Kaltura Media Storage Best Practices

It is a good practice to remove content you no longer use, has become outdated, or contains private student information from your My Media repository. This also has the benefit of helping Meredith make the best use of our storage resources as we do not have unlimited storage space.

Some questions to consider when evaluating media:

  • Will I use this again in the future?
  • How has this content been used so far?  Would it get more use if I edit/replace it?
  • Does this have sensitive student information?
  • Am I required to keep this as a record for accreditation, meeting minutes, or other reasons defined by my department?

As you maintain and clean out your Kaltura media, here are some best practices and tips.

Schedule regular cleanout times

Cleaning out media will be less overwhelming if performed at regular intervals.  We suggest scheduling 1-2 regular times per year to sort through your media and add it onto your calendar.  

Even if you are in the habit of regularly deleting old media as you encounter it, this will give you an opportunity to take a look at the overall state of your media library.

Create a tagging strategy

Kaltura’s tagging feature allows you to create any custom tags for your media. Tagging content with a course name, project name, or other indicator can help with sorting and cleaning in the future.

Sort through Zoom meeting recordings

Zoom videos are the most likely candidates for deletion.  Currently, all Zoom meetings set to record to the cloud automatically transfer to Kaltura.  

All Zoom recordings come in with a description of “Zoom recording” plus the meeting ID and date.  You can easily filter your My Media library for all Zoom recordings by adding “Zoom recording” to the search bar.  Make sure to put this in quotation marks.

Screenshot of Kaltura My Media library with "Zoom recording" in the search bar and the filtered zoom video search results showing

Clip long videos

If you are holding onto longer videos because they contain a short piece you need, use the editing tool to create a shorter clip of that important portion and delete the longer video.

To navigate to the video editor to make clips, first click the pencil icon to the right of the video thumbnail in your library list.  

kaltura my media video edit button

Then on the main video details screen, click the blue Launch Editor button to the right of the video preview.

kaltura launch editor button

Refer to this Kaltura knowledge center article on the video editing tool if you need help navigating the editor.

Take advantage of analytics

Analytics are available on all videos.  These can easily show you if your media is actually being used as you intended.

You can view individual video analytics by clicking the analytics icon to the right of the video thumbnail in your library list.

analytics icon for an individual video in the Kaltura media library

You can also view a course-wide analytics dashboard showing all videos embedded within your course.  Please see the IDAT blog post about accessing this dashboard.

How to delete videos, including bulk delete option

Delete videos individually by using the trashcan icon to the right of the video thumbnail in your library list.

*Note: The system only allows you to delete about 30 videos at once to prevent accidental deletion of too much.

delete icon for an individual video in the Kaltura media library

You can also delete multiple videos at the same time.  To do this bulk deletion

  1. Select the checkbox to the left of each video thumbnail you want to delete
  2. Click the Actions menu in the top right corner of the page
  3. Choose Delete from the drop down menu
  4. Confirm the deletion by clicking the Delete button in the next popup
bulk delete screenshot with numbers highlighting the screen locations of the written steps
kaltura video delete confirmation window

The system will inform you in the Delete Confirmation popup if you do not have the permission to delete a video.  These are videos owned by someone else and shared with you.  If you no longer want these videos in your library, you will need to request that the owner remove you as a collaborator.

Deleting previously published videos in Brightspace

The trashcan delete icon will be greyed out and deleting unavailable for any videos that is Published. This is a security setting so you do not accidentally delete a video that is currently used in a course.

video with published status highlighted

To delete these videos, you must first set the publishing status to Private.

To change the publish status of a video:

  1. Click the Edit button of the video
  2. Click the Publish tab below the video
  3. Select the radio button next to Private
  4. Click Save

You can also change publish status for multiple videos using the bulk publish option. It is under the same menu shown previously for bulk deletion.

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