Planet eStream

The Secure Video Platform for Education

A powerfully simple and secure platform that makes media content more accessible and engaging for students and educators across secondary, further and higher education.

TickVideo on Demand

TickLive Streaming

TickDigital Signage

TickInteractive Learning

TickObservation

TickTV & Radio Recording

TickLecture Capture

What does Planet eStream Offer

Video On Demand

Create your own ‘YouTube’ style web based platform to provide simple around the clock access to your media library for both educators and students. Make your media library more than just a video repository. The flexible format support enables users to upload a whole range of digital assets including videos, photos, audio and documents. Built in learning tools, designed specifically for education, dramatically increases student engagement and flips the traditional passive video viewing model into an interactive and active learning experience.

Why do you need a Secure Video Platform?

See why an SVP is a priority as part of any core digital strategy

"We also use video to promote some of the exciting work students do on wellbeing days in the school and make this available to all in the community."

Cramlington Learning Village

 

"Planet eStream is being widely used by the 40 lecturers involved in the flipped classroom programme. They are all regularly preparing lectures using eStream to embed video clips into our Moodle VLE as well as into Office 365 applications."

University of Eastern Finland

 

"The creation of screencasts to demonstrate theory, principles and methods as well as concise and tailored didactic content. Not lecture capture as such, but video as an alternative to information delivery."

College of West Anglia

 

"I get my A Level computer science students to watch videos about topics so that we don't waste valuable class time. They watch and then we discuss their understanding of the videos. This has allowed me to go into more depth within the time constraints of the new style A Level courses."

King James School

 

"We also use the video on demand functionality to upload specific elements of a programme that are relevant to course subject matter for students to view as part of their homework so they come to lessons well prepared and ready to hit the ground running."

Loughborough Endowed Schools

Features:

Video On Demand

Create your own ‘YouTube’ style web based platform to provide simple around the clock access to your media library for both educators and students. Make your media library more than just a video repository. The flexible format support enables users to upload a whole range of digital assets including videos, photos, audio and documents. Built in learning tools, designed specifically for education dramatically increases student engagement and flips the traditional passive video viewing model into an interactive and active learning experience.

Create your own ‘YouTube’ Style Media Library

Planet eStream’s flexibility to upload practically any digital media asset is unrivalled. This ease of upload, coupled with an intuitive, customisable and responsive HTML5 interface delivers a truly user friendly experience. Staff and students can easily upload their own content and browse and view available content seamlessly.

"The absolute beauty of Planet eStream is that it is an incredibly sophisticated product, which is also very easy to use. At its simplest level, it makes media storage and sharing easy, but you can also dive deeper and use more complex tools to create and share content and bespoke learning resources."

Cat Scutt, Head of Learning Technology and Innovation, Girls’ Day School Trust

 

"With Planet eStream, we now have one central database where all student presentation videos can be found, instead of on VHS and DVDs scattered around teaching staff and departments. This increased flexibility and accessibility in using recordings has encouraged and enabled more curriculum areas to make better use of ILT, enhancing the learning experience for all learners"

Naomi Elliott, Head of Library and Learning Resources, Bath College

Populating your Planet eStream Media Library

Planet eStream offers the most comprehensive set of tools available for uploading content. Here are some of the methods available for adding content to Planet eStream…

Digitise existing physical media libraries e.g. DVD, Blu-Ray etc.

Upload video files from desktops, tablets or smartphones

Add still images and photos to create Photosets

Record directly from your Webcam or built-in camera

Stream live and upload an on demand version simultaneously

Browse and add Freeview television and radio recordings  

Discover and add content from the Planet eStream community and the BBC Digital and Shakespeare archives

Upload your PDFs, Microsoft Office and other digital document types

Create and upload screen captures from your own computer

Add PowerPoint presentations

Batch upload content

Embed and organise content from external platforms such as YouTube as part of your media library, this content can be tagged, searched and categorised like any other library item

360 Degree video support

Content Management Tools…

Planet eStream offers a wide selection of intuitive tools to assist educators in streamlining the delivery and integration of their video content in teaching and learning resources to facilitate student engagement. All content management tools are available via Planet eStream’s HTML5 web interface, making them easily accessible from any location and any device.

