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SAFARI Montage® Version 7.3.x



Product Release Information


Product:
Version:
Releases Date:
Customer Support:

SAFARI Montage
7.3
08/24/2018
http://www.safarimontage.com/support

Introduction

This document contains the release notes for SAFARI Montage 7.3. This is a full release of the SAFARI Montage System and the following sections provide details to its release.

This SAFARI Montage 7.3 upgrade is not a software-only upgrade from SAFARI Montage 4.x and earlier versions. Upgrading from SAFARI Montage 4.x or earlier versions requires a new OS drive, may require increased RAM and/or a new server. Contact SAFARI Montage Customer Service (1-800-782-7230) regarding SAFARI Montage 7.3 upgrade options.

New in this Release - 7.3

  • Playlist Enhancement
    • Correlate playlists to academic standards, including Common Core & State Standards, and search playlists by standard correlations.
    • When playlists are shared to the district, a copy will be made and owned by the Admin, further enhancing the ability to manage content in use for teaching and learning.
    • Playlists are now searchable via federated search. Results are conveniently organized within a separate Playlist search results tab.
  • Interoperability Support Services (ISS)
    • Streamable Learning
      • Provides mutual customers with Single-Sign On access to Streamable Learning's live streaming educational programing from the SAFARI Montage Dashboard as well as federated search access to Streamable Learning's library of recorded events and virtual field trips via the LOR. These resources can also be easily added to SAFARI Montage playlists, and lessons and activities in any integrated LMS.
    • BrainPOP
      • BrainPOP resources can now be found fully integrated within the SAFARI Montage federated search.
      • Enables users to add BrainPOP resources to playlists.
    • SchoolCity
      • Common users will have access to the high-quality rich media resources available in the LOR from within the new SchoolCity Personalized Review Assignment feature.
      • Resources get pulled in to review assignments automatically using the state standard benchmark being assessed to personalize the learning path of each student.
    • Knovation
      • Mutual clients will have federated search access to Knovation's collection of 360,000 curated OERs and Free Resource web links from the LOR plus the ability to easily add these resources to playlists.
      • Users will now find these resources sorted into the format tabs and can easily be added to any LMS. They will also be able to search for them by state standards.
    • Microsoft Teams
      • Provides mutual customers with the ablity to easily search the SAFARI Montage LOR from Microsoft Teams.
      • Add SAFARI Montage titles, segments and playlists to Microsoft Teams Assignments or Announcements.
  • LOR Enhancements
    • Custom Publishers
      • Custom Publishers can now be restricted to specific user types to support selective curration.
    • Copyright Policy
      • District Administrators can produce custom messaging and select a frequency for when it displays to users.
    • Search
    • Added support for "OR" keyword search.
  • Auto-converter Enhancement
    • Supports ABR conversion, to provide the dynamic ABR playback for all Teacher, Student, and District uploaded video content.
    • Ability to bulk convert all previous H.264 content to ABR format.
  • Universal Live Broadcaster Enhancement
    • Native resolution option has been enhanced to output an incoming stream at the same resolution as the input with minimal overhead.
  • Content
    • Support for Superset XXXVIII content drives
      • Entire video library has been encoded in Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) to optimize the user playback experience while dynamically testing for available bandwidth. Smart ABR ensures the highest quality playback based on real-time conditions.
      • Many SAFARI Montage videos have been encoded at up to 3 Mbps quality.
      • Added over 1,000 new videos from premier educational publishers including A&E, Ambrose Video, BBC, Mazzarella Media, National Geographic, PBS, and more.
    • Updated Standards.
      • Updated standards correlations for over 350 videos added to SAFARI Montage in latest content release.
      • As of SM v7.3.42 full segmentation and metadata has been added to 70 PBS titles.
  • Web Browser Support
    • Support for the following web browser types:

      Operating System Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Chrome® Apple® Safari® Firefox™
      Microsoft Windows® 10 41 (Edge), 11.0 68.0 N/A 61.0
      Microsoft Window® 8.1 (Desktop) 11.0 68.0 N/A 61.0
      Microsoft Windows® 7 11.0 68.0 N/A 61.0
      Apple Mac OS® X 10.14 N/A 68.0 11.1 61.0
      Apple Mac OS® X 10.13 N/A 68.0 11.1 61.0
      Apple Mac OS® X 10.12 N/A 68.0 10.1 61.0

