Apple WWDC 08: Podcasting Everything

1. Podcasting Everything
Stanford School of Medicine
Andy Wasklewicz
Technology Architect

2. SoM History of Classroom Capture
• 1970’s - Captured on 3/4 inch tape
• 1980’s - Capture on VHS
• 1988 - Streaming video via Real
• 2007 - REAL downloadable
• 2008 - Podcast Producer/Episode Engine prototype

3. Classroom Capture Details
• Downloadable video
! Courses
! Grand rounds
! Special educational events
• 8000 events/year in educational spaces
• 2500 hours/year of classroom capture content

4. New Educational Facility

5. Students
• Level of expectation
• Students demanding multiple formats
• Requesting video anywhere, anytime
• 85% of students own laptop
• 83% own portable media device

6. “Why limit the capture system to
classroom content, let’s open it
to the entire school.”
SoM Administration

7. Requirements
• Must serve current and future facilities
• Classroom capture materials must be on line by 5pm each day
• Flexibility for production, programming and IT staffs to extend
and integrate into current infrastructure
• System capable of producing both standards based and
proprietary formats
• Integration with Learning Management Systems and classroom
scheduling

8. Prototype System
Podcast Producer Episode Engine/Xgrid Cluster
Primary Master Primary Master
Failover Failover
Metadata
Failover
Publish Shared Storage Media Asset Management
iTunesU
Youtube
File Server

9. Encoding Benchmarks
Source Output Time
56 minute class
640x480 m4v
12.3 GB DV file
XGrid 640x480 480x320 m4v 2 hours 37 minutes
176x144 3gp
30 fps
56 minute class 640x480 m4v
12.3 GB DV file 480x320 m4v
Episode Engine 640x480 176x144 3gp 6 minute 30 seconds
30 fps m4a Audio
Encoding/Storage Hardware:
(4) 8 Core XServes
8 GB RAM per
4 GB Fiber Cards
4.8 TB SAS Promise RAID

10. Sample Output
Course MedCast
Documentary Procedures

11. Estimated Output
• Currently average 25 podcasts a week
• Expectation of more than doubling output in 2009-2010

12. Workflows
• iTunesU
! Public
! Private
! Community
• Youtube
• SoM Web Portal
• Learning Management Systems
• Internal portals

13. Unique deployments
• LKSC master control rooms
• Simulation centers
• Inter campus sharing

14. Next Steps
• Finalize Telestream Episode Engine integration
• Final Cut Server for intermediate archive
• Control/switching systems integration
• Explore integration of screen capture tools (i.e. Screenflow)
• Berkeley Opencast systems