Ultra Mashup Studio Overview

• Completely browser based functionality
• Very user friendly, yet rich in features
• Combine any number of videos, audio, images, captions and “feedback forms” (such as quizzes and surveys)
• Source media from existing file-sharing sites, your own content libraries, or upload new files
• Create new captions with various styles and fonts to embed it in the Mashup
• “Overlay” media on top of each other, resize, place at different positions in the canvas
• Specify transparency attributes, volume level, etc.
• Select a portion (“Slice”) of the actual media file to include in the Mashup
• Select time in Mashup to display and hide each content type
• Custom design question-and-answer forms for multiple-choice quizzes, feedback forms, surveys, opinion polls
• Specify type of form: forward only, time-limited, mandatory/optional
• Obtain viewership tracking data: who played the Mashup, for how long did they play it, did they rewind or forward, did they stop or see the entire video
• Obtain quiz/survey/feedback results, with scored Multiple-Choice answers
• Obtain analytical reports and statistics on viewership data and aggregated information

NOTE: The Mashup creation DOES NOT ALTER any of the original media files. The player delivers the original media files as is, with overlayed Mashup elements as designed in the studio. The media therefore plays from its original location. This itself is a significant feature advantage.

Ultra Mashup Studio Tour

Elements that form the Ultra Mashup Studio:

1. Easy Upload and Import for multiple files of supported content formats
2. Info-Tip: Detailed information on each content item
3. Content-Search within Content Browser window
4. Button to add an item to the timeline and the Active Preview window
5. Item Slider and Slicer
6. Separate Track for Feedback Forms
7. Advanced Toolbar on the Timeline: Advanced Property pop-up button
8. Active Preview panel with multiple, overlapping content windows, with ability to edit on the spot
9. Bring to Front button in the Advanced Toolbar on the Active Preview panel
10. Easy removal of contents from timeline using Delete button in the Advanced Toolbar
11. Easy Preview Button
12. Easy Publishing Button

Other features (not labeled):

• Buttons to preview, save mashup as draft and publish mashup
• Thumbnail-List of Videos, Audios and Images uploaded by user, referenced from external sites, or shared by other users
• Thumbnail-List of Captions and Feedback Forms designed by user or shared by other users
• Content Item Preview
• Mashup Timeline
• Time-scale
• Content-Tracks for each content type
• Property Forms
• Bring-to-Front Button
• Resize Item Window

Content Types and Formats

Ultra Mashup Studio allows users to Mash-up (mix, overlay, overlap, use multiple) content items of many types and formats:

• Video: VC-1 and WMV supported at this time. Support for other formats will be added soon.
• Audio: MP3 and WMA supported at this time. Support for other formats will be added soon.
• Images: JPG, PNG,
• Captions: Designed using Ultra Mashup Studio
• Feedback Forms: Designed using Ultra Mashup Studio

Content Library Integration: Content Browser

Ultra Mashup Studio is integrated with the Content Library. A Content Browser panel displays the various videos, audios, images, captions and forms that are in the library.

The Content Browser displays media contents uploaded by the user, as well as those referenced by the users from external content sources such as media sharing sites, the likes of YouTube, Flickr, GoogleVideo, etc.

The public selector allows users to browse and use contents made available by other users of the studio within a single deployment environment.

The Content Browser can alternatively be linked to any existing content repository currently in use at an Enterprise.

Users can view details of each content item in the content browser by simply hovering the mouse over the item. Users can add a content item from the library to a mashup time line, by simply clicking an add button next to the item.

The Content Browser panel also boasts an on-the-fly content-item-preview feature. Users can simply click on a video in the browser to view its contents. Similary, users can hear an audio file and look at an image in larger dimensions, all with a single click!

Screenshots
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Upload Contents

Ultra Mashup Studio makes it very easy to Upload videos, audios and image files using a simple, single interface.

The Upload component supports uploads of very large files... even in Gigabytes! This is useful given the size of high quality videos that users may wish to use.

