SU Video Showcase provides online repository for streaming video, highlights campus creativity

SU Video Showcase provides online repository for streaming video, highlights campus creativityJune 18, 2007Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

Syracuse University students, faculty and staff use video to share ideas, information and creativity. They can now share their efforts more broadly — with the entire University and with those beyond the campus borders — through the new SU Video Showcase, which provides a platform for uploading and streaming video content.

The SU Video Showcase (http://video.syr.edu) is powered by a streaming media service and video content management system called Ensemble Video. Ensemble Video (http://ensemblevideo.com/) was developed by a group of staff and faculty from the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Information Technology and Services (ITS) and several other campus units.

Late last year, Ensemble Video received a grant from the Central New York Community Foundation to create the CNY Video Showcase (http://cnyvideoshowcase.com/), a community-wide shared video archive also powered by Ensemble Video. This enables educational groups, arts groups, community service agencies and other nonprofit community and government organizations the ability to easily place video content on public and private websites. Many nonprofit groups in Central New York are participating in the CNY Video Showcase project, including Partners for Arts Education, the Jowonio School, the Westcott Community Center, the Syracuse Peace Council, the Onondaga Historical Association and the Delavan Art Gallery.

“Ensemble Video is a tool that can lay the foundation for a number of collaborative, Web-based video initiatives both on and off campus, which enable people to share knowledge and ideas in ways that eliminate the barriers of distance and time,” says Paul Gandel, SU’s vice president for information technology and services/chief information officer. “It is an example of how we can share the expertise and scholarship of our faculty and staff with the broader community.”

The SU Video Showcase is already in use by several campus groups to promote academic programs and events, to provide a platform for student-created videos, and to archive scholarly presentations by guest lecturers and SU faculty. All of the videos are accessible via the Internet to the global community.

Video can be uploaded to the SU Video Showcase by clicking the “Submit Video” button, filling out the online form, and attaching the video file. All files are reviewed before being published to the SU Video Showcase site.

SU campus and community groups have also begun using Ensemble Video streaming media services on their own websites to meet internal training, educational and communications needs, to launch public awareness campaigns, or to provide information about their services to the larger community. Ensemble Video services are currently available at no cost to SU campus groups and to not-for-profit organizations participating in the CNY Video Showcase project.

“With Ensemble Video, we provide a streaming media infrastructure that can be used on any internal or external website,” says Andy Covell, director of information technology in the Whitman School. “With a few simple mouse clicks, you can upload video content to your website, to a website you share with another group or organization, or to a community video archive, such as the SU Video Showcase and the CNY Video Showcase.”

Syracuse University recently licensed the Ensemble Video software to a startup company called Symphony Video Inc., which Covell heads.

Further information about the SU Video Showcase, the CNY Video Showcase project and Ensemble Video streaming media services is available on the Web at http://ensemblevideo.com or by contacting Covell at 443-3054.