The Leading K-12 Curriculum Learning Object Repository

SAFARI Montage® Version 2.1



SAFARI Montage 2.2.2 Release Notes

Released: 3/9/2007

Updates and Fixes

Daylight Savings Time

  • Fix for new Daylight Savings Time period.

SAFARI Montage 2.2.1 Release Notes

Released: 1/9/2007

Updates and Fixes

Software Update

  • Addressed an issue with version number compatibility in WAN Manager and Expansion Server environments.

SAFARI Montage 2.2 Release Notes

Released: 12/15/2006

Closed Captioning

Enhancements and QuickTime Support
SAFARI Montage now supports closed captioning for videos in Apple's QuickTime format. Also, the closed captioned text has been adjusted to be more legible in fullscreen mode.

CreationStation

Bulk Upload Enhancements
The bulk upload feature has been enhanced in three ways:

  • Better Fault Tolerance - The upload process will now skip over invalid lines in your CSV file, and continue to upload the successful lines.
  • Error Reporting - Upon completion, the upload process now displays and emails you a report of failures so you know which items you will need to upload again.
  • Validator - There is a new “Bulk Media File Validator” button in the CreationStation submenu. Use this feature to ensure that your entire CSV file can be read by SAFARI Montage before performing a large upload and risking errors. The validator will list lines in your file that were unreadable. Fix the invalid lines and validate again until it is error-free, then perform your bulk upload.

State Standards Correlations
Like SAFARI Montage licensed media, your uploaded media may now be correlated to your state standards. You will see a new “Correlations” button when you are in edit mode for any uploaded title.

Playlist Import / Export

Playlists may be exported from SAFARI Montage to your machine, and imported back into a Montage system. There is an “Export” icon next to each playlist. To import a playlist, there is an “Import” button in the subnavigation menu of the Playlists section.

Permanent Links

Microsoft Office Application Support
Permanent Links function in Microsoft Office applications.

(Note: In rare cases, permalinks may fail in Office applications due to certain combinations of hardware, software, proxy servers, and other specifics beyond our control. Please see our knowledgebase article for more information.)

No Longer Tied to Content Package
A Permanent Link is no longer tied to the content package from which it came. Some titles exist in more than one content package. Previously, the recipient of a permalink must have had the same content package installed in their SAFARI Montage system. Now, as long as the title exists in any active package, the link will function.

WAN Manager Guide

The Help system now includes the SAFARI Montage WAN Manager Guide.

Content Packages

This release supports the following content packages. All packages listed are available in QuickTime and Windows Media formats. There are no new packages supported in this release.

  • 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

Updates

Search Results

A “Delete” button is now available next to uploaded media. You no longer need to enter Edit mode first to delete items.

Bug Fixes and Stability

Over 80 other fixes and improvements were attended to in this release.

Known Issues

Chapters and Key Concepts on Some Videos not Playing in Windows Media Player with Closed Captioning Active

The closed-captioning in some Windows Media videos may cause your browser to hang temporarily when attempting to play a chapter or key concept. The browser appears as if it is loading something, but after a period of approximately two minutes, it returns to normal and the chapter or key concept has not played. This issue only occurs on Windows. We are working to remedy this problem in a future release.

To work around the problem, disable closed captioning or use QuickTime format when watching that particular video.

Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player 11 support is forthcoming, likely in version 2.3. We recommend that you do not utilize SAFARI Montage playback through Windows Media Player 11


SAFARI Montage 2.1 Release Notes

Released: 11/06/2006

WAN Expansion

SAFARI Montage 2.1 supports a new WAN Manager load-balancing add-on called WAN Expansion. WAN Expansion allows a WAN Manager Parent Server to be clustered with other WAN Expansion Servers. This distributes the load thereby increasing the number of concurrent users that may access the system. Additional expansion servers may be added to the cluster to increase concurrent-user capacity further.

Closed Captioning

SAFARI Montage 2.1 supports closed captioning for videos in the Windows Media Video format. All content packages now contain closed captioning information for the majority of the videos. Closed captioning may be enabled by any user using their personal Preferences page. Videos that contain closed captions are designated in search results by the closed captioning icon CC. A closed captioning option has been added to the Advanced Search panel that allows users to view only videos that contain closed captioning information.

