Kaltura Video Platform & MediaSpace
This page covers the fundamentals of using the Kaltura Cloud Video Platform and the stand alone MediaSpace website for Kaltura content. These resources are applicable to all faculty, staff, and students.
Content is broken up into sections and listed below. Go through the sections in order or click on a number to jump to that specific section. Simple explanations and tutorials are given for each topic. If you have any questions, please contact the IDAT team for assistance.
Please see the Kaltura and Brightspace page for information about using the Kaltura Brightspace integration.
1. Get Started
Kaltura Cloud Video Platform is very robust so this Get Started section is for general resources and overview trainings. For more specific topics, browse through the other sections of this page.
This video was presented at the Faculty and Staff Planning Week 2021. It was specifically titled as “staff” but all faculty, staff, and students that access the MediaSpace website will benefit from this overview.
You will need to be logged into MediaSpace to access this video.
There are a few different ways to access Meredith’s MediaSpace website. Use whichever is most convenient for you. The MediaSpace login is tied to your Meredith email address.
You can access Meredith’s MediaSpace website directly by going to this link.
Access Meredith’s MediaSpace website through the link in the Google Apps launcher.
Scroll to the bottom section and you will find a starburst Kaltura logo that says MediaSpace. Click this to jump to the MediaSpace site.
When you get to the MediaSpace website, you will need to login to access your My Media library and any video content that has privacy settings to only be seen by Meredith users.
Click Guest in the upper right corner then choose Login from the dropdown menu.
Choose whether you are logging in as Faculty/Staff or Student.
My Media is your personal media library within Kaltura. No on else will see this media list but you. If you click My Media in MediaSpace or Brightspace, you will be redirected to your personal library.
Access My Media from Kaltura MediaSpace or within a Brightspace course.
In MediaSpace, once you are signed in, click your name in the top right corner and choose My Media from the menu.
In Brightspace, click Kaltura in the main navigation menu. Then choose Kaltura My Media from the dropdown menu.
In the library you will see all media you have uploaded, Zoom recordings you have set to record to cloud, and media that you have been granted collaboration permissions to use.
Below is a screenshot of the My Media screen with labels to identify different pieces. The number labels are listed below the image.
*In Brightspace, there is a Add New button next to the action menu. That is not pictured here.*
- Search bar – search all titles, descriptions, tags, captions, slides, etc. Use quotation marks for an exact search.
- Filters – narrow you search through filters for media type, publish status, ownership, and duration
- Video list – a scrolling list of all your video and media
- List view options – default in the Detailed View but you can change to a Collapsed or Table View.
- Actions menu – this menu lets you perform bulk video actions for all videos selected
- Refresh button – refresh your My Media view to see updated changes.
In the default Detailed media view, this is the information you will see about each video. Below is a screenshot of an individual video on the My Media screen with labels to identify different pieces. The number labels are listed below the image.
- Media title
- Media description – this will be empty if you do not have a description
- Publish status – this tile changes color along with the videos publish status. If the video is labeled as published, you can click here to see a quick list of publish locations. (see screenshot below this list)
- Tags
- Video permissions – will indicate if you are the video owner or what collaboration permissions you have for this video
- Date – date added to Kaltura
- Quick look analytics – number of likes, plays, and comments
- Analytics – full video analytics information
- Edit – edit the video details and options
- Delete – use this to delete the video. You can delete multiple videos at once using the Actions menu on the My Media page.
Search your entire media library with the search bar. The search term will be highlighted in media titles or descriptions. It will also indicate if it was found in tags, chapters, captions, slides, or other details.
From this detailed video view, it shows that the keyword “Zoom” is found in 1 Tag, 3 Chapters, and 30 Captions of this video. You can click the Show More link to see more details about where those keywords are found in the video and jump links to go to that specific point in the video.
Please see this Kaltura page for more information video searching.
Searching Inside Videos – How Do You Find What You Are Looking For?
The Actions menu on the My Media page allows to perform a few bulk actions with your media. To perform any of these bulk actions, select the checkbox next to the videos you want to use then choose the option from the Actions menu.
Caption & Enrich – all videos are auto captioned in English but you could use this to request foreign language captions.
Publish – change the publish status of multiple videos
Add to Playlist – add videos to a new or existing playlist. This option is not available in Brightspace.
Delete – delete multiple videos at once
2. Record & Upload Videos
Kaltura does not just host video but easily allows you to create your own videos and upload videos you have already created.
You can record quick videos right from your webcam. No extra software needed!
