Classroom Support Services Brings the Classroom to the Web Using VGA2USB Frame Grabber
Posted on 24/10/07 20:43
Category: General
Ephiphan System's writes about CSSITG's Automated Screencasting System and the VGA2USB Frame Grabber:
University instructional support services are often understaffed, operating with limited budgets and automated digital content work flow processes. At the University of Washington, these constraints were evidenced by a lack of in-class digital recording technologies. To support its online learning initiatives, the school relied on staff or student operators to record classroom content with digital video cameras and manually upload that content to the web.
Searching for an efficient screen capture solution the university’s Classroom Support Services Information Technology Group (CSSITG) knew that, with the ever-increasing demand for web-based digital media content, it would need to either develop or purchase a software solution to automate its e-learning recording and uploading procedures.
“We needed an automatic, centrally managed solution that could capture multiple content sources, perform the encoding process and deliver rich digital video lecture content to the web,” explains David Aldrich, CSSITG Manager at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.
But, capturing high-resolution presentation material from multiple input sources was a challenge that various expensive scan converters proved unable to handle.
“After experimenting with scan converters, we realized that we needed a compact, reasonably-priced external VGA signal grabber capable of capturing output from a variety of VGA sources,” recalls Aldrich.
The university found a solution in Epiphan’s VGA2USB frame grabber solution.
“Today, the most important component of our video capture system is VGA2USB,” says Aldrich. “We now capture the VGA signal sent from the presenter’s computer to the classroom data projector using Epiphan’s VGA2USB. Epiphan’s VGA2USB solution gives us the high-resolution JPEG images our automated screencasting system needs to meet the expectations of our audience.”
University instructional support services are often understaffed, operating with limited budgets and automated digital content work flow processes. At the University of Washington, these constraints were evidenced by a lack of in-class digital recording technologies. To support its online learning initiatives, the school relied on staff or student operators to record classroom content with digital video cameras and manually upload that content to the web.
Searching for an efficient screen capture solution the university’s Classroom Support Services Information Technology Group (CSSITG) knew that, with the ever-increasing demand for web-based digital media content, it would need to either develop or purchase a software solution to automate its e-learning recording and uploading procedures.
“We needed an automatic, centrally managed solution that could capture multiple content sources, perform the encoding process and deliver rich digital video lecture content to the web,” explains David Aldrich, CSSITG Manager at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.
But, capturing high-resolution presentation material from multiple input sources was a challenge that various expensive scan converters proved unable to handle.
“After experimenting with scan converters, we realized that we needed a compact, reasonably-priced external VGA signal grabber capable of capturing output from a variety of VGA sources,” recalls Aldrich.
The university found a solution in Epiphan’s VGA2USB frame grabber solution.
“Today, the most important component of our video capture system is VGA2USB,” says Aldrich. “We now capture the VGA signal sent from the presenter’s computer to the classroom data projector using Epiphan’s VGA2USB. Epiphan’s VGA2USB solution gives us the high-resolution JPEG images our automated screencasting system needs to meet the expectations of our audience.”