Streamlined Subject Browser

The subject browser has been redesigned to be more organized, powerful, and easier to use. An “A to Z” index has also been added allowing users to easily find a subject when they know its name but not its location in the hierarchy.

Electronic Whiteboard Support

The on-screen writing features of electronic whiteboards (such as those from Promethean) are not compatible with video running in a true full-screen mode like SAFARI Montage has always provided. To solve this drawback, SAFARI Montage now contains an additional full-screen playback mode that allows full use of any on-screen writing features in electronic whiteboards.

You may enable system-wide whiteboard support using the System Settings page in the Admin section. On WAN Manager systems, you may enable school-wide whiteboard support using the settings page for a particular school. If whiteboard support is not enabled by the Admin, users may enable it for their user account using their Preferences page.

Content Packages

This release supports the following content packages. All packages listed are available in QuickTime and Windows Media formats. There are no new packages supported in this release.

  • 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 NEW!
  • Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century NEW!

Updates

School News

Videos designated as “School News” no longer auto-play on the dashboard. Users may play school news voluntarily using the Schools News dashboard panel.

Revised Custom Login Page

The login page has been revised to display your custom logo beneath the username and password bar. Background choices have also been modified to support pure white and pure black logo backgrounds.

Known Issues

SAFARI Montage

The data between expansion servers is synced on a periodic basis. Any data changes that users perform are not saved immediately to other servers. Allow up to five minutes for servers to sync after making changes to data. For example, if you are connected to a server in a WAN Expansion cluster and you make changes to an user-uploaded video, perhaps changing its title, users connected to other servers in the cluster will not see the new title until the sync runs again (up to five minutes later). As a second example, if you make changes to data (a video, a user, a playlist, etc.), then log out and immediately log in, you may be connected to a different server in the cluster, in which case, you will not see the changes you just made. Please wait up to 5 minutes for the servers to sync.

SAFARI Montage 2.1 - 2.2.2 System Requirements

Windows

Operating Systems and Browsers

Windows XP
  • Internet Explorer 6.0-7.0
  • Firefox 1.0-1.5 - Full-screen playback unavailable
  • Netscape 8.0 - Full-screen playback unavailable
Windows 2000
  • Internet Explorer 6.0
  • Firefox 1.0-1.5 - Full-screen playback unavailable
  • Netscape 8.0 - Full-screen playback unavailable

Minimum Hardware

  • 1.5 GHz CPU (Recommended: 2 GHz or greater)
  • 256 MB RAM (Recommended: 512 MB or greater)
  • 64 MB of Video RAM

Macintosh

Operating Systems and Browsers

OS X 10.2

(CreationStation add-on not supported)

  • Safari 1.0 - *Bookmarking unavailable. Not compatible with CreationStation add-on.
  • Firefox 1.0-1.5 - Bookmarking available with QuickTime 6.5 or greater. Not compatible with CreationStation add-on.
OS X 10.3
  • Safari 1.3 - *Bookmarking unavailable
  • Firefox 1.0-1.5 - Bookmarking available with QuickTime 6.5 or greater.
OS X 10.4
  • Safari 2.0
  • Firefox 1.0-1.5

* Bookmarking is unavailable due to limitations inherent in these older browsers.

Minimum Hardware

  • G4 (Recommended: G5)
  • 1 GHz CPU (Recommended: 1.6 GHz or greater)
  • 256 MB RAM (Recommended: 512 MB or greater)
  • 64 MB Video RAM

Linux

Operating Systems and Browsers

Linspire 5.0 - WAN Expansion not supported.
  • Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7

Minimum Hardware

  • 2.4 GHz CPU (or equivalent)
  • 256 MB RAM (Recommended: 512 MB or greater)
  • 64 MB of Video RAM

Media Players

QuickTime

All Other Supported Operating Systems
  • QuickTime 6.5 or greater

Windows Media Player

PC
  • Windows Media Player 7-10*

* Windows Media Player 9 does not support closed captioning in Full-Screen mode.

MPlayer

Linspire 5.0
  • MPlayer 1.0 pre 6-3.3.5
  • MPlayer plug-in 3.02

Additional Plug-Ins

Java Virtual Machine

All Supported Operating Systems
  • Sun Java2, Version 5, Update 5 or Greater - Only required for CreationStation uploads.

Network

Local Area Network

  • 100Mb or greater
  • Switched backbone
  • Full duplex