SAFARI Montage^® Version 2.3

Downloadable Content

• Fixed a "No Volume" error that appeared when attempting to download content from a WAN Manager Child server. This only occured on items in packages that where active locally and were assigned from the Parent server.
• Download button has more intelligence in WAN scenarios. On schools with mixed-format packages where one format is remote and one is local, it will now download the local format regardless of the user's player preference.

Permanent Links

• Enhanced Permanent Links - Permanent Links in WAN Manager environments will now play from the nearest server on your subnet.

Selective Video Streaming

• A number of bug fixes and minor enhancements

Search

• Improved Search Performance.

Standards

• Improved Standards search performance.

Dashboard

• Improved Dashboard performance.

Content Packages

This release supports the following content packages. All packages listed are available in QuickTime and Windows Media formats.

Video

• Core K-8
• Core K-8 American Overseas
• Core K-8 Canadian
• Core 9-12
• Core 9-12 American Overseas
• Core 9-12 Canadian
• Core K-12
• Core K-12 American Overseas
• Schlessinger K-8 Additional
• Reading Rainbow
• Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
• Almanac Newsreel
• Middle School / Junior High Supplement NEW!

Stills

• Schlessinger Image Library 1

Error on Search Page While Having No Active Playlist

Errors sometimes appeared when attempting to perform certain functions on the search page while having no active playlist. These errors have been fixed.

Selective Video Streaming

Improvements to Selective Video Streaming (SVS) include:

• SVS functions remain available even when all content packages are expired.
• Deactivating SVS add-on leaves school streaming settings intact.
• When forcing settings to a WAN Manager Child Server and the SVS add-on is inactive on the Parent Server, the admin may continue to enable/disable SVS for Child Schools.
• When adding a new stream, all Child Schools with an active SVS add-on now appear in Schools drop-down list on the Schools page.

CreationStation

Fixed issue where all playlist items were being converted to bookmarks when a secondary, matching-runtime video format was uploaded. Items are still converted to bookmarks when runtimes do not match.

Expansion Server

Stabilized and accelerated the sync process.

Image Thumbnails on Expansion Server

Occasionally, a thumbnail image will not generate for your uploaded image on Expansion Server. Once you upload an image file to a server in the Expansion Server cluster, verify that the image thumbnail shows on the search page. If there is no thumbnail for your image, delete the item and upload the image again.

Missing Dashboard Panels with Selective Video Streaming

The Playlist and Recent Media Dashboard panels will not appear when you are logged as an LDAP user to a server with packaged content only (no CreationStation add-on) with Selective Video Streaming active. This will be attended to in the next release.

Apple Safari 1.0 Web Browser no Longer Supported

To increase performance, the SAFARI Montage Dashboard now uses a technology called "AJAX". Apple Safari 1.0 does not support this technology so this browser version can no longer be used to operate SAFARI Montage. Apple began supporting this technology with the release of Safari 1.2. If you use the Safari web browser, we recommend using version 1.2 or greater. Another alternative is to use Firefox 1.0 or higher.

Multilanguage Audio Support

• SAFARI Montage now supports videos containing alternate language tracks. Certain future content package offerings will take advantage of this feature and offer Spanish and English audio tracks.

Selective Video Streaming

• Live video streams from compatible remote sources can be played directly within Montage.

Multimedia Slideshow

• Playlists have a new manual, fullscreen-playback mode whereby titles on the playlist can be advanced or reversed in sequence by using "Next" and "Previous" buttons.

Search Improvements

• Tabbed Search Interface - Search results are now grouped into tabs that represent media type, Videos, Images, and Audio.
• Image Thumbnails - Image thumbnails are shown for your newly uploaded images as well as Library Video Company / Schlessinger Media image libraries.

Downloadable Content

Uploaded content may be marked as downloadable. This will cause a "Download" icon to appear on the title's details page and next to the title in search results. Clicking the "Download" icon will launch the browser's download window so the user may save the media file to their PC.

Certain forthcoming content packages from Library Video Company will be downloadable as well. At the time of this release, the "Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century" and "Almanac Newsreel" packages are downloadable.

• Reporting - There are two new reports in the Reporting area of the Admin section: Download Popularity and Downloads by User.

Subject Assignment for CreationStation Items

• The usability of the subjects assignment interface has been enhanced when creating or editing your CreationStation content. Subjects are now alphabetical rather than hierarchical to speed finding a particular subject.

Windows Media Player 11 (Internet Explorer Only)

• Windows Media Player 11 running in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 is now supported for playback of SAFARI Montage Windows Media content.

Standards

• State Curriculum Standards correlations where updated.

Admin

• Admin Menu Reorganization - Menus within the Admin section have been reorganized for usability.
• New Admin Tools
  • Allow Remote Access
  • Bandwidth
  • Connections SMB
  • Connections TCP
  • Hard Drive Info OS
  • Server Load
  • Support Access
  • System DB Restore
  • Verify DB
  • Verify Storage
• New WAN Manager Tools
  • Child Content Packages
• Schools Page Improvement - Schools page now shows content packages that exist on remote servers.
• Network Settings - Network settings have been merged onto a single page.
• Time Settings - Time settings have been merged onto a single page.
• New Reports - New reports in the Admin > Reporting section:
  • Download Popularity
  • Downloads by User
  • Hard Drive Usage
  • Logins by Failure
  • Logins by IP
  • Playbacks by Time

Help System Updates

• The SAFARI Montage Help system has been updated to reflect recent changes in the product.

Content Packages

This release supports the following content packages. All packages listed are available in QuickTime and Windows Media formats.

Video

• Core K-8
• Core K-8 American Overseas
• Core K-8 Canadian
• Core 9-12
• Core 9-12 American Overseas
• Core 9-12 Canadian
• Core K-12
• Core K-12 American Overseas
• Schlessinger K-8 Additional
• Reading Rainbow
• Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
• Almanac Newsreel NEW!

Stills

• Schlessinger Image Library 1 NEW!

Search Performance

Due to the addition of new search criteria and recent usability features, the performance of the Search page has suffered somewhat. Some searches take can as long as five or six seconds - longer if the server is under load. There are plans in place to improve the search performance in a forthcoming Montage version. In the meantime, please be patient with the Search page.

Windows Media Player 11 (Non-Internet Explorer Browsers)

Windows Media Player 11 is not supported for playback in non-Internet Explorer browsers such as Firefox and Netscape. There is a known issue with the Windows Media Player 11 plug-in running in those browsers. This issue makes the videos in SAFARI Montage extend beyond the boundaries of the embedded player. This causes the playback controls to push beyond the lower boundaries of the player, effectively hiding them, and leaves only the upper-left quadrant of the video visible.

Microsoft is aware of the issue but has not published an estimated date of resolution. According to many reports online, it is likely that they will not resolve the issue because the Windows Media plug-in in non-IE browsers has not been developed in the last six years, aside from security patches and cosmetic changes. Microsoft only develops the Windows Media Player ActiveX control ("plug-in") for the Internet Explorer browser.

If you are a Firefox or Netscape user, we recommend you use the QuickTime player for SAFARI Montage playback, or use Internet Explorer for Windows Media playback.

Image Thumbnails

Image thumbnails will not show for your existing CreationStation uploads.