Films on Demand

End-User Interface Tour & Issues21 October 2010

Films on Demand• “Films On Demand is a state-of-the-art streaming video platform that makes it

easier than ever to incorporate outstanding educational programs from Films Media Group into your content management systems, online lesson plans, distance learning courseware, or electronic card catalog system. Most titles are available for individual lease or purchase, or you can buy access to large curriculum-focused collections on a subscription basis.”

• Streaming of educational films• 6000 titles, adding ~600 annually• Will work with institutions to help them convert their own collection (?)

Authentication• Single username/password per institution, shared with faculty or students on

limited basis• IP address ranges• Ezproxy• Referrer – “Referrer authentication provides institutions with a simple way to

identify users from a specific institution based on a URL and then automatically route them to their available authorized video content from Films On Demand.”

Delivery• User can choose between Flash player (400 & 700Kbps, 1.5Mbps), Windows Media

Player (300Kbps), and Quicktime player(300Kbps), embedded in browser windows.• Not all choices are available for all videos.• Close captioning available for many titles.• Videos can be viewed in total or as predefined segments. On the segments tab,

there is a descriptive paragraph for each segment. However, the players (except WMP) behave strangely in segment view, making it impossible to move the slider and navigate reliably.

• Seek time is very slow in Quicktime player. Best performance is WMP on Windows.• Only the WMP displays an elapsed time counter. No player displays time offset

when you move the slider.

Playlists• To create and save playlists, you have to create a user account, supplying you email

address• Playlists consist only of segments, though it is possible to add all the segments

from a video to a playlist in one action