The Upload component allows up to 5 uploads at a time. The component intelligently detects the content type and places them in the right receptacle for that content type.

Screenshots
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Media from External Sources

The Internet is a giant repository of content, especially media content. Ultra Mashup Studio provides the powerful capability to include and embed media elements from anywhere on the internet, as long as the format is supported.

Users have to simply specify a URL for the desired media, that is video, audio or image files. Ultra Mashup Studio does the rest. The Content Browser enables users to play the content file they have referenced before deciding to include or not include it in their mashup.

Even after the mashup is published, the individual contents included in that mashup will continue to source from their original locations. This provides huge cost savings in terms of not requiring redundant infrastructure to house these videos.

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Live Streams

Ultra Mashup Studio provides users with a very powerful and unique ability to create mashups on live streams! More on this coming soon.

Caption Designer

Inserting text captions in mashups to enrich its contents, explain something more clearly, translate a foreign language or to draw viewer attention to something in a scene, is easily possible with Ultra Mashup Studio Caption Designer.

The Caption Designer allows users to easily design text captions by providing a Title and Contents for the Caption. Captions can also be Tagged by keywords so they can later appear in search results.

Captions designed in the Caption Designer are Rich Text. That is, users can specify the weight (bold or plain), italicize and underline the text. Users can also specify the font style, size and color for the text to appear in. The Color Palette allows users to select from a wide range of colors, hues and saturations.

Screenshots
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Feedback Form Designer

Feedback Forms provide a unique way to embed quizzes, survyes and polls within a Mashup. People viewing a Mashup get prompted to respond to the designed questions, at specified intervals on the Mashup timeline.

The Feedback Form Designer enables users to create different types of such forms. To create a form, Authors specify Form title, Keyword Tags to help search for this form, type (whether the Form is a quiz-type or a survey-type Form), whether the form is available to the Author only (private) or is available to other Authors within the deployment context (public). Form-Authors can specify detailed description for the Form.

The basic distinction between Quiz type forms and Survey type forms is Scoring. It is customary in quiz/test/evaluation scenarios to assign a score for correct response.

Once the Author provides the basic information above, they proceed to add questions and possible responses in the Form. Adding questions is easily achieved by entering the question text and clicking the "Add Question" button. User can add as many questions as he desires.

Clicking on a question reveals the form to enter and manage possible responses for the question. Users can specify the type of question from Descriptive (text), Single choice and Multiple choice. Form Authors can also specify a Hint for the question. They can also specify if the question is to be scored and the score for the correct response.

After a user identifies the response type for a question, they can begin to add possible responses to it, if non-descriptive. They must specify the correct response in each case.

Screenshots
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Info Tip

Info Tip is an information balloon or tooltip that is diplayed when a user hovers their mouse over a content item or a mashup.

The information displayed in case of a content item (in the Content Browser panel in Ultra Mashup Studio) contains:

• Instruction: click to preview (for applicable items)
• Title for the item as specified during upload or designing
• Tags: Keywords as specified during upload or designing
• Source: If an item is referred from an external source, the source location is displayed. If a user has uploaded the item, the user's name is displayed.
• Uploaded on: date of upload
• Duration: length of the item (for applicable items)

Info Tip for Mashups reveals the details as entered by the Mashup author. The Info-Tip changes based on the page it is being viewed in.

IItem Preview

Clicking an item in the Content Browser panel plays the content item (if video or audio) or displays a larger image for image content types. This gives authors a powerful ability to preview their uploaded or referred content from external source before including it in the Mashup.

