From the videos tab/page the user can browse videos by the most recent (default), most liked, most viewed and by keyword.

Click on the By Keyword filter to show all videos and a list of the 50 most popular tags.

By Keyword filter applied

Click on a specific tag to refine the list to videos with that tag. It also displays the tag breakdown of the refined list.

Clicking on a yet another tag refines the list further (with a subsequent option to deselect by clicking on ).

Clicking on a video thumbnail or video title takes the user to the individual video page where it can be viewed inline.

The video page has a number of key components including the video player, timeline comment viewer and commenting area. The image below shows the SilverLight video player with a standard feature set.

To the right of the video player, is the timeline comment viewer. If a comment is added from comment box below the video player and the Add to timeline box is selected, the comment shows up in the timeline viewer.

Comments in the timeline viewer are shaded proportionally to their proximity to the current time position in the video. There are triangular markers on the scrubber to indicate where the timeline comments are.

Any comments users make also appear in a stream-like view below the comment entry box. These comments will also appear in the activity stream with the corresponding video.

Videos with their likes and comments will appear in the stream of anyone who is following a Video Stream site or a community that has the Video Stream activated.

Videos will also appear in the community activity stream of the community the video was created in. Videos in the stream can be viewed inline by clicking on the thumbnail.

Any likes or comments on a video created from the activity stream will appear on the corresponding individual video page (and vice-versa)

Users can upload videos by clicking on the Upload Video button on the videos tab/page. Users are prompted for a title, description, the video file itself and tags.

We recommend that users select the Optimize for text option for text-intensive demos.

The system will notify the end-user via their activity stream once the file has been encoded (or will report an error in the stream if it the encoding was unsuccessful). As well, the Videos tab will indicate the video is being processed:

Once the video has been encoded, it will appear in the Videos tab and in the stream as seen below.

Videos can also be uploaded by adding them to the Newsgator Video Library directly. This will use the document loading process that comes with SharePoint.

The uploading mechanism that comes with the Video Stream module (i.e. Upload Video on the videos tab/page) has a number of additional features including an upload progress bar, more robust support for uploading very large files and verification of file properties before attempting to upload.

Uploading to the list directly follows a similar process i.e. the original video is added to the Newsgator Video Library and the user is notified via the activity stream once the encoding is complete.

The advantage of using the default SharePoint up-loader is that it allows you to up-load multiple video files in one upload operation.

To edit the properties of a video including replacing the video or thumbnail, go to the individual video page and click on Edit Video.

The workflow that follows is very similar to adding a video. If the edit includes changing the video itself, the video on the videos tab/page shows the previous version until the re-encoding has completed.

The user that submitted the video will be notified via the activity stream once it has been re-encoded.

Videos can also be edited from the Newsgator Video Library. This will use the document editing process that comes with SharePoint (following a similar process as described in the upload process above).

If the edit includes changing the video itself, the video on the videos tab/page will show the previous version until the re- encoding has completed. The user that submitted the video will be notified via the activity stream once it has been re-encoded.

To delete a video, go to the Newsgator Video Library and follow the typical SharePoint process for deleting library items.

Video Stream supports the creation of a screen session or “screencast” by the end user. The screencast feature is an application that is installed on the user’s computer.

To enable this feature activate the NewsGator ScreenCast feature in Site Settings: Site Features.

Once the feature is activated the Download Newsgator Screencast App appears above the Upload Video link. Clicking on it prompts the user to install the application.

After installation the Screencast main screen pops up. The Screencast feature has many options including aspect ratio, recording options (screen, webcam, screen + webcam), microphone used (or mute), video and audio codec.

The user has the option to drag the Screencast window over the desired recording area or to use full screen mode (see icon in upper left-hand corner). Both examples are seen below.

To start a recording, click on Start Recording which shows a countdown before the recording actually starts.

Recording can be stopped by using the Pause|Break key or the Stop Recording button in non full-screen mode(See Screencast Hot Key Support for the complete range of hot keys).

When the recording stops, the Screencast viewer appears and plays back the video. The yellow-filled circle indicates the cursor action.

If the user is happy with the recording, she can upload it by specifying the name of the site to upload to (will store initial entry as default), the title, the description and click on Upload.

Screencast will then prompt the user for the community which will list all communities that have Video Stream installed that the user is following. The system confirms that the upload is successful. The video will then appear with all of the other videos in Video Stream.

Often communities want to share a video that is stored in another system and have a conversation it. To support this, Video Stream supports the embedding of certain third-party videos in the stream.

These embedded videos can be viewed inline, commented-on and liked. Video Stream supports the embedding of YouTube ©, Qumu ©, SlideShare ©, Video Stream and Kaltura © videos in the stream.

In most cases, embedding the video (or slide deck) is a simple as copying the URL of the individual video page into a micro-blog post.

Kaltura videos require an extra couple of steps and are described in Embedding a Kaltura Video in the Stream. Video Stream also supports videos streamed via MMS (Microsoft Multimedia Service). In this case, Video Stream will play the video with the Windows Media Player.

For example, see Embedding an MMS video in the stream.

To embed a YouTube©, Vimeo©, SlideShare©, Qumu, Kaltura or Video Stream video (from another community, for example), copy the URL into a micro-blog post.

Notice that the thumbnail appears in the stream with the title and a description of the video.

Click on the thumbnail to view the video. All of the standard micro-blog functions are supported (e.g. commenting and liking.)

Embed code support

The video player has two kinds of embed code available. Clicking on the Embed button below the player displays both a URL to an embeddable player and a player wrapped in an iFrame.

Here is an example:

The latter works well with the Content Editor web part when pasted into the HTML source.

See here for details: Add video or audio to a page.

Since videos are stored in a list, SharePoint can be configured to require approval of video content before it is encoded and posted to the site.

For details on how to configure a library (in this case, the NewsGator Video Library) to support content approval, see Require approval of items in a list or library.

Once content approval has been enabled, only those with appropriate permissions are allowed to approve content. If a user submits a video and this feature has been enabled, they are notified in their activity feed that the video is pending approval.

For details on how to approve or reject content in SharePoint, see Approve or reject items or files in a site list or library.