Supported Content Packages

  • Video
    • Core K-8 Content
    • Core K-8 Content w/o Schlessinger Media (2015)
    • K-8 Expansion Content
    • K-8 Super Core Content
    • Core 9-12 Content
    • 9-12 Expansion Content
    • 9-12 Super Core Content
    • Core K-12 Content
    • K-12 Super Core Content
    • Additional Schlessinger Media® K-8 (2010)
    • Additional Schlessinger Media 9-12 (2010)
    • BestQuest Teaching Systems®
      • Algebra'scool® (2012)
      • Math'scool® (2012)
    • Best Practices for Using SAFARI Montage PD
    • National Defense Education Program STEM
    • Arab American Stories
    • Almanac Newsreel
    • National Underground Railroad Freedom Center®
    • The Video Encyclopedia Of The 20th Century®
    • BBC Shakespeare
    • Career Clips1
    • Digital Resources From NASA
    • National Park Service Natural & Historical Digital Resources®
    • Digital Resources From FEMA (2016)
    • NOAA Digital Resources (2016)
    • Global Oneness Project
  • Audio Clips With Supporting Still Images
    • IRC: History Pictures
    • IRC: California History Pictures
    • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photographs (2013)
    • National Archives Digital Resources (2015)
    • National Park Service Natural & Historical Digital Resources
  • Interactive
    • Visual Dictionary (2014)
    • Cyber Science Interactive 3D Model™ (2014)
  • eBooks
    • Project Gutenberg eBooks
  • Documents
    • World Factbook (2017)
    • Mr. Nussbaum Reading Comprehension Passages
  • Still Images
    • Schlessinger Image Library
    • World Factbook (2017)
    • Paintings by the Masters
    • Digital Resources From NASA
    • IRC: History Pictures
    • IRC: California History Pictures
    • National Atlas of The United States Maps
    • NOAA Digital Resources (2016)
    • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Photographs (2013)
    • Images From The National Gallery of Art
    • National Archives Digital Resources (2015)
    • Digital Resources From FEMA (2016)
    • Cyber Science Interactive 3D Model™ (2014)
    • National Science Foundation Digital Resources
    • Global Oneness Project
  • Web Links
    • Themed Resources from the Library of Congress
    • Khan Academy Web Links (2016)
    • Digital Resources From the Encyclopedia of Life
    • Scholastic Channel Web Links (2016)
    • Reading Rockets Web Link
    • Numberphiles Web Links
    • TED-ED Web Links
    • MIT OpenCourseWare Web Links
    • Mathispower4u Web Links
    • Mini BIO Web Links
    • Minute Earth Web Links
    • Minute Physics Web Links
    • MyWhyU Web Links
    • Scientific American Video Web Links
    • TED-Ed Web Links (2016)
    • The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Web Links (2017)
    • The New York Times Video Web Link
    • PhET Interactive Simulations
    • Lynda.com Web Links
    • Crash Course Web Links
    • HooplaKidz Lab Web Links
    • Sport Instruction Web Links
    • Common Craft Web Links
    • Harry Kindergarten Music Web Links
    • Edutopia Web Links
    • Howard Hughes Medical Institute BioInteractive Web Links
    • The Citizen Genius Project Web Links
    • SpokenVerse Web Links
    • SciShow Web Links
    • Driver Education Web Links
    • Crash Course Kids Web Links
    • Civil War Trust Web Links
    • National Museum of the American Indian Web Links
    • Smrt English Web Links
    • TICE Art 1010 Web Links
    • Flocabulary Web Links
    • KidsHealth Web Links
    • SciShow Kids Web Links
    • All-Star Orchestra Web Links
    • CK–12 Foundation Web Links
    • Bozeman Science Video Links
    • Art with Mati & Dada Video Links
    • Storyline Online Video Links
    • ConnectEd Video Links
    • National Geographic Kids Video Links
    • World Language Instruction Video Links
    • Lit2Go Web Links
    • The Metropolitan Museum of Art Digital Resources
    • Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive

SAFARI Montage Media Player

Microsoft® Windows®

Operating System
  • Windows 10 (Desktop Mode)
  • Windows 8.1 (Desktop Mode)
  • Windows 7
Web Browsers
  • Internet Explorer®
    • 41 (Edge) (Windows 10)
    • 11.0 (Windows 10, 8.1 and 7)
  • Firefox®
    • 61.0 (all supported Operating Systems)
  • Google Chrome™
    • 68.0 (all supported Operating Systems)
Minimum Hardware
  • 1.8 GHz CPU (Recommended: 2.0 GHz or greater)
  • 512 MB RAM (Recommended: 1 GB or greater)
  • 128 MB of Video RAM
Apple® Mac OS®