Click Add New then choose Express Capture
Using Kaltura Quick Capture – video tutorial
Kaltura Capture is a desktop recording software that can capture webcam, screencast, or multiple cameras at once.
It is a one-time software download.
**To avoid upload issues, always launch Kaltura Capture from MediaSpace or Brightspace never your desktop**
Kaltura Capture is found by clicking Add New and then choosing Kaltura Capture. Kaltura recommends always launching Capture this way even when it is downloaded on your device.
Video overview of Kaltura Capture
System Requirements for Kaltura Capture
Recording Tool buttons – an overview of what buttons are available on Kaltura Capture
Camera, screen, and audio options
Recording menu (stop, pause, annotation tool) – when you start recording, you get new menu options
You can also get to more Kaltura Capture settings by clicking the Manage button on the recording tool.
Click on the cog icon in the left sidebar to get to the settings.
- Camera recording quality – 480, 720, or 1080p
- Screen recording quality – 480, 720, or 1080p
- Record system audio – if this is set to “no”, the recording will ONLY capture your microphone, not anything happening on screen or others talking during a meeting
- Recording name prefix – the is the default name of the recording unless you change it when uploading
- Currently recording directory – recordings are usually uploaded right to Kaltura but there is also a local video recording found at this location
- Highlight cursor – highlights your cursor when using screen capture
- Auto minimize when recording – the recording toolbar will sit in the bottom righthand corner of the screen and be visible on your recording unless it is minimized. Set it to minimize automatically or manually for each recording.
- Collect and upload app logs – pressing this button will generate a log of information that can be helpful for administrators to diagnose an upload problem. After you click the button you will receive a status bar. When the status reached 100% your log is complete and you can copy the provided token to give to tech support
With your software downloaded and ready, you are now ready to create video recordings.
*NOTE: If you are trying to record system audio (music, a video played in a browser, people talking during a meeting – anything other than your microphone), double check your settings to make sure that is enabled. See the “Additional Kaltura Capture Settings” section above for more information.
After recording, you can add video details and upload to your Kaltura My Media or save on your local device.
Kaltura Capture has a recordings library and manager on your desktop. This manager will appear after you finish a video recording but you can access it anytime.
To get to the manager, launch the Kaltura Capture software and click the Manage link.
Reupload files here or change settings.
If you have your Zoom account set to record to the cloud, these Zoom recordings will automatically save to your Kaltura My Media.
This IDAT blog post will walk you through how to set Zoom to record to the cloud and how to manage your videos once they come into your My Media.
Upload any videos recorded outside of Kaltura tools.
Click Add New and then choose Media Upload
Upload a Video – video tutorial
When adding any new media to Kaltura, you will be prompted to add a few details
- Title
- Description – add anything here that will be relevant to describing your content such as links
- Tags
- Collaborators
- Publishing status
These details are important for searching and filtering content in your My Media library.
Tags, collaborators, and publish status will be covered in more detail in later sections.
Rather than a folder system, Kaltura uses tags to categorize and sort content.
You can add tags when you first upload media.
Or add tags from the video edit screen by clicking the pencil icon next to a video in My Media. Tags are found in the Details tab beneath the video.
Once you start typing a tag, it will auto suggest tags or you can create a new one. There is not limit to the number of tags you can add.
Use any single word tags or phases that work best for you to help sort and categorize your content.
- Course names
- Year
- Topic
- Project
- Assignment
- etc
3. Video Options, Editing & Captions
You can edit video options, the video itself, and automatic captions for any media in your library. You must be the video owner or co-editor to make any video edits outlined in this section.
Once you are the video edit screen, there are multiple options available in tabs underneath the video. Each will be detailed below or in separate sections of this page.
From My Media, click the Edit button for the video you would like to edit.
Details – details you entered when you added your media such as title, description and tags. See the Record & Upload Videos section of this page for more details.
Publish – video publish options. See the Collaborate, Share, & Manage section of this page for more details.
Options – disable comments and allow clipping of the video
Thumbnails – choose or upload a thumbnail
Downloads – allow viewers to download the video
Captions – order, upload, and edit captions. This option has its own tab in this section.
Attachments – add an attachment to the media
Timeline – add chapters and slides to the video. This option has its own tab in this section.
Replace Media – seamlessly replace the media file with a different or updated version
All of the options in the Options tab are turned off by default. Click the checkboxes to enable them.
Disable comments completely for the media. This mean no comments are shown.
Closing the discussion shows old comments but will not allow any more new comments.
