Lecture Capture Fix Being Deployed
I am pleased to announce that our colleagues in DTS have completed a thorough investigation to address the unreliability issues that impacted lecture recordings this semester. A new version of the YuJa recording software is now being deployed, which promises to resolve the issues that were present in the previous one. Extensive testing has confirmed that the updated version of the software no longer suffers from any cut-outs of video or audio. While it is still too early to give a definitive all-clear, we will continue to monitor the situation as the client is deployed in the coming days. We will provide a more formal announcement once we are confident that the issue has been fully resolved. Please read on for additional details.
Please note that this message specifically relates to the unreliability experienced with the recording. There is also an outstanding issue with profile synchronisation that causes problems with selecting devices at the beginning of a recording. This issue is also being investigated but does have a workaround available here.
What’s been happening?
During the course of this semester, there have been several reports from lecturers about issues with their recordings when using the YuJa recording client. These issues were related to device failures that resulted in a loss of audio and/or video in the final recording. Unfortunately, these problems were often not discovered until after the videos had already been released to students.
To resolve these issues, Jonathan Walker and Joshua Preen have been working closely with the vendor, YuJa, to identify and isolate the central cause of the problem. Through a careful and thorough process, they determined that the issue was related to the way the software was handling computer memory. This explains the varied way in which the problem manifest in different situations. As a result, YuJa has completely rebuilt the recording client to address this issue.
What we are doing now
We have now successfully tested the new client, are confident that it will resolve the issues that have been reported and have received the go ahead from the vendor. Therefore, we will be deploying the new client to all lectern computers in the coming days. However, this process may take some time depending on our ability to access teaching spaces without interrupting ongoing teaching.
Once the deployment is complete and we have confirmed that the solution is effective, we will issue a more formal announcement via email to keep you informed.
Using an alternative recording workflow?
We understand that some users have been more severely impacted by the issues with the YuJa recording client and have resorted to alternative methods for recording their teaching, such as Collaborate. We want to assure you that we completely understand this decision and support your use of these alternative methods.
Given the time constraints of the current semester, we understand that it may be best for you and your students to continue using these alternative methods, especially if you have become accustomed to them.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we have worked to resolve this issue. We are committed to providing you with reliable and high-quality recordings moving forward, and we believe that this new client will help us achieve that goal. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.