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Timeline

• Access 'Basic Controls' over timeline by Simple Drag and Drop
  • Set Display Time
  • Set Display Duration
  • Set Display Sequence
• Access 'Advanced Controls' from Timeline
  • Remove Content from Mashup
  • Adjust Advanced Content Properties
• Set timeline views
  • Set Automatic Re-adjustment of Timeline (to fit it in one page)
  • View timeline in 'Seconds'
  • View timeline in 'Minutes'
• Apply sorts on timeline
  • Sort Content from Appearance time
  • Sort Content from Content Type

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Advanced Mashup Creation

Each content type used in MashupStudio allows users a great deal of flexibility in displaying, positioning, resizing, etc. Certain types expose other advanced attributes to be tweaked for creating a perfect mashup. The capabilities can be generally summarized as follows:

• Set Precise Display Timings for Content like Videos, Sounds, Images, Captions, Quizzes, Surveys.
• Set Precise Display Duration for content like Images and Captions.
• Select Specific Part to Play from a Content File like Videos and Sounds.
• Set Precise Display Sizes of Content like Video and Image
  • Select from Pre-defined Sizes
  • Define Customized Display Sizes i.e. height and width in 'pixels'
• Set Precise Display Positions of Content like Video, Image and Captions
  • Select from Pre-defined Positions
  • Define Customized Display Position i.e. X and Y coordinates in 'pixels'
• Set Optional Behaviors for 'Overlapping Contents' like Video, Sounds, Image
  • Make a content Exclusively playable up on all other overlapping content, when played.
  • Choose the other content's resume behavior when Exclusive content ends.
    • Resume from the Mashup time from where Exclusive content Started
    • Resume from the Current Mashup time
  • Make a content Exclusively Audible (only) of all other overlapping content, when played.
  • Mix Playing Volumes for the Overlapped Contents
  • Mix Display Opacities for the Overlapped Contents
• Set Optional Behaviors of Content like Quizzes and Surveys
  • Set a Timer to Enable Automatic Submission of Quiz and Survey after defined Time
  • Disallow the Viewer to Move to the last Page while turned over to a new page
  • Allow the Viewer to Skip the Form
  • Make it mandatory for the user to Review all pages of the Quiz or Survey before its Submission.

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Overlapping Multiple Media Items

The Ultra Mashup Studio Timeline is a very flexible technology that allows users to author rich Mashups from a variety of contents. One of its key abilities is to allow overlapping of multiple media items.

When items are overlapped, they show simultaneously on the preview screen. Users can re-arrange and re-size each item's window to ensure that the final appearance of the multiple items is as they had wanted. The preview screen reveals controls to bring overlapped content to front. The preview screen also allows users to drag to resize each window.

Another great feature of the timeline is to "slice" videos and audio tracks to include only the selected parts of the entire playstream. Multiple slices can be overlapped to the author's satisfaction.

Users can use the mouse to drag any media item over another to create an overlap. Images can also be overlapped by extending their duration on screen.

Screenshots
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On Screen Editing via Active Preview

Ultra Mashup Studio includes an Active Preview panel that not only plays a Mashup in preview mode but also allows editing a Mashup in a user friendly manner. Authors who wish to further fine tune their Mashups can use the Advanced Control screens. Some features of the Active Preview screens follow:

• Use 'Basic Controls' over Play Area by Simple Drag and Drop for Content like Videos and Images
  • Set Display Position
  • Set Display Size
• Use ' Advanced Controls' displayed in the Advanced Tool Bar on the Active Preview pannel
  • Bring a Content to be displayed in front of all contents 'explicitly'
  • Remove a Content from the Mashup
  • Tweak Captions and Forms imported from Content Library as per requirement
• Preview Mashup during Editing
  • Move Slider
  • Pause / Play
  • Change Volume
  • View Full Screen Preview

Screenshots
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Preview, Save as Draft, Publish

• Save Mashup as Draft / Update Draft when required
• Manage Drafted Mashup Separately from Published Mashup
• Save and Publish Mashup for general viewers
• Define Mashup Meta Information while saving Mashups
  • Define Mashup Title
  • Define Mashup Description
  • Associate Mashup to Mashup Categories
  • Define Tags against Mashup to help the Viewers search this Mashup
• Choose Created Content (Captions/Forms) to be saved in Content Library among the ones just created during Mashup Editing