Allow viewers to create clips of the video. The uses the same trimming editor that you would use to trim your own video.
As a video owner, you can make a clip of your video anytime. This setting is only for outside viewers. There is not set time limit so this so a user could create a “clip” almost the whole length of the video. For example, it is not like the viewer can only create a maximum 1 minute clip.
Choose or upload a new thumbnail for your media.
Before choosing a new thumbnail, you can download the current one if a backup is needed.
Upload Thumbnail – upload a custom image you have created to use as a thumbnail.
Capture – move forward in the preview video to the frame you want to use as the thumbnail and then push the Capture button
Auto-Generate – automatically pulls out 10 different frames from the video and you can choose 1 for your thumbnail image
Enable downloading options for the video viewer. As the video owner, you always have the option to download your video. This is a setting for the viewer only.
Attach extra files to the video for viewers to download. In the screenshot below, you can see this video has multiple files that were attached from when the video was imported from Zoom.
Add Attachments to Media – Kaltura documentation
Re-record and replace a video without unpublishing or breaking any sharing links.
The only time a replaced video will unpublish is on a moderated channel or playlist. These are places where someone else has to approve the video being added to page or list. The video will change to pending moderation.
You can make simple edits to your media right from Kaltura! If you need more advanced editing than the options found here, please contact the IDAT team about other software options.
From My Media, click the Edit button for the video you would like to edit.
From the video edit screen, click the big blue Launch Editor button on the right of the video to get to the video editor.
If you are viewing a video (not on the edit screen) you can also get to the Launch Editor option from the Actions drop down menu. This is found below the video you are viewing.
Below is a screenshot of the Video Editor screen with labels to identify different pieces. The number labels are listed below
- Video Editor tab – on the left sidebar you can select this screen instead of the Quiz or Hotspot editing
- Save or Save a Copy buttons – save edits to override the original video or save as a new copy
- Video preview area
- Timeline zoom slider – zoom in to make more detailed edits
- Audio toggle – turn the blue audio timeline on or off
- Video selector – if you have multiple video streams such as a desktop and webcam, choose which one you want to edit
- Undo and Redo buttons
- Reset – reset all edits back to the original
- Video timeline – this is where you will make the edits
- Delete and fade buttons – delete or fade sections of the video timeline
- Split and set trim buttons – the split button (scissors) cuts your timeline. The set trim buttons will set the beginning or end of your video at the point indicated by the Real-time Marker (the blue horizontal line).
- Exit button
You can trim, clip, chop, splice, and fade the video timeline. Head to the linked Kaltura tutorial page to find out more about how to do each.
Kaltura Video Editing Tools – Kaltura tutorial page
Hotspots let you add a text link that overlays the video. These can link to an outside source or a different location in the video.
The video hotspot will over lay the video with a colored background and text. You can change background colors and reposition any where on the video except the bottom portion where closed captions appear.
From My Media, click the Edit button for the video you would like to edit.
From the video edit screen, click the big blue Launch Editor button on the right of the video to get to the video editor.
If you are viewing a video (not on the edit screen) you can also get to the Launch Editor option from the Actions drop down menu. This is found below the video you are viewing.
Click the icon that looks like a square with a cursor for editing hotspots.
This Kaltura training shows you how to create, format, duplicate, and delete hotspots.
Kaltura Video Editing Hotspots – Kaltura training
Kaltura is wonderful for accessibility because any videos that come into the system are automatically captioned in English. This section is all about cleaning up these auto-captions and using the transcript options.
Edit timestamps and wording, find & replace words within the captions, even add speaker names.
*It is best to clip and edit your video before editing the captions for correct timing*
Editing Captions – Kaltura support documentation
Options to mange the video captions are all found in the Captions tab underneath the video on the video edit page.
This is the information for each caption file.
Language – language of the captions
Label – what the video viewer sees in the player when they have the option to choose captions
File type – caption file type
Accuracy – estimated accuracy of the machine generated captions
Actions – different icon buttons to manage the caption file. These are discussed below.
There are several button and action icons labeled on the screenshot.
- Edit captions – click to edit the caption text and timestamps
- Upload captions file – click to upload a new captions file if you already have one created. This is not the same as requesting captions from Kaltura.
- Edit – allows you to edit the caption information such as label and accuracy
- Delete – delete this caption file
- Download – download the caption file. This is not the same as downloading the captions as a transcript. This is a caption file format with timings included.
- Display on player – toggle this on and off to display this caption file as an option in the video player.