Create Chapters

Most video content recorded from TV or digitised from existing media is in long form and to maximise teaching impact, it is necessary for educators to have the tools available to create clips or short snippets that drill down to the learning objective that they need to highlight. Chapter creation is one of the features used most widely by the Planet eStream community. Users can simply select where they want their chapter to start and finish, give it a name and even a description. Once created this chapter is permanently associated with this recording and can be shared, embedded and incorporated into playlists, just like any other item in your library. Chapters are a great way of directing viewer focus to the areas of importance and are commonly used when delivering video as part of flipped learning.

Edit Video

Create a specific version of one of your video resources for use within a particular class activity or event, remove adverts or unwanted sections on TV recordings or, simply neaten up videos with the built in online editor. This simple editing tool enables users to cut the video into just the sections they want to keep. Users can then choose to create a new version of the recording in addition to the original or overwrite the original dependant on their permission level. The tool is incredibly simple to use so your users do not require prior video editing knowledge to take advantage of it.

Create Photosets

Photosets are a great way to showcase still images and photos. Users can upload individual pictures or batch upload a series of images to create a photoset. They can then be tagged with relevant metadata to make them searchable and sharable like any other digital asset within the Planet eStream media library. Viewers can choose to view images individually or as a slide show, there is also the option to allow users to download individual images from photosets.

Add Slide Shows

Accompany any video with a slide show. Simply upload images or a PowerPoint file and set the timing of the slides alongside the video using the online slide show editor.

Add Commentary and Notes

Users can choose to add personal notes or public comments to media assets. Comments are a great way for users to interact, generate discussion and for educators to highlight areas of interest. All comments and notes are locked to the specific time they were made allowing your users to jump straight to their corresponding location in the video.

Create Playlists

Educators can now easily aggregate assets into their own playlists to either send to students in advance of lessons to support flipped learning or for use within face to face teaching scenarios.

Add Questions

Educators can further engage with students by adding interactive elements to their video content, this can be in the form of questions, annotations, drawings and links.

Associate Other Media

As well as uploading documents, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations in their own right as individual assets, educators can also add any type of supporting material by uploading digital assets as ‘related media’ to accompany video items. This is a great way to distribute lecture notes and example test questions.

Share and Embed your Media

All content on Planet eStream can be shared, either by web links or embed codes. Web links allow simple distribution of content, embed codes offer your users the ability to take their selected content and directly embed this into other platforms such as VLEs/LMSs and websites. Both methods have the ability to remove permission based restrictions or bypass any authentication to make sure the content is viewable by the chosen audience.

Planet eStream also enables your users to create ‘widgets’ and embed these into other platforms. Widgets can take the form of a carousel, slider or grid and contain thumbnail links to specific content that is user defined and completely customisable. A common example of how Planet eStream users make use of this feature is the creation of a widget for a specific subject category or course category within Planet eStream with the instruction to populate it with recently added content. The widget would then be embedded into a course page within their chosen platform i.e. a VLE and dynamically updates as new media is added to that specific subject category. This is a great way of syndicating fresh curriculum relevant media content via your VLE course or subject pages without ongoing administration or time overhead by your staff.

Embed your media into any VLE or Learning Platform.

We have specific plugins with enhanced functionality available for the following VLEs.

Control your Media

Any media library will grow exponentially over time, it is therefore imperative that content is indexed and stored in a structure that suits your organisation from the outset. As an ‘out of the box’ solution you can opt to implement the built in settings as a default or have complete control over the libraries look, feel and structure. This includes the tools to create an organised category tree with infinite sub categories and custom metadata fields for tagging content. These custom metadata fields can take the form of check boxes, radio buttons, drop down lists, and free text, as well as the ability to make certain fields mandatory. These custom fields also make it easy for end users to mark content as private or for staff use only and to rate content as suitable for different age ranges of students.

By combining integration of AD/LDAP and the flexible permissions structure that Planet eStream offers, administrators can easily control what content users can access. This allows access to certain media to be restricted, for example staff only or age related policies.

Subtitles

Recording from either Freeview television or from the BBC Digital Archive will automatically attach subtitles where they are available. There are also advanced options in Planet eStream for users to upload their own subtitles in the form of SRT files. When subtitles are available viewers can the toggle them on and off easily.