Operating System
  • Mac OS X v10.14
  • Mac OS X v10.13
  • Mac OS X v10.12
Web Browsers
  • Safari®
    • 11.1 (OS X 10.14)
    • 11.1 (OS X 10.13)
    • 10.1 (OS X 10.12)
  • Firefox®
    • 61.0 (all supported Operating Systems)
  • Google Chrome™
    • 68.0 (all supported Operating Systems)
Minimum Hardware
  • Mac with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
  • 2GB RAM
  • 7GB of available space
Browser Plug-ins (All Platforms)

  • SAFARI Montage Media Player Installers
    • Required for:
    • Selective Video Streaming (SVS) multicast streaming support
    • Playback of Career Clips Content (MPEG-1 format)
  • VideoLAN

    The SAFARI Montage Media Player is compatible with the use of the VideoLAN VLC media player for live stream and Video on Demand (VOD) playback.

    • Version 3.0.3 (Windows all versions)
    • Version 2.0.10 (OS X all versions)
  • Apple QuickTime

    The SAFARI Montage Media Player is compatible with the use of Apple QuickTime for Video on Demand (VOD) playback.

    • X (Apple Mac OS X 10.14, 10.13, 10.12)
  • Adobe® Flash® Player 18 or later
  • Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
  • Sun® Java® 7 or later - required for LOR bulk upload.
  • Cyber-Science 3D v4 Viewer
Additional Local Software

Additional software maybe required to create or view certain LOR content.

  • Software clients for the associated file types
    • SMART Notebook® software / SMART Notebook Interactive Viewer software - .NOTEBOOK / .NBK
    • Promethean® ActivInspire® / ActiveStudio® / Flipchart Viewer - .FLIPCHART / .FLP / .AS3A
    • Hitachi® StarBoard® - .YAR
    • eInstruction® Workspace™ - .GWB
    • Egan® TeamBoard® - .TMB
    • Mayer-Johnson® Boardmaker® - .BM2
    • Clear Touch Interactive® EasiNote® - .ENB
    • Microsoft Office / Office Vewiers - .DOC/.DOCX, .XLS/.XLSX, .PPT/.PPTX
    • OpenOffice.org® - .SDW/.ODT, .SDC/.ODS, .SDD/.ODP, .ODG; .ODF, .SDP
    • Apple iWork® - .PAGES, .NUMBERS, .KEY
    • Adobe Acrobat Reader - .PDF
    • An EPUB® Reader - .HTML, .MOBI, .LIT, .EPUB
  • Interactive Whiteboard Integration - supported software versions.
    • SMART Notebook Software / Notebook Interactive Viewer - v 9.5 or greater
    • Promethean ActivInspire (v 1.5 or greater) / ActiveStudio (v 2.5 or greater) / Flipchart Viewer
    • StarBoard (v 8.11 or greater) / StarBoard LE - Viewer Only (v 3.0 or greater) / StarBoard for OS X (v 9.2 or greater)
    • eInstruction Workspace for Windows (v 8.90 or greater) / eInstruction Workspace for OS X (v 5.10 or greater)
    • Egan TeamBoard Draw v3 or greater
    • Mayer-Johnson Boardmaker (v6 or greater) / Boardmaker Studio (v14 or greater)
    • Clear Touch Interactive EasiNote v 3.1 or greater
Local Area Network
  • 100Mb Wired Ethernet Full Duplex Network
Special Considerations
  • Lecture Capture
    • Lecture Capture recordings do not support ABR conversion, the SAFARI Montage Auto-Converter must be configured to enable "Convert to H.264 MP4s:" if the "Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR)" auto-conversion option is enabled.
  • Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7
    • This configuration does not support the playback of ABR video and requires the SAFARI Montage Media Player in conjunction with VLC v3.0.3.
  • Classroom Media Contollers/KIOSKs
    • Do not support playback of ABR video and require that the SAFARI Montage Auto-Converter be configured to enable "Convert to H.264 MP4s:" if the "Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR)" auto-conversion option is enabled.
  • SupeTube
    • Requires that the SAFARI Montage Auto-Converter be configured to enable "Convert to H.264 MP4s:" if the "Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR)" auto-conversion option is enabled.