All videos are automatically captioned in English but we have other languages available as well. You will have to manually request these captions. Machine captioning (not by people) is free for each of these languages.
Languages currently available:
- Spanish
- French
- Italian
- Mandarin Chinese
- German
*Note: these are captions for the native language of the video. This will NOT translate the video into these languages.
When viewing a video, click the Actions menu and choose Caption & Enrich.
Now on the captions screen, scroll down to the Order Captions & Enrichment Services.
Leave the service on Machine and then choose your language from the Source Media Language dropdown.
Once you’ve requested a new caption, it will show up in your caption list along with a status notification.
To set this new language caption as the default captions for a video, please see the section titles Set default & manage caption.
When viewing a video, you or any other user can download or print the transcript generated from the captions.
Underneath the video is the transcript pane. At the top of that pane are 2 icons: download and print.
Download – downloads a plain text (TXT) version of the transcript
Print – brings up a print popup to select print options for the transcript
When you are viewing a video, you or any other user can search through the transcript generated from the captions.
Underneath the video is the transcript pane. At the top of that pane is the search bar. Just type in the search term and it will be highlighted in yellow.
The transcript pane does not automatically scroll to the 1st instance of your search term so you may need to scroll through the transcript to find all highlighted terms.
Kaltura lets you add some extras and resources AFTER you have already finished your video.
Chapters are video markers that are useful for breaking up a long video into different sections or topics.
If a video has chapters, the user will see a hamburger icon in the top left corner of the video.
Once a user clicks the icon, the chapters menu will open up. It will allow a user to search within the chapters, view chapter titles, and chapter descriptions if available. If there are many chapters, a user can scroll through them.
You can add new slides or images after a video is already completed. You can add single slides or images or a whole slide deck. The supported file types for full slide decks are PPT, PPTX, and PDF.
For example, if you gave a lecture and the video only captured you speaking, you could upload your lecture slide deck and adjust the slide times to work with your recorded video.
This Kaltura training gives a detailed dive into adding, editing, and deleting chapters and slides.
Editing/Deleting Chapters and Slides – Kaltura training
4. Collaborate, Share, & Manage Videos
Once you’ve added your media, you can edit the video and automatic captions. You must be the video owner or co-editor to make any video edits outlined in this section.
One of the best features with Kaltura is the ability to share video permissions. Share permissions with your team, instructional colleagues, and others.
There are 3 types of collaborator permissions for a video. For these permissions, you can grant all or just what is needed. Once a collaborator is granted permission to a video it will be available in their Kaltura My Media.
Co-editor – can change details and metadata, trim media, replace media, edit captions, edit chapters and edit slides. Does not allow publishing any media unless also granted co-publishing permissions.
Co-publisher – can publish into a Brightspace course or in a playlist and channel on MediaSpace. Does not allow any media editing unless also granted co-editor permissions.
Co-viewer – can view the media in My Media but cannot edit or publish unless also granted co-editor and co-publisher permissions. This is best for when you need to get feedback or preview a video before it is published.
None of these collaborators have permission to delete media. Only owners can delete media.
Click the pencil icon next to the video to get to the edit screen. Below the video are tabs. Click the Collaboration tab.
Click in the search bar to search for the collaborator’s name. You can choose more than 1 at once.
Click the checkboxes next to the permission(s) you want that person to have for the video. Then click Add to apply collaborator permissions.
The Collaboration tab will now show a list of collaborators with permissions. You can always add more collaborators by clicking the Add Collaborator button.
Click the pencil icon next to the collaborator’s name to edit the permissions. Or click the X to delete a collaborator from the video.
You can also add collaborators right from the details screen. Just click the Add Collaborator button.
You also have the option to completely transfer media ownership. If you transfer ownership, you will no longer have any access to this video. It will appear in the new owner’s My Media and disappear from yours.
Click the pencil icon next to the video to get to the edit screen. Below the video are tabs. Click the Collaboration tab.
Click the Change Media Owner button.
Search for the user you want to transfer ownership. Select the new owner and click Save.
Publish setting control the privacy of your videos.
Publish settings can be adjusted from the details page when you add media.
To change these setting later, go to the edit screen for your video. You can get there by clicking the pencil icon next to the video description in Kaltura My Media.
Under the video in the Publish tab, you can choose a different publish options.
Private – media will only be visible by you and anyone you’ve shared collaborator permissions with. It is only accessible from My Media.
Unlisted – page will be visible to anyone who has the share link
Published – pick certain places for the media to be visible. This would be on a Channel or Playlist on MediaSpace or within a Brightspace course.
