what users see on the media tile in the Library or in a Collection, and what administrators see in the Captures page for media. The thumbnail is also the preview image that users see prior to playback, for media posted or embedded outside of EchoVideo.
Accessibility Enhancements
We’ve made two accessibility enhancements in the embedded media player to improve the experience of searching the read-along transcript panel and the experience of downloading media content for all users, whether they use assistive technology with their browser or not:
- Transcript search now provides clear navigation and ‘start from here’ playback options when navigating multiple search results. We have also added aria-live notifications to ensure this new functionality is accessible for screen readers
- When downloading content, additional information is provided to all users to make it clear which source files are available, how big they are, and the media type. to prevent confusion about the file being requested for download.
Device Software Update: 6.0.743908391
Bugs and other Issues Addressed
- Maximum duration now enforced in the Media Editor - When inserting media that results in a capture longer than the 8-hour maximum, we now alert the user that they will have to trim or cut down the content in order to save their changes.
- More thumbnails in the Media Editor timeline - We have made some improvements to how (and how many) thumbnails are generated for display on the timeline of the Media Editor for content moving forward. Users should now see more images on the timeline, especially for shorter captures, to help identify areas where edits need to be made.
- The media drop-down list in the Polls tab of the Consolidated Analytics page are now sorted by embed date for LMS media and class date for EchoVideo course media.
- Clicking Confirm repeatedly for a post in the Discussion panel no longer creates multiple entries.
- Resolved an issue surrounding the visibility of thumbnails in the Media Editor when editing dual-track media.