Instructions for Upgrading SAFARI Montage OS to Version 7.3.x

Please note that these upgrade instructions are ONLY for upgrades to installations of version 6.0.x or later. If you are currently running a version prior to 6.0.x, you will need to first contact Technical Support. Please contact Technical Support at 800-782-7230 if you have any questions or concerns regarding the current status of your SAFARI Montage server.

WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPLY THIS UPGRADE TO A SAFARI MONTAGE SERVER RUNNING SOFTWARE VERSION 4.4.X OR EARLIER. DOING SO WILL RENDER YOUR SERVER INOPERABLE.
Contents

An email from SAFARI Montage containing a download link

Please read these instructions in their entirety before you begin:

  • These instructions and all related documents are available online at http://www.safarimontage.com/support
  • It is important that you review the SAFARI Montage 7.3.x Release Notes available online, as these may include Known Issues that you should understand before running the upgrade.
  • Review the SAFARI Montage 7.3.x System Requirements, which include important information that will ensure your environment meets all requirements.
  • Allow for time to back up your system in your update planning.
  • No one should use the SAFARI Montage System during the update process, so please perform this update during off-hours.
  • Review any questions with Technical Support in advance. Please note that SAFARI Montage Technical Support is available Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time and they may be contacted by telephone at 800-782-7230 or online via http://www.safarimontage.com/support.
Important Considerations:
  1. We recommend you update all client computers to the current version of the SAFARI Montage Media Player prior to running the OS upgrade. Not doing so will result in all users receiving an alert upon logging in to SAFARI Montage instructing them to upgrade the player. Administrators can suppress this notification in the following location: ADMIN -> Settings -> System -> Alert to Install SAFARI Montage Media Player. The latest version of the player is available for download at http://www.safarimontage.com/support.
  2. If monitoring the update from the console, be aware that the system may appear to be inactive at certain times during the upgrade. This does not mean that the upgrade has stopped.
WARNING: DO NOT interrupt the update in any way or power off the server at any time during the update process or database optimization. Doing so may severely and irreparably damage your SAFARI Montage system.
If you are running WAN Manager with Expansion Server(s):
  1. The Expansion Controller must be upgraded first. See Upgrade Instructions below.
  2. Once the Expansion Controller has been upgraded, it will automatically push the upgrade to all of the Expansion Servers. The progress of the upgrade can be viewed by navigating to Admin -> Expansion Server -> Expansion Servers.
If you are running WAN Manager with Remote School Server(s):
  1. The WAN Manager Parent server must be upgraded first. See Upgrade Instructions below.
  2. Once the upgrade is completed on the WAN Manager Parent server, you will be able to automatically 'push' the upgrade to the Remote School Servers, thereby eliminating the need to upgrade them separately on-site.
    1. Navigate to Admin -> WAN Manager -> Remote School Servers
    2. Either check 'Remote update all servers', which will update five servers at a time until they have all been upgraded, or select individual servers to be upgraded by checking the box next to the server name.

Total time to upgrade all expansion and/or remote school servers will depend upon the total number of servers and available bandwidth. The upgrade will be downloaded to each remote server, where the upgrade process will run automatically and can take several hours to complete. If 'Remote update all servers' is selected, servers will be processed in groups of five, and upgrades will run concurrently on each group of remote servers.

Download and Upgrade Instructions:
  1. Backup your SAFARI Montage system via the Administration tools:
    1. Navigate to Admin -> Data Recovery -> Backup
    2. Perform a full backup:
      • Set Type to Data & User Content and select to either keep or overwrite the previous backup.
  2. Navigate to Admin -> Reporting -> SAFARI Montage Basics Certification Test Results and download the csv file. THIS DATA IS NOT RETAINED IN THE UPDATE PROCESS.
  3. Download upgrade media (ISO) using the link provided in the email from SAFARI Montage.
  4. Upload the downloaded ISO file to the SAFARI Montage system via the Administration tools:
    1. Navigate to Admin » Tools » Software Update History.
    2. Click on the Upload an ISO image of the update and install link.
    3. Browse to the location of the ISO file downloaded in Step 2 and click on Open.

    The ISO will begin uploading to the server. Once the upload is complete, the upgrade will begin and will take approximately one to two hours, after which the server will reboot.

~ THIS COMPLETES THE SERVER UPDATE PROCESS. PLEASE TEST FROM A CLIENT BROWSER. ~
Deploying the SAFARI Montage Media Player:

Go to http://www.safarimontage.com/support/ to download the latest version of the SAFARI Montage Media Player and for instructions on how to deploy the player to your client environment.