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Various vendors provide lecture capture, enterprise webcasting or video content management capabilities, but few offer an end-to-end solution that addresses all phases of the video content lifecycle (capture, delivery, transformation and management) in a single platform like Mediasite.

Lecture capture solutions designed specifically for higher education differ in their technology approach.

Appliance- or room-based lecture capture provides a fully integrated system with complete recording automation for live or on-demand content. The automated, pre-scheduled workflow results in the greatest faculty and staff adoption and largest volumes of recorded content in the shortest amount of time.

Software-based lecture capture that resides on a podium or computer in the classroom also captures and publishes rich media content, but relies on campus- or user-supplied hardware.

Desktop capture tools reside on individual users’ laptops or computers allowing them to record user-generated content.

Few lecture capture vendors offer a mix of all lecture capture approaches to best suit customers’ needs. Most vendors, including Crestron, Panopto and Tegrity, support only one approach to lecture capture. Likewise, a very small number of vendors provide an integrated platform like Mediasite to archive and manage video and rich media recorded with their solution. Most rely on a third-party platform, typically the institution’s learning or course management system, to publish, search and secure content.

Enterprise video management solutions serve as centralized media repositories that facilitate the delivery, publishing and management of on-demand video. Unlike Mediasite, most platforms do not include a video capture, webcasting or live streaming component, but instead ingest or import video-based content captured by other third-party devices or solutions. Also, most other platforms focus on ingesting video-only content rather than rich video which combines multiple synchronous video and/or slide streams into an interactive media experience.

Some current and potential customers develop their own home-grown lecture capture, webcasting or video content solutions which may also compete with Mediasite. However, we often find many of these organizations are now looking for a commercial solution that offers comprehensive management capabilities, requires fewer resources and internal maintenance and delivers a less cumbersome workflow.