Change publish settings for multiple videos at a time.
*Note: if you are changing the settings of multiple videos to Published then all the selected videos will be published to the same location.
From My Media, select the checkboxes on the left of the videos.
Then click the Actions menu on the top right and choose Publish from the dropdown menu.
You will now see the usual Publish options. Select the option and it will be applied to all selected videos.
Since you can publish the same content in multiple locations, it can be difficult keeping track of everything.
To easily see where you have published a video, find the video in your My Media.
In the video details is a colored tab that will say Private, Unlisted, or Published. If it says published, click on it to see a list of publish locations.
Click the colored tab again to close the popup box.
The setting that required you to unpublish a video before editing has been turned off.
You may edit or even replace media without unpublishing media.
We highly recommend you use the robust options of Kaltura for storing and sharing. But if you need to download any of your videos, you can do that only from MediaSpace.
This method allows you to download videos from your own My Media library. If you are trying to download a video with multiple screens (picture in picture) please see the next section.
Videos recorded with Kaltura Capture or Zoom will usually come with separate video streams that show up as picture in picture. When you use the download button to download these, it will only download 1 of these video sources.
Please use the method below if you need to download each video source.
From the edit screen of the video, I can see that it is a multi-source video because it has the picture in picture. Clicking the video download button from here, it will only download 1 of these videos. To see all three videos recorded from Zoom (desktop, participants, speaker) copy the Media Entry ID. It is located to the right of the video.
Paste the Media ID into the search bar of My Media and the search will bring up 3 different videos with the same title. These are the 3 separate video streams.
Now use the download button to download them individually. Or set the permissions as unlisted and share a link for others to download.
Allow viewers to download your videos. From the video edit screen, go to the Downloads tab under the video.
Check the box next to source to allow the source video download.
Click save.
A download tab will appear underneath the video and the video viewer will have the option to download the video.
Set up channels in Kaltura to showcase curated playlists and media for audiences inside and outside of Meredith.
Channels can be housed on Gallery pages. These are the pages that you find in the MediaSpace navigation. Gallery pages can only be added by Kaltura administrators so please contact the IDAT team for more information.
In the user dropdown menu on MediaSpace is an option for My Channels. Create channels here.
Create a Channel in MediaSpace – Kaltura
Create playlists especially for the channel. Access this from the Edit menu (hamburger menu icon) on the channel page.
Create a Channel Playlist – Kaltura
After creating a playlist, edit and add more media by going to the Channel menu and choosing Edit.
Then on the channel editing screen, choose the Playlists tab.
From the list of Playlists, Edit, Delete, or Embed each.
Add multiple users with various roles that can help manage and moderate channel content.
Add and edit users and roles by going to the channel and choosing Edit from the dropdown edit menu.
Under the Users tab, manage the channel users.
Go to the link below for a list of user permission options and what they mean.
User Permissions – Kaltura
Create Playlists to easily share or embed.
Create and Add Media to Playlist – Kaltura
Share and Embed Playlists – Kaltura
You can also create a playlist for a MediaSpace channel. Please see the Video Channels section for more details.
5. Quizzes, Comments & Interactive Video
Use your videos to interactive with your viewers! Add quizzes, threaded comments, or interactive video pathways.
Quizzes can be added to any video inside or outside of Brightspace.
The major use of quizzes will be in Brightspace so all the information about using Video Quizzes is found on the Kaltura Brightspace training page.
Information not available yet. Please contact the IDAT team with any questions.
6. Analytics
Dive deep into the effectiveness of your video with detailed analytics.
Although Kaltura analytics are a powerful tool, they do have limitations. You may not get an accurate picture of video and user usage if
- Analytics were blocked by a browser, plugin, or VPN network
- Multiple users watched a video together on the same device
- A user downloaded the video and watched it offline
- and more
By default, comments are allowed on all Kaltura videos.
Some aspects of handling comments for videos in Brightspace Media Galleries work differently. Please see the Media Gallery section of the Kaltura and Brightspace training page for more information on using comments in your courses.
Anyone can add comments to a video and even reference certain video timestamps. Only video owners can reply to or delete video comments.
Media Comments – Kaltura training
Closing a discussion prevents any new comments but displays comments that were previously added.
To close a discussion, go to the Options tab from the video edit screen. Check the box next to Close discussion option.
Disable comments prevents any new comments and also hides comments that were previously added. If you reenable comments, old comments will be shown again.
To disable comments, go to the Options tab from the video edit screen. Check the box next to Disable comments for this media option.