Recommended Procedures for Videos

The Knowledge Bank staff is working on providing policies and procedures for both access quality and preservation quality videos. The recommended procedure for access quality videos is below. Preservation quality video procedures are more complex and are not complete at this time. They will be posted here as soon as they are available.

The Knowledge Bank can store most types of digital files. The Ohio State University Libraries is committed to supporting (i.e. making viewable) some of these types of files into the future. See Supported File Types for a list of those files. We cannot guarantee that we can support the access quality videos that we recommend below into the future. However, one of the goals of creating procedures for preservation quality videos is to pick a format that we will be able to support. The Libraries is also working closely with OhioLINK's effort to develop a statewide institutional repository program called the Digital Resource Commons (DRC), which is currently under development. When that program is in production, the Libraries would consider migrating files from the Knowledge Bank to the DRC.

Access quality videos

In order to create a user-friendly access to your videos from within the Knowledge Bank, we recommend that you do the following:

Step 1- Convert your video file to Real SureStream format (file will have a .rm extension).

If your unit does not have the facilities to do this, you may email the Classroom Digital Media Distribution (CDMD) at the Office of Information Technology at streaming@osu.edu and ask them to convert your video file to a Real SureStream file. More information is available at their web site: http://streaming.osu.edu/. Be sure to inquire about cost.

(Note: If you are having a program taped, be sure to discuss this format with them before the program is taped)

Step 2 - Ask CDMD to store the video file on their streaming server at OIT in the Knowledge Bank folder and get the web address (URL) for it from them.

Contact CDMD as noted above for this step as well and tell them that this file is for the Knowlege Bank. They will store the file on their server in a specific directory for the Knowledge Bank. They should let you know the web address. Be sure to inquire about cost.

Step 3 - Create an HTML redirect file to the URL that CDMD provided for you

A web master could help you with this or you could do this yourself by following these simple steps:

  • Open a text editing application. Contact your computer support staff if you do not know whether you have a text editing program on your computer.
  • Open a new document in the text editing application and copy the following into the document:
<html>
<head>
  <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://the URL that CDMD provided">
  <title>Streaming video redirect</title>
  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body>
  <p>If this does not automatically take you to the video within a few seconds
  please click here: <a href="http://the URL that CDMD provided you">
  http://the URL that CDMD provided you</a></p>
</body>
</html>
  • Replace the 3 instances of "http://the URL that CDMD provided you" with the URL provided to you by CDMD.
  • Save the file to a place where you can easily retrieve it and give it the following file name: kbdirect.html
  • Test the file to make sure it works properly by opening it. It should launch a web browser and automatically begin to play provided you have the appropriate software (e.g. RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc.) installed on your computer to play videos.

You have now successfully created your HTML redirect file.

Step 4 - Submit the kbdirect.html file to your collection in the Knowledge Bank

You will describe the video (e.g. title, author, etc) during the submit process and then upload the "kbdirect.html" that you created. When someone finds the item in the Knowledge Bank and clicks the View/Open link, the video should automatically begin to play provided they have the appropriate software (e.g. RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc.) on their computer to play videos.

The Knowledge Bank provides training on how to submit. Contact us (libkbhelp@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu.) if you need training. For online documentation go to kb.osu.edu and click on the Help link in